She shook her head, frowning at him now. “No, you most assuredly did not.”
“I did and was denied.”
The insistence in his tone. The starkness of his expression. The firmness of his words. It all added up to one conclusion: he was telling the truth. But how could that possibly be? She had never received word of his visit. She had spent many an hour gazing out various windows, hoping she might catch sight of him, his horse, his carriage. Anything to do with him.
No indeed, he had not come. She would have known.
Wouldn’t she?
“Three days in a row, Lady Araminta,” he confirmed coolly. “I may be a bastard, but even I know when I have been made a fool. I chose not to return on the fourth day, on account of my pride.”
Three days? Her heart thumped and fluttered with a wild, silly hope. He had come calling upon her three days in a row?
And then, just as abruptly, her hope died, for she realized if he had been turned away day after day, it could only mean one thing.
Her mother had acted in her father’s stead and refused to grant him entrance to Kingswood Hall, keeping it from her. Had it been the grudge he had with the Duke of Carlisle or the fact that Clay was not the duke’s rightful heir? She did not know. Indeed, it rather startled her to imagine her mother had even engaged in this level of interference, and without uttering a word to her…
Unless Clay was prevaricating.
Yes. That had to be it.She seized upon the explanation. “I had no word of a visitor, and believe me, I asked. I asked, and I watched, and I waited. Still, you did not come for me as you swore you would.”
A strange expression transformed his features. He closed the distance between them, grabbing one of her hands in his. His hands, unlike hers, were ungloved, and the heat of his touch upon her absorbed into her skin, settling with the delicious ferocity of a brand. Their fingers tangled. Intertwined. Just like that, she was where she longed to be. With him again, beneath his spell, following him to wherever he would take her.
“Come,” was all he said.
And she followed, allowing him to tug her from the entry hall. Allowing him to lead her past more judgmental statues and busts, white and perfect and marble, all of them warning her not to allow herself to be led too far stray. But it was too late for that. Too late for caution. For regrets.
She hoped.
Her hand in his, him tugging her, guiding her, their fingers laced…shocking. Improper. Altogether wrong. She should not be here, at the Duke of Carlisle’s home. Should not be with Clay. Ought not to allow him to lead her away from the place where eyes and ears could see and hear.
But she went with him. Trusting him. Through halls and past shocked domestics who did their best to rearrange their expressions into neutrality. Until all at once, they were in a chamber, the door shut behind them. The room was cavernous and masculine, and it smelled of him, musky and wonderful and so very male.
So very Clay.
Their fingers were still tangled together.
They stood, side by side, neither of them talking. She understood she had breached a boundary from which there was no return. She was standing in Clay’s bedchamber. Holding his hand in hers. She knew not where his father the duke was, but she was certain neither Carlisle nor her father would approve of what she and Clay had just done.
It was ruinous.
Reckless.
No one knew who she was, and yet this was the country. Domestics had ears and eyes. They spread rumors. This—Clayton Ludlow and her weakness for him—would be the end of her.
“Why did you bring me here?” she asked softly, her gaze immovable, fixated upon the large, dark bed at the opposite wall.Hisbed. It was where he slept. Where he laid his head. Did he take off his clothing to lay in it? Did he remove his shirt?
His chest was so lovely.
She was not meant to have seen it, but she had, and now she could not help but long to see it once more. To touch it. Taste it. Her cheeks blazed with the fires of her shame. She could not control herself. Could not tame herself, it would seem. He had made a wanton of her. There was no going back.
“Bloody hell, I don’t know.” He scrubbed his free hand over his face as if it could erase some of the tension that threatened to choke them both. “Your mother told me I was not meant for you, and she was right. You deserve someone of your station, Ara. I will forever be a bastard, forever walking in shame, and you do not need to suffer in silence alongside me. My father treats me as an equal in his household, and it makes it easy to forget the way of the world. It was wrong of me to consider, even for a moment, courting you.”
Her mother. There was all the confirmation she needed. Anger rose within her, stark and swift and strong. “How dare my mother say such things to you? She had no right.”
His thumb traveled over the back of her hand in a slow, steady caress as he turned to face her, looking down solemnly. His expression was grave. “She had every right, Ara. She is your mother, and she is looking after your best interests. She is not being selfish as I was. As I am.”
“I did not know you came to see me, Clay.” Her fingers tightened over his as she willed him to believe her. “If I had an inkling—any notion, whatsoever—I would have been there within an instant. I would never have turned you away. You are the man I love.”
