“I do not like salmon,” he informed her.
“Then I shall ask for it at every dinner,” she returned.
“My lady.” His tone was one of warning. Menacing. His expression was carved in stone. His jaw, rigid and flexed.
It was the first time in a long time he had referred to her by that name, and that he did so now was not lost upon her. They had shared intimacies. They had kissed. And yet, now, he chose to retreat.
She ought not to be surprised. “Is your dislike of all fish, or is it relegated to salmon alone?”
“If you must know, I grew ill after I ate salmon when I was a lad, and I have not had the stomach for it since.” He paused. “What is this truly about?”
Catriona sighed. “It is about trying to please you, just as I have said.”
“You please me well enough in the only manner I require,” he said.
And there it was, in his gravelly velvet voice, the suggestion of passion. The reminder of what they had shared. Even as he sought to diminish their connection, she could not staunch the wave of need coursing through her. The familiar stirrings of desire settled deep in her womb.
But she was not going to allow him to so easily ignore that something between them had shifted last night.
“You kissed me.” Though she had not meant to blurt the obvious statement, once she had, she was glad.
He stiffened. “Lust has made many a man before me weak.”
“Has it made you weak enough to kiss another, or am I the only one?” she dared press him.
His jaw clenched. “Do not try to make more of what happened yesterday than it is. You are aware of our understanding. Nothing has changed.”
How wrong he was. For her, everything had changed.
She loved him.
And he was intent upon maintaining a distance between them, keeping her at bay, withholding his heart from her. Intent upon leaving her.
“Our understanding, yes.” She did not miss the way his eyes had dipped hungrily to her mouth. “You have a strange way of seeing the understanding to fruition, Lord Rayne.”
He drummed his fingers lightly on the table. “Call me Alessandro, if you please. I dislike being called Lord Rayne.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Is it because it reminds you of what you are?”
His lip curled. “And what am I,querida? Tell me.”
“An earl,” she charged. “A man who has been avoiding his duties.”
He flinched as if she had struck him. “Enough.”
“Why?” She had already come this far. She would not retreat now.
He was as immovable as a boulder. He needed to be pushed.
“You think I do not feel the guilt in my chest, heavy as an anvil, when I look around here?” he charged, his eyes darkening. “When I look atyou?”
“You should not feel guilt for looking upon your wife,” she told him, frustration lancing her. “You chose to marry me. But as for the guilt you feel when you look upon Marchmont, that I cannot deny. This estate, its lands, and its people, are your obligation. Yet you have been absent.”
“Suficiente!” He slammed a fist upon the table, making the china and silverware rattle. “I said enough.”
At last, she had shaken him, but his fury provided precious little comfort. She did not want his anger. She wanted his love.
“Do you feel guilty because you kissed me, my lord,” she prodded him, “or because you liked it?”
