“Let’s see,” she said, keeping her voice light. “When I was five, I escaped my nursemaid and, by some luck or terrible fortune, found a chicken and stole it.”
He laughed, raucous and unashamed. “How did your nursemaid react?”
“Oh, she was furious. But I would not relinquish my prize until my father came to scold me for it.” She sighed, recalling his anger at her unladylike behaviour. “I was a trial as a girl. More so as I grew.”
“I wish I had been there to see it.”
“You don’t. I was a termagant.”
“I expect I would still have found you divine,” he said, his hand sliding to her rump.
“I would not have looked at you twice.”
He laughed, throwing his head back. Caroline watched him, fighting her own smile, wishing she did not find so much joy in his. “And who, pray, did you look at twice?” he asked, recovering himself. “I presume, then, therewasa gentleman.”
“Of a kind,” she murmured, thinking back to the way the young man had looked at her, arrogant and proprietorial. At seventeen, she had already shared kisses with a few of the young men in her village, and she thought she knew what it was to tease and flirt. In short, she had been as foolish as many a young girl was, and she had paid the price.
“Oh? A farmer’s boy?”
“Oh no, darling. He was a lord, but he was not—decidedly not—a gentleman.”
He tensed a little under her. “Tell me.”
“He was young. Charming enough, at first. They all are, I suppose, and I was an easy target. Not so difficult to seduce, if you can believe.”
He was still, save for the fingers that still coasted up and down her arm. “How old were you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Ah.” The sound was light, but she heard something stir under it. “I think I understand. Was he cruel to you?”
“Only in the way all irresponsible youths are,” she said, trying not to let her hurt show. The little lording who had taught her what it was to love, then summarily abandoned her. “But he was kind in other ways. The first to want me exactly as I am.”
“Hardly a surprise,” George murmured, but to her surprise, he rose, easing her up too until she sat in the gap between his legs. His hands were on her arms still, and his gaze was on hers, eyes that were usually a dancing blue now a deep navy, his brows pulled low. He was usually such an easy-going man, she had forgotten he could look like this—as though revenge was not a concept he was wholly unfamiliar with.
An unsettling feeling slid down her spine. “Don’t look at me like that,” she whispered.
“Did he force himself on you?”
“No. Heavens, no, George. I am not some poor, hard done by maiden. I offered myself to him, and he accepted with open arms.” She had offered, and he had taken, and taken, and taken, and the only thing he had given her in return was a few moments of pleasure—and consequences.
“I was young and foolish,” she said, but he pressed a finger against her lips.
“And he? Was he a young man as naïve as you?”
Of course he had not been. Another draw, that a man from London might wanther.
“I knew what I was doing,” she said, holding his gaze. “Or at least, I thought I did.”
His jaw was tight, the usual careless disarray of his hair now endearingly soft in contrast to the rigid anger on his face. “Don’t excuse him,” he said tightly. “Who is he?”
“You are not my defender, George.”
“I would be, if only you would let me. Who is he? Give me a name.”
“And what would you do with one? Confront him? Accuse him of stealing the innocence of a woman known for bedding half of London?” She laughed then, though he did not. “It would be foolishness, darling, and you know it.”
“What does it matter that you’ve been with men since?”
