“You can’t. Please, Trem.” She was begging, she knew, but she didn’t care. Her brother couldn’t know about Hartley.
She reached out and grasped his hand.
“Please.”
“Fine,” he bit off. “Come to my town house. Tomorrow. Noon. We will figure out a solution—to this.”
“Thank you,” she gushed and squeezed his hand. He shook off her grasp.
He looked down at her.
“Tomorrow, Henrietta,” he said, his voice as stern as she had ever heard it, and then he strode from the room.
Chapter Five
Last night, for the first time in his entire existence, Lord Tremberley, Hugh Aldershot, had been unable to find the sweet succor of sleep. Every time he thought that blanket of calm might whisk him off to another plane, he saw Henrietta’s flashing eyes and heard that statement on her lips, Because he’s not lying.
He was pretty sure he would hear the echo of those words until he drew his last breath. No, even when he was in the grave, he would hear them.
To say that those words had disturbed him would be an understatement. Unfortunately, his horror did not stem solely from the shock of hearing that his best friend’s little sister, the girl he had watched grow up, had ruined herself with an aristocratic stripling of no particular worth and who she was now refusing to marry. No, his horror lay primarily with himself. While he was aghast at these circumstances, he knew his anger did not come from outraged decency.
No. He was jealous. To a mind-numbing, stomach-churning degree.
Once he had known that the young lord wasn’t lying, it had taken inhuman restraint not to murder the Earl of Hartley in his drunken slumber last night. He had been unable to touch him again for fear that he would soon be facing charges for capital murder. He had told Drent to haul the man into his carriage and then sent the young lordlings off with his driver to return themselves home. He had walked the five minutes back to his own town house with his thoughts in a tumult.
Now, sitting at the desk in his study, able to hear the clatter of carriage wheels in the road beyond, Trem had to admit to himself that he wanted Henrietta. Badly. He didn’t know when this wanting had started, but he knew it was older than last night. If he had to give it a specific origin, he would say sometime around the beginning of this season, when he had looked at her and been unable to see the girl he had always known. No, that was not right. He could still see her and all that they had shared together over the years. But, at the same time, she had been transformed. He had begun wanting her when he had realized that she was the same as she had always been but, simultaneously, absolutely different.
Last night, if John hadn’t come home, he had been on the precipice of losing his mind. He had wanted to pull back her robe, undo its sash, and make her forget that Hartley had ever existed. Clearly, her experience with that young wastrel had been lackluster, given that she had had no desire to marry him or repeat the encounter. He could do better for her. He knew he could.
He swore to himself out loud. The thoughts racing through his mind—of what he had wanted to do and absolutely should not do—had him hard and pulsing in his breeches. He considered taking himself in hand to alleviate the strain but ruled it out. He wasn’t a beast. He wasn’t going to reduce himself to that baseness. Such a thing had never occurred to him before—to pleasure himself to thoughts of her. But he was possessed. She had possessed him.
Last night, he had caught something in her looks, in her manner, that had seemed primed towards him—open to him. He had the sense that if he were to, say, kiss her, she wouldn’t recoil. How could he believe that? It should be impossible. She was embroiled with another man. And yet—and yet—she had made it clear she wanted nothing to do with Hartley. And the way she had looked at him—well, on another woman, he wouldn’t have doubted the meaning.
But she wasn’t another woman.
She was Henrietta.
He should have never hid this mess from John. But when Henrietta had begged him to do so, he had found himself unable to say no.
Of course, Trem understood Henrietta’s discomfort. He didn’t have siblings, but he understood that those who did generally didn’t want theirs to know about their sexual exploits. And why shouldn’t Henrietta turn to him in her brother’s stead?
Trem knew he needed to resist his impulses when it came to her.
It was the right thing to do. For John. For the lady herself. He might not be known for his honor, but he wasn’t depraved, either.
He wouldn’t touch her.
He would intercede with Hartley, make the young man see reason, and then let her pursue the society match that should be hers. With a man closer to her own age. Not ten years her senior and hopelessly jaded. He would set her free. From Hartley and from any grasping desires that he had for her.
He was supposed to be the one who knew what to do in this situation, but nevertheless Trem longed for advice. He wanted to consult someone who truly did know better than himself. He had never known his own father or mother. They had died in a carriage accident when he had been a babe. He seldom thought of his parents, but he had the odd wish now that he could speak to a mother or father, someone who not only knew the ways of the world but had the wisdom of advanced years. He yearned to speak to Mr. Foxcroft, the steward of his estate and the closest thing to a parent he had ever had, but the man, of course, was in Hampshire.
Lacking such direction, Trem could only do what he thought best. Henrietta would be meeting him here at noon and while he had planned to discuss how to resolve the problem of Hartley with her, he did not see what would be gained from putting off a confrontation with the young man himself.
Quickly, he dashed off and sealed a note. And then he rang the bell for his butler.
“Perkins,” Trem bit off. “Please dispatch this missive to Lord Hartley. He is needed here on urgent business. At once.”
Chapter Six
