Not ever if she could help it.
She didn’t think she could bear crossing paths with Beast again. Not by the light of day. Catching his cool hazel stare, knowing what his lips felt like on hers, all the desperate hunger he had sparked within her, would fill her with shame.
“My feet are beginning to hurt,” Lady Virtue complained.
Pamela had no doubt they were. They had been shopping all afternoon in a desperate bid to keep herself from being beneath the same roof as the man she would have allowed far greater liberties than those he had taken. She loathed herself for what she had done. She’d been despicable. It was a miracle she had been able to face her brother at the breakfast table after she had so upbraided him for his conduct with Lady Virtue.
What a hypocrite she was.
“Just a few minutes more,” she consoled her charge, thinking that she would have left Lady Virtue at home if she hadn’t feared Ridgely would somehow find an opportunity to ruin her further.
She didn’t trust her brother.
But then, she also didn’t trust herself.
It would seem they were two sinners cut from the same wicked cloth.
“You said that an hour ago,” Lady Virtue pointed out, sounding grim.
“I was just thinking that perhaps I ought to have a look at the bonnets,” Pamela said brightly, ignoring the younger woman’s complaint.
At the moment, Pamela was inclined to shop for the rest of her life as long as it meant she could avoid the wickedly handsome, utterly despicable guard haunting the halls of Hunt House. Why had his kisses been so exquisitely skilled? Why could he not have been a dreadful kisser as some of the gentlemen who had courted her before her marriage had been? She would never forget Lord Garson’s wet-lipped attempts, his kiss in the moonlit gardens which had tasted not of illicit romance but of onions instead.
No, Beast’s kisses had been demanding and hungry. He had dismantled every stone in the wall she’d crafted around herself after Bertie’s death, and she hated him for that. Hated herself for it even more. Which was why she had to continue avoiding Hunt House—and Beast—altogether.
She led the way to the department where bonnets in a wide array of fashions were on display. Lady Virtue trailed in her wake after heaving a frustrated sigh. Pamela knew her brother’s ward didn’t particularly enjoy shopping unless they were at a book shop. Then, her charge’s eagerness for more reading fodder kept her locked within the shelves for hours. Unfortunately, Bellingham and Co. did not possess a book department in which Virtue could lose herself.
Pamela stopped before a muslin morning bonnet which had been trimmed with lace and white ribbon. It was lovely, although she already possessed three quite similar in appearance, none of which she had yet worn. Ridgely was more than generous in allowing her to charge whatever she wished to his accounts. Unfortunately, Bertie had left her with a minuscule widow’s portion along with her broken heart. Pamela repaid her brother however she could, most recently by taking his ward under her wing.
Ridgely wanted Lady Virtue married off with all haste. And Virtue very much wished to remain unwed and return to her home in Nottinghamshire. Both, coupled with the unexpected debacle in the library the day before, rendered Pamela’s attempts at achieving a beneficial outcome tangled indeed.
“What do you think of this bonnet, my dear?” she asked Lady Virtue of the morning bonnet she’d already decided she wasn’t purchasing.
Perhaps her charge could be distracted, and their shopping expedition thus prolonged. More time away, less time in alarming proximity to a man Pamela never should have been alone with, let alone kissed or touched. And yes, touched him she had. He was well-muscled and lean, and the leashed strength beneath his clothes haunted her fingertips even now as she pretended to examine the white bonnet.
“It’s rather plain,” Lady Virtue said, making no effort to disguise her ennui.
“It could use a bit more color,” she agreed, struggling to ignore the maddening feelings that had been threatening to overwhelm her ever since the night before.
How long had she lingered against the wall after he had left, leaning into the plaster on the shaky knees of a newborn foal, trying to calm her racing heart? Trying to forget the lush heat of his sensual lips on hers, the brazen way he’d kneaded her bottom and worked his thumb over her aching nipple?
No, no, no. She had to cease thinking of Beast altogether.
She wished she had one of the fans she had purchased at hand so that she could use it to cool her flaming cheeks. But instead, she had instructed the shopkeeper assisting them to see the fans sent to Hunt House later, along with her other purchases as was her custom.
“Are you feeling well, my lady?” Lady Virtue asked, her voice considerate, her gaze astute.
And assessing.
“I’m feeling perfectly lovely,” she lied with a false smile.
The girl was far too intelligent, Pamela thought. Likely all those books she forever had her nose buried in. Oh, she supposed Lady Virtue wasn’t a girl any longer at twenty years old, but Pamela felt every last one of her eight-and-twenty years. When she had been Virtue’s age, she had been married to Bertie, naively believing in a future of endless happiness surrounded by at least half a dozen children and the undying love of her husband. The love, she’d had. Until Bertie had unexpectedly grown ill, leaving her alone.
“Are you certain?” Lady Virtue persisted, intruding upon Pamela’s tortured memories of what might have been. “Are you overheated? It is a trifle warm in here, is it not?”
“Quite warm,” she agreed with studied nonchalance before turning her attention to another selection of millinery.
To her everlasting shame, she had been overheated since last night. Nothing chased the fires of desperate yearning that terrible man had lit within her. What was it about him? He was not the polished, poised gentleman Bertie had been.
