She felt as ifshehad been cast into the flame.
For all that she had endured a quarter-hour walk through snow to reach the ruins, with winds buffeting her all the way, there was no lingering trace of coldness in her body now. She was on fire. For him. For the forbidden. For the last man she should ever want.
“I thought you were attempting to help your brother to win my hand,” she reminded him. Reminded them both, for that matter.
Not that she intended to marry the Duke of Coventry—indeed, she rather suspected Christabella harbored atendrefor the man—but she could not forget what Lord Ashley had told her before. If everything he was doing, every interaction, every word, every seduction, was only being mounted on behalf of his plan to find his brother a duchess, that would be the biggest insult he could pay her. Resisting him would be so easy.
“I have a confession to make,” he told her, his stare meshing with hers once more. “Nothing I have said to you—not one bloody word—has had a damn thing to do with winning your hand for my brother. Nor has a single thing I have done. My sole motivation is how badly, how desperately, how uncontrollably I want you, Pru.”
Something inside her broke at his confession. Mayhap it was her defenses. Mayhap it was her ability to reason, to discern right from wrong. But whatever it was, it had been severed as surely as any rope hacked in twain. The last of the ice inside her melted. Her resistance was gone, and in its place was pure, raw hunger.
She tossed her book upon the cushion of the settee, not caring where it went, grasped his waistcoat, rose on her toes, and brought his mouth down to hers.
