“It’s for your sake,” he rasped, jaw tight.
His answer frustrated her. He had admitted that what was between them wasn’t meaningless, and his kisses and touches told her the same. And yet he still denied them both.
She sighed, the sound heavy, torn from deep within. “You asked me what I wanted, and now that I’ve told you, you say I am wrong for wanting it.”
“Not wrong. But there are things you don’t understand, things I cannot explain, my lady.”
Pamela shook her head. “Don’t do that. Do not reduce us to formality. Not after everything that has transpired.”
“Our stations are different.” The hand at her nape moved slowly down her neck, caressing between her shoulder blades.
He hadn’t released her yet either, and she could sense his reluctance, for it was the same stubborn feeling inside her.Don’t do it, she thought.Hold me. Stay with me. Never let me go.
She clung to him, absorbing his heat and strength through his coat, still rubbing up and down his back. “I don’t care about our stations. That means less than nothing to me.”
“What would your brother the duke say if he were to discover his proper widowed sister has taken one of his guards into her bed?” he asked sharply. “Do you imagine he would be pleased to know it?”
She hadn’t thought about the repercussions she would face with Ridgely. All she had been thinking about was Theo. But his words gave her pause as she considered them. Her brother was far from a saint. He was a known rakehell, and his actions with his ward were ample proof of that.
“It isn’t any of his concern what I do,” she denied, though she knew in truth that there was a possibility he wouldn’t be pleased. “I am far from a virginal miss.”
And if gossip were to spread that she had taken a lover…well, she would fret over that eventuality when she came to it, rather than now. She could be discreet. She would hardly be the first woman in her position to take a lover.
“And what of your charge, Lady Virtue?” he pressed. “Do you reckon you will be able to squire her about society if there are whispers you’ve taken a ruffian into your bed?”
She disliked the way he spoke of himself, with such deprecation, as if he were unworthy. Where did his ill opinion come from? What had happened to him, to make him believe himself so contemptible?
“You’re not a ruffian,” she denied.
“You don’t know that, Pamela,” he said intently. “You don’t know me.”
“Then tell me who you are,” she begged. “Tell me why you hide yourself from me. Tell me what you haven’t said. Tell meeverything.”
“Deus,” he gritted, lowering his forehead so that it pressed to hers.
The gesture was somehow every bit as intimate as a kiss.
“Tell me, Theo,” she repeated. “You came to my door last night. You kissed me first. You started this.”
He closed his eyes, shuttering the impenetrable, gray orbs for a moment before he opened them again. “I shouldn’t have.”
“But you did.”
She wasn’t going to allow him to withdraw from her so easily. Pamela cupped his face, the stubble of his whiskers pricking her palms, and fused her lips with his. He didn’t push her away. Instead, he returned the kiss with a low growl, his arms going around her to hold her tightly to him, as if she had broken the last of his restraint with her mouth.
Good, she thought. She would smash it to bits. Break down every barrier and wall he sought to erect between them.
His hands clamped on her waist, his hold possessive and firm, and oh how she gloried in it, in the urgency she felt, the subtle pressure of his fingers nipping into her through her gown and stays. He was losing control.
Theo tore his lips from hers, chest heaving, staring down at her with such intensity that it robbed her of breath. “I’m a danger to you. You shouldn’t be here, alone with me. You should go. Run. Stay in your safe little world of drawing rooms and balls and musicales.”
“My world isn’t safe,” she argued, her lips still tingling from his kisses. “Your presence here at Hunt House is evidence of that.”
She had not forgotten the reason for Theo and the other guards. Someone wanted Ridgely dead. If he wished to speak of danger, well, she was already surrounded by it in ample measure, and none seemed more concerning than the threat to her heart that Theo presented.
“I can’t give you more than fleeting pleasure,” he said, his voice low, all silk and velvet-covered steel. “That is all there can be between us.”
Did he think to quell the fire burning inside her with such a warning? If so, he was mistaken.
