“No,” she agreed sadly. “I do not love him yet. But that does not mean I will not, in time.”
He raised a brow. “What food do you hate most?”
His question and seemingly abrupt change of subject flummoxed her. She answered without thought. “I detest aspics.”
“When did you know you did not like them?”
She frowned, for she now knew where he was attempting to direct her with this dialogue. “The moment I first tried one, but Charles is not an aspic, Strathmore.”
But one of Strathmore’s traits was persistence, and he showed no intention of slowing or stopping his analogy. His blue eyes glowed. “He may as well be. Have you ever changed your mind about aspics? Do you imagine that if you ate aspics each course of your meal, every day, you may one day, miraculously, grow to love them?”
She did not care for the turn their conversation had taken. Not one bit. Violet turned and stalked away from him, irritated, needing some distance and space. Needing to no longer be ensnared in his vibrant gaze and his probing questions that made far too much sense.
But he followed her, dogged in his determination, not far from her heels. “Why do you run, my lady? Can it be you cannot bear to face that which is before you?”
“No,” she bit out, vexed at herself and at Strathmore for his powers of observation.
Without thought for the impropriety of allowing the duke to see her hair unbound, she began plucking the pins from the braided coils at her nape. She pulled and pulled until braids fell heavy down her back. And still she found more, undoing her lady’s maid’s finest efforts.
“Yet you did not answer my question.” He was close behind her. So close she could smell him, feel his heat, be tempted to settle back against that hard chest of his.
“Also no,” she gritted reluctantly. “I would not grow to love aspics, even if I should eat them every day for each course. I cannot abide by the texture of them.”
“As I thought.”
His tone was triumphant. Nearer still.
She turned back to him in defiance, her fingers on her braids, unwinding the carefully plaited strands. His gaze devoured her, sending a tingle to her breasts that ended in hardened nipples and a pulse between her thighs.
“But Charles is not a food I dislike. He is a man I am fond of,” she defended. “I am certain that, in time, I will grow to love him as much as he loves me.”
“Of course you are certain of it.” His countenance went thunderous once more. “You must be, else you will not carry on. You must cling to some sliver of hope, however scarce.”
“Why do you even care?” she demanded, aware her tone had risen in anger and unable to do a thing to control it.
She resented his interference. While he was quick to point out the flaws in her world, he did not seem willing to offer any solutions.
Strathmore stared at her, solemn. “Tell me about what happened in the carriage.”
His abrupt change of subject and accompanying demand had her reeling once more. It was not an answer, and she deserved one.
“First, tell me why you care,” she returned. “You are awfully concerned with my future for a man who will not have a part in it.”
He stared at her, such intensity and fire in his eyes, she felt his gaze as if it were a touch. As if it were a possessive clasp, wrapping around her. “Must I have a reason for caring? You have been kind to me, my lady, when you need not have been. Indeed, in great peril to yourself, I would suspect, for Arden would fly into a rage were he to discover we have been alone together repeatedly.”
Alone together.
Those words leaving his lips should not affect her.
Should not make her look at his mouth.
But her gaze dropped. Her blood heated. A warm wave of pleasure, along with a burst of anticipation, slowly licked through her. They were alone again, and in her chamber of all places, her personal territory, a space she had never imagined him trespassing upon.
Yet, now that he was here, she could not imagine himnotbeing here.
It occurred to her he was awaiting her response, and she was ogling his beautiful lips like a ninny who had just had her first sight of a handsome man. She had seen him before, of course, had even felt those lips move against hers.
She ought to be unaffected.
