Louise opened her mouth. A dozen things pressed against her tongue. Questions. Apologies.
She closed it again.
What was there to say? She had kissed him back. Had whispered his name like a lover. Had arched into his touch and whimpered against his mouth and behaved like the desperate, impropercreature she had always feared becoming. He was simply being a gentleman by pretending it hadn’t happened.
The humiliation burned worse than the wanting.
She moved to the bed on wooden legs. Sat on its edge. Bent to unlace her boots with fingers that refused to cooperate.
Compose yourself, you fool, she told herself.
The boots finally loosened. She set them aside and lay down without removing anything else, pulling her knees toward her chest and turning to face the wall.
“There’s another blanket if you need it.”
His voice cut through the silence, polite and distant. As if he were addressing a stranger rather than the woman he’d just kissed senseless.
“I’m fine.” The words came out clipped. Cold.
“The storm may last several more hours. You should try to sleep.”
“I said I’m fine.”
Silence. Then the rustle of his blanket as he settled onto the floor.
Louise stared at the water-stained wall, counting the cracks in the plaster.
Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen marks of decay, a room falling apart just like everything else in her life.
“Lady Louise.”
Her heart clenched at her name on his lips. “What?”
A long pause. “Nothing. Never mind.”
She squeezed her eyes shut against the sting of frustrated tears. He couldn’t even finish a sentence now, couldn’t bear to speak to her after what they’d done.
What you did, she corrected herself.You threw yourself at him like a woman of the streets, and he had the decency to stop.
The fire crackled. The wind howled. Louise lay rigid, listening to Aaron breathe, and tried to convince herself that this ache in her chest was simply wounded pride.
It wasn’t.
God, Louise. Do you have any idea what you do to me?
His words echoed in her memory. He had wanted her. She hadn’t imagined that. And then he had stopped.
“Are you warm enough?”
The question made her mind conjure the heat she’d felt radiating from his body, how perfectly she fit pressed against him …
Treacherous, treacherous mind!
“Yes, Your Grace,” she answered.
She heard his sharp intake of breath, felt the weight of everything that title restored between them: duke and charity case. Protector and burden.
Whatever had existed in the space between one kiss and the next, it was gone now.
