Court lifted his head, his expression impossible to discern. He looked positively barbaric, and she hated herself for the need that was pooling between her thighs, for the awareness of him that rendered his proximity an exquisite, painful temptation. She hated him and she loved him, and she wanted to kiss him and box his ears all at once.
“Kiss me, Vivi,” he said, his voice low and melodious, a sensual rasp that had an effect on her all its own. “Truly kiss me and then tell me you want me to go.”
She licked her lips. The gesture was foolish, indeed, because she could taste him.Court.And that forbidden taste made her want more.
“I’ll not do it,” she blurted, still clinging to him.
Reluctant to let him go.
He claimed that he intended to stay. But what did that mean? They may have married a year ago, but they had spent all the intervening time of their marriage apart. And there was the matter of those hurtful, unthinkable rumors concerning other women.
She couldn’t kiss him.
She needed to kiss him.
“Do you hate me so much?” he asked softly.
Was it her imagination, or was there a hint of vulnerability in his eyes? And why should it matter if there was? One whole year, she reminded herself. There had been a time when she would have rejoiced over his arrival. When it was all she hoped for. Until so many months had passed that she had begun to believe he would simply never return.
She clung to what he had told her before he had left that awful morning.
I’ve made a mistake.
“I don’t want you here,” she repeated, for it was necessary to do so. “You made it clear before you left that you regretted marrying me. And you made it even clearer with your absence and your actions abroad.”
“Vivi—” he entreated.
“No,” she interrupted, furious with herself for her own weakness where he was concerned. “You cannot abandon me after telling me that you made a mistake in marrying me and then reappear in the great hall a year later, telling me that you are my husband. You cannot touch me or kiss me or look at me as you are now.”
She pushed away from him, intending to flee the library and find Clementine, who had gone to her chamber with her lady’s maid to unpack her trunks.
“Vivi, listen to me.” He caught her elbow, halting her flight. “I am staying for your house party whether you like it or not.”
She turned back to him, knowing she could escape his grip and yet not making the effort. “I don’t like it, as I have made abundantly apparent. Nor do I want it.”
He released her, solemn. “You may as well accustom yourself to my presence in your life, in Sherborne Manor, at your house party. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll play host to your hostess.”
He was deadly serious. Although much about Court had changed, other things had not. She could hear the determination in his voice, see it in the way he held his jaw.
“You intend to humiliate me before my guests?” she demanded, her panic rising.
She had believed he would relent. That he would leave as she had asked. That she would once more have peace and the chance to recruit members to the Lady’s Suffrage Society and play silly parlor games and indulge in witty conversation and distract herself by watching Clementine’s matchmaking attempts.
And lawn chess.
Though that novel idea now seemed to have been hatched a lifetime ago.
“No, sweetheart,” Court said quietly, almost sadly. “I intend to finally act as your husband, just as I should have done when we wed.”
She ground her molars, frustration and old, stupid yearnings rising to dangerous levels within her. “Stay if you choose. But be warned, Bradford. I’ll not accept your advances. I have no wish for a reconciliation. And I will never welcome you back into my bed after everything you have done.”
He smiled grimly. “I’ve never shied from a challenge, Vivi. Not once.”
She couldn’t contain her reaction to his claim.
“Yes,” she said bitterly, “you have.”
Without another word, she turned away from him a second time and left Court alone in the library she had painstakingly assembled herself.
