“Good morning,” she told him, in her sweet drawl.
“Good morning,” he forced himself to say, as if she did not steal the very breath from his lungs.
She entered the study at last, the door closing at her back, but immediately stopped just inside and remained where she was, almost as if she feared the need to make a hasty escape. “Mr. Reynolds told me you were inquiring after me.”
He did not bother to correct the manner in which she referred to his butler. There was no point. “Yes, I was. Are you… That is to say, how do you feel this morning?”
It occurred to him he was inquiring as to just how much of a brute he had been the night before. His ears went hot.
Her lush lips curved into a smile. “I am well, Lucien.”
He was not yet returned toArden, so there was that, at least. Except, he stared at her, and he knew not what he ought to say. He had been bold with her last night, because he had thought her experienced after the manner in which she had invited him to make love to her. And then, he had discovered, too late, she was not. He had taken her maidenhead, and this morning, he had bought her a bloody gift, as if any object he purchased with coin could compare to the priceless treasure she had given him.
He stood before her in the midst of his study after having summoned her, feeling a cad and a fool.
“Good,” was all he managed. A single-word response. His grip on the gift tightened. He was sure his knuckles had gone white with the strain.
She swept toward him, and he noticed her hair was still slightly damp as she grew nearer. The scent of her soap hit him. Such a luxury he had been afforded yesterday, to touch her freely. To make her his.
His eyes could not stop roaming over every bit of her creamy skin. Her throat, so elegant. Her hands, the fine-boned fingers. Precious little was actually visible, in truth. Most of her was hidden from him today. He wondered if it had been intentional on her part. Her gown was a polonaise of deep burgundy. Ecru lace adorned the high neck and fell over her wrists. A tempting line of buttons ran down the front of her bodice.
Her lips parted, and for a heavy moment, she simply stared back at him, her head cocked as if she were studying him. “I think I must apologize for misleading you yesterday,” she said at last.
He could have swallowed his tongue. “Misleading me how?” he queried with deceptive calm when he had regained his voice.
She swallowed, then fiddled with her hair for a moment, as if she were discomfited. “You were not expecting a virgin. I am not mistaken in that, am I?”
No, he had not been. He had bungled that matter very badly. It occurred to him now, quite belatedly and much to his everlasting disappointment in himself, that as a gentleman, he ought to offer for her. He had taken her innocence, without a thought for consequence. And this morning he had bought her a frivolity and summoned her to his study, as if she were a servant he could order about, instead of attending to his duty.
“I meant you no insult,” he said, but it was no explanation, and neither was it an apology, and he knew it.
She smiled at him again, but this time, he was near enough to see the smile was on her lips, though not in her eyes. “You paid me none. I have lived a great deal in my twenty-eight years. I am by no means an innocent. And there was someone once, a man I loved, who I…” Her flush deepened.
“You need not explain,” he interjected, not to spare her. To spare himself. Selfish reasons only. The thought of Hazel loving someone else made him want to smash his fist into the plaster of his study wall. It made him grind his teeth and clench his jaw, and clasp the symbol of his stupidity with such force, that had it been capable of breaking, it would have already snapped in two.
Fortunately for him, and the object in question both, it could not.
“It does not matter now,” she agreed. “All I mean to say is, you need not feel a moment of guilt, Lucien. I am a woman with her own mind, and I knew what I wanted. My only regret is that I feel certain you would not have allowed yourself to indulge in what we shared had you known the truth. I suspect your sense of honor would not have allowed it.”
She was right. Perhaps part of him had been eager to believe her experienced, for it made making love to her a feat infinitely more attainable. He had never dallied with innocents. His past lovers had all been skilled and seasoned.
“I have dishonored you,” he found himself saying.
It was the truth, after all. The stupid gift in his hands could do nothing to expiate his sins. What manner of man defiled a woman he was meant to protect? Him, that was who. And for a man who had made so very many mistakes in his lifetime, this one somehow stung more than all the rest.
He had failed his mother.
He had attempted to do what was best for his sister, but had wound up driving her away from him instead.
He had accused another League member of treason, believing the lies of a man he had trusted with his life, a man who had deceived him with such treachery, it still left Lucien reeling to think of it, even though the perpetrator was dead.
“You have not dishonored me,” Hazel said then, interrupting his turbulent musings.
He realized she had moved closer still. Close enough to touch. He wanted to kiss her. Wanted to haul her against him, bury his face in her neck. And yes, he wanted to raise her skirts and sink inside her once more, but bedding her was not the strongest need coursing through him. Simply touching her was.
Lucien recalled the gift clenched in his hands, and he offered it to her. “I saw this, and I wanted you to have it.”
Her brow wrinkled in adorable befuddlement as she looked at the neatly wrapped, perfectly rectangular parcel. “I do not require gifts, Lucien.”
