“Is that what you did? Ruin me?”
Despite the apprehension that plagued her through much of it, the day on the whole had elevated her to a level of joy she hadn’t experienced in quite some time. She’d found laughter, fulfillment. Because of Connor. In him. With him.
She didn’t feel remotely ruined. She felt alive. Happy. Joyously in lo—
But no. It had been nothing like that, had it? Loneliness more suffocating than any she’d known in years descended over her.
For more than two years, the company of a handful of the staff and the few grooms who dared speak to her had been the sum of her companionship. She loved them. Trusted them. To the last, valued their friendship, however, in all that time, none of them had been able to forget who she was. She was alwaysmy lady, and as such, a social barrier kept most of them a step apart. No matter how many fireside chats they shared, how many days she worked by their side, she wasn’t one of them. But for Hilde, none of them saw her simply as Piper.
That truth had left her not alone, though often lonely. Desperate for Jane’s sporadic visits.
Then Connor had come along. They might have no more than a handful of conversations between them thus far, but he’d brought something to her life that she’d been missing for so, so long. A hand to hold, a welcome ear, and a friend to trust.
More than anything, she didn’t want to lose what she’d found with him.
Truly, she wished she could have come to accept the truth about him instantaneously. That he was a good and honorable individual. That would have been the most convenient scenario. Unfortunately, life was rarely convenient.
How dare he suggest otherwise?
A rush of frustration sizzled through her veins. She wasn’t naïve enough any longer to leap from the frying pan and into the fire. To blame her for her caution was nonsensical. Nor was she clairvoyant, able to see how their relationship would rapidly transform. Yes, she’d had opportunity to confess all to him and hadn’t seized it when she should have.
Nevertheless, she refused to bear the entirety of the blame for not tenaciously commandeering those moments. He’d unwittingly cut her off or distracted her nearly each time she initiated a confession.
“Don’t you lecture me, Connor MacKintosh.” Piper poked a finger to the center of his chest. “Most of my precautions went out the window the moment I met you. I may not have told you the whole truth, however, I gave you more than I’ve given another in years.
“How was I to know I could trust you with everything? Take your word for it?Hmm? I’ve been a fool in the past but I’m not one any longer. It wasn’t until yesterday when I could finally accept in my mind what I knew in my heart. That I could trust you. That you’d never hurt me. And I was going to tell you the whole truth. I planned on doing so as soon as you got back from Aylesbury. In fact, I began to several times. Then we started…” Her frenzied homily faltered, and her voice cracked slightly. “That. Then you were hungry.” She swallowed back the quiver in her throat, her tone shifting. “And I was ravenous. And all I could think about was you.”
Connor glowered at her, fuming. “Are ye done, then?”
“I think so… No.” She frowned back at him and gathered her scattered thoughts. “No. Honestly, if you believe there was a single moment last night where I was clearheaded enough to summon a coherent explanation, then you are the fool you claim to be.”
Seconds passed in tense silence before his lips twitched. “Ye’re saying yer defense is that ye were too drunk on desire to form a rational thought?”
Piper rocked her head from side to side, reviewing her rambling rant in her mind. “Well, yes. Now that I think about it, I am. It’s your own fault, really.”
“Ye’re a rare befuddling lass, to be sure,” he drawled. “I dinnae ken how I’m to maintain my ire when ye so sweetly exalt my sexual prowess.”
“I didn’t…” She frowned.
“Aye, ye did.” He chuckled and spread his arms wide. “Come here, lass.”
Since that was where she’d longed to be from the moment she’d opened the door, Piper let him enfold her in the strength and security of his embrace.
“Muddled yer thoughts, did I?” he whispered into her ear, a huff of laughter brushing her hair. “My pride is swelling to godlike proportions.”
Piper swatted his back with a smile. “Rein it back in, Hedone.”
Connor lifted his chin and raised a brow. “Ye ken Hedone was a lass, aye?”
“Hedone was the daughter of Eros and Psyche,” she informed him. “Largely considered the goddess of sensual pleasure.”
A wicked grin touched his lips and his eyes reignited with amusement. “She admits to sensual pleasure?Ah, my bonny lass, it is ye who is such a goddess to me. My Hedone. I? If it dinnae venture to the incestual, I would be Eros instead.”
Eros was Hedone’s father. If he knew a portion of that information, surely he was aware that Eros was also the god of love. Piper shook the thought away, along with its inferences. He teased, nothing more.
Connor bent his head and sucked lightly on a sensitive spot beneath her ear, reminding her vividly of all the forms love could take, many of which he had introduced her to the previous night. She’d proven herself a true wanton, embracing what she wanted without shame. Choosing to pursue her desires with vigor and producing admirable results. What she’d done may have left her shy and awkward in his presence afterward, if it hadn’t likewise proven to be most liberating.
Not that she would flatter him further. She’d been rather sore this morning when she awoke and had considered walking up to the manor in hopes of cajoling a full, hot bath for herself.
