Ara inhaled slowly to stave off a wave of unwanted emotion. It had been seven years since Edward was born. The knowledge her father and mother did not wish to meet their grandson would forever be a knife in her gut. “I have learned that time forces us to accept the pains we are dealt, but it cannot make us forget them.”
The moment the words left her, she wished she could recall them. Wished she could tuck them back into her heart, back into her mind. For Clay’s mother was eyeing her shrewdly, as if she understood all the things Ara left unsaid. As if she saw and knew far too much.
For Ara was not just speaking about her family. She also spoke of Clay. She had accepted that he left her. She’d had no other choice. She had been alone, a babe in her belly, nowhere left to turn. But even now that he was back in her life, even after she had allowed him back inside her body, she did not know if she could forgive him for leaving her. For turning his back on her. For letting her wait for him that long-ago day and then leaving before she could speak to him once more.
“I understand such sentiment more than you can know,” Clay’s mother said softly. “Do you know, Your Grace, how my son’s face was scarred?”
The abrupt change of conversational direction—returning tohim—unsettled her. She shook her head. “I would not presume to ask him such a question, as it would not be my place. Nor has he ever offered the information of his own volition.”
The older woman’s expression changed. A new light entered her eyes, but Ara could not be certain what the emotion was, or what it meant. Clay’s mother could be as difficult to read as he was. “He was cut with a blade, Your Grace. He was attacked from behind, cudgeled over the head, and woke to the knife on his cheek.”
Ara shivered at the thought of some unseen foe laying Clay low. It seemed so impossible to imagine, that her mountain of a man could be overpowered by anyone. Nothermountain of a man, she reminded herself. Merely a man. She could not let their foolish, frenzied coupling affect her. Could not allow it to throw her. She had too much at stake. Everything, it seemed.
Her stupid heart. Her stupid, mad heart.
Oh, but why had Clay chosen such a dangerous path? She could not shake the question, for it bothered her every bit as much as her capitulation to the desire between them did. “His work for the Home Office is perilous indeed. I do hope the villain responsible has long since been sent to prison.”
Clay’s mother gave her an odd look then. “No, the man responsible has not been imprisoned. Indeed, he continues to live with impunity.”
“How horrid.” Despite herself, and despite everything that had come to pass between her and Clay, she knew a surge of rage on his behalf. How dare someone cut him, attack him and slice his beautiful flesh with a blade, and go about life without consequence? “Is there nothing that can be done?”
The elder woman returned her attention to her dinner abruptly. “There is something, perhaps.”
Something was better than nothing, Ara supposed, but this newfound knowledge still disturbed her. “He knows then, who the assailant was?”
Another strange, probing look. “Yes, Your Grace. He does.”
“When did it happen?” she asked, curious though she knew she ought not to be.
She was curious about everything that had happened to Clay in the years since she had known him last. In the years since he had been hers. It was ridiculous. Ludicrous, even. But she was desperate to know, hungry to learn the missing pieces of him. Where had he gone? What had he done? Why had he left her?
A slight frown curved Lily’s lips. Melancholy swirled in the depths of her dark eyes. “Perhaps you should ask Clayton. The story is not mine to tell.”
Ara nodded, forced herself to consume a few more bites of her dinner, and wondered. What had happened to Clay? And why did she care so damn much?
She had beengiven the apartments of the lady of the house.
Ara paced the floor. The hour was late. The night was dark beyond her window. She should be sleeping, regaining her rest after the travel that had brought her to Oxfordshire and Clay’s home. She should not be thinking of him. Should not be wondering what he was doing. Wondering if he would come to her. If she should go to him.
Should not be imagining his body on hers, atop hers, inside hers.
Should not be wanting him.
The chamber she had been assigned disturbed her. It ate at her, pricked at her, prodded and goaded and taunted.
From the moment she had entered the sumptuous chamber, she had known it was one of the best in Harlton Hall. She had not initially, however, realized it wasthe lady’s apartments. That a door adjoined her chamber with the one next, and that one likely belonged to the man who owned the entire home.
To Clay.
She had lain awake. Tossed and turned. Had attempted to read a book and surrendered. Had reverted to the years of her youth and tried to abolish thedespicable thingby appeasing it as she had oft done in the past. But her body knew Clay’s was near, and it wanted him now more than ever.
Her feet seemed to move of their own accord, eating up the distance between them. Her senses were overly aware of everything: the plush coarseness of the carpet beneath her bare feet, the cool evening air bussing her cheeks and kissing her throat, the scent of the fire in the hearth, the pounding of her heart. Her hand found the latch.
The door had not been locked.
It opened. Swung wide with a slight creak.
Her breath caught. There he stood, bare chested in the golden glow of the fire in his hearth, wearing only trousers. Even his feet, long and masculine, were bare. It was the first she had seen him in dishabille since the day she’d caught him brawling in her ballroom. And this time was different. More intimate. They were the only two occupants of the chamber, and they were not in the daylight of an empty ballroom. They were in the quiet promise of a bedchamber with nothing and no one to come between them.
