“Because I wanted to,” he snapped. “Because I bloody wanted to, all right? Is that what you want me to say?”
His hair had fallen into his eyes from the vehemence of his answer. His gaze singed her and yet she didn’t recoil.
“Yes,” she gasped. “Because that’s my answer, too. I slept with Hartley because I bloody wanted to.”
He reeled back once more from her. Underneath the heat of his gaze and cheeks, she saw that he was flushed, his under-eyes a bit too white.
“You wanted to?” he said, too softly, his voice deadly.
“Yes,” she repeated. “But I don’t want to marry him, just like you didn’t want to marry Lady Fairfax or Mrs. Sweetish.”
“They were already married.”
“And that’s a point in your favor?”
He took a step towards her. He didn’t touch her but he still loomed over her, so close to her that her senses swam with his scent, freshly cut grass and salty earth, that unique mixture that could only belong to him.
“Anyone else,” he whispered, “would tell you that you have to marry him.”
She looked up at him, trying to read his hazel expression. She wasn’t sure what he thought about her situation, but that desire that she had seen before was still there, darkening his eyes. It didn’t make sense, after what she had just told him. He should be repulsed, horrified.
“But not you?”
He paused, holding her gaze. And then very slowly he shook his head once. A sharp, sure shake. His body was still wound tight.
“Do you love him?” His voice came out choked, almost garbled, but she understood the words.
She returned the same shake of the head that he had just given her. She felt the need to explain. She wanted him very badly to understand.
“I—I just—I wanted to feel it. Passion. Or whatever you call it—what everyone talks about in whispers. What my brother has with Catherine. I can see it between them. And what has made you do all these mad things over the years. And Justin was my friend—”
“He took advantage of you.”
“No. He didn’t. It wasn’t that.”
Somehow, they had begun to gravitate across the room, until Henrietta had her back against a small table.
“That is what anyone would think,” Tremberley said, softly. “An innocent lady, a gentleman who should know better. A man who has the trust of her family.”
Somehow, suddenly, Henrietta could see that they weren’t talking about her and Justin anymore. She wasn’t sure how it had happened, but she could feel the shift in her bones.
“They would be wrong,” Henrietta countered, her heart thudding a new pattern through her robe. “I wanted to experience what he offered. I knew what I wanted.”
He looked prepared to say something—to ask a question, perhaps.
But then she heard carriage wheels. Rolling over the cobblestones of the mews—around the back of the house. Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, she swore to herself. Her brother couldn’t know about any of what was transpiring in his home at this very moment.
“It’s John and Catherine.”
At the mention of her brother’s name, Trem sprung back from her like he had been burned. The gesture stung her, but she did not have time to process how it crushed her spirit. Not when Hartley lay spread out in her brother’s entryway and her brother’s best friend looked ready to—well, she didn’t know. She couldn’t be sure.
“You have to leave. John can’t find you here. Any of you.”
Trem looked at her, his eyes fixed on her face, as if he hadn’t even heard her words.
“Trem,” she said, her heartbeat and thoughts growing frantic.
He shook his head. “I should tell John about this.”
