“Because I was hoping you would be here and I could not stay away, wondering if you were.” The confession was all but ripped from him. He did not want to reveal the depth of emotion he felt for her, but it was impossible to deny her when she was in his arms.
He would do anything—anything—to keep her there.
The realization sobered him. Terrified him.
“I am glad you could not,” she whispered. “I know our fathers have a bitter old grudge, but their enmity does not concern me. Will you come to Kingswood Hall and court me?”
Her question robbed him of the ability to speak for a moment. How could she possibly imagine her father would allow the bastard son of the Duke of Carlisle—a man he loathed—to court his youngest daughter? She was either incredibly bold or incredibly naïve.
With another kiss upon her crown because he could not help himself, he at last set her at arm’s length from him, gazing down into her upturned face. “Ara, I am a bastard. Your father would never permit me to call upon you, never mind court you. No father worth his salt would countenance such a match. It would be an insult to both him and you.”
He begged her to understand with his gaze. To make this easier for them rather than more difficult and painful. If their last goodbye had not stuck, then this one would have to. For both their sakes.
“My father is in London,” she said. “Mama said he had some important matters to attend to, but my lady’s maid told me he is seeing his kept woman in St. John’s Wood and that is why he has gone. A very lovely French actress, I am told, not much older than I am.”
He stared down at her, shocked by her words and her knowledge both. She spoke so calmly of her father’s infidelity, as if she spoke of the weather. An innocent girl should never know such ugly underbellies of life.
Of course, it was the natural order of things, and he knew it. His own mother was one such kept lady. But she loved his father with all her heart, and he returned that love. It was why Clay had been raised alongside his half brother Leo in a rather uncommon fashion. But neither that love nor the advantages his father had provided him could expunge the taint of his birth.
“You ought not to know of such things,” he said at last. “Your woman never should have gossiped to you in such malicious fashion.”
Ara shook her head, the stubborn expression he had come to know all too well in their fortnight of secret meetings coming over her face. “I am glad she did. I do not want to be kept ignorant of the truth. I wish to know all there is to know. About everything.”
She took a step toward him, her countenance changing once more. Her eyes darkened to unadulterated violet, and there was something glittering within their gorgeous depths, though he could not be sure precisely what. Unlike his brother the heir apparent, he did not have a great deal of experience with the opposite sex. Under his brother Leo’s tutelage, he had visited brothels in town. He had bedded women. But that had been simple, each party understanding what was expected.
He had never courted. Had neverloved.
Good God.
He loved her.
It hit him, like a clap of thunder overhead—unexpected, a shock to his senses. Loud and angry and threatening and promising change. He loved Lady Araminta Winters.
Her hand was upon his chest now, splayed and open, directly above his hammering heart. “Everything, Clay. Will you teach me?”
Bloody fucking hell.
He swallowed, took her wrist in a gentle grip, but could not seem to make himself pry that hand away. For he liked her touch upon him far too much. “Ara, my love, I cannot teach you anything.”
“Please, Clay?” She looked up at him shyly, her pale face trusting and so damn lovely. “My heart belongs to you.” With her other hand, she caught his and guided it to her own breast.
He absorbed the steady, rapid thumps. So visceral. So powerful. Here was their common bond, and he had never felt closer to another person in his life than he did then, standing with his hand pressed over Ara’s heart and hers to his. How had he ever lived before her, this fierce little woman with the flaming hair and the freckle-dotted nose and the lush mouth that begged for his kiss? This woman who wanted him in spite of who and what he was?
“I cannot do what you ask,” he growled anyway, because he may be a bastard, but he was a gentleman. He had scruples,damn it, even if it was getting increasingly difficult to recall them. “I cannot court you, and I certainly cannot…teach you anything. You are an innocent, Ara, and that is precisely as it should be. One day, you shall go to your husband with your heart unburdened and your head held high, and you will be glad I did not take what you offered.”
Her stare did not waver from his. She inhaled deeply, and he felt the rise and fall as though it were a part of him. “The only husband I want to go to one day is you, Clay. I am in love with you.”
He forgot to breathe.
Her words were so beautiful, so glorious, so frightening, so wrong…and yet so very right. It was everything he wanted to hear. Everything he was afraid of. Just as she was everything he could not have.
He should tell her to go. Should tear away from her and flee, never turning back, never returning. He should leave her to the life she deserved, to the loveless match her father would arrange for her with some pale, pampered lord with soft hands and a born-in-the-purple lifestyle.
Instead, he kissed her. He did not mean to. No, his conscience insisted he leave her here, her innocence intact. But his body had decided on mutiny. Or perhaps it was his heart. Either way, he was not leaving her. Hecould notleave her.
The hand over her heart slid to cup her nape. The fingers gripping her wrist released her and found the sweet curve of her cheek instead. There was nothing gentle about his kiss, though he had intended it to be a slow and steady wooing. But the trouble with Lady Araminta Winters was she was like fire, and whenever he was in proximity to her, he too caught flame.
Her mouth opened beneath his, and when his tongue met hers, she moaned. A rush of desire surged to his cock. With one tiny sound and the beginning of a kiss, his ballocks were drawn tight and he was sporting an erection to rival any of the trees in the forest. When her tongue rubbed tentatively against his, slipping into his mouth, he almost lost control.
