“This.” Lavinia revealed Whisper.
He advanced on her. “You are risking pneumonia. Or worse.”
“Then let it be on my conscience,” she said. “You may discharge me in the morning, if you like.”
He stared at her. “You are a lunatic.”
She squared her shoulders, meeting him glare for glare. “At least I do not leave helpless creatures to die in the wet.”
“You think I do?” The question burst from him.
“I have no idea what you do, Your Grace. You are an enigma, like a perfectly preserved monument to duty and decorum. But for all your rules, you have no sense at all.”
They stood, less than a yard apart, mud to the ankles, rain seething down their faces. The kitten made a small, pitiful sound, and Lavinia hugged it closer.
Tristan’s jaw worked. “You should not have come out here.”
“I could not leave him,” Lavinia said. “Now I must find another suitable and dry place for him.”
He stared at her—no, through her, as if trying to decipher a language he had never bothered to learn. “You are the most exasperating woman I have ever met.”
She shot back, “And you are the most insufferable man. You cannot even?—”
She broke off, because he had closed the final distance and seized her shoulders.
“Why do you never do as you are told?” he demanded.
“Because I am not a sheep,” Lavinia snapped.
His hands tightened. “You could have died out here. Do you understand?”
The words struck her, but she would not give him the satisfaction of an apology. “What does it matter to you?”
Thunder cracked, and for one moment, neither of them breathed. Then, as if the storm itself commanded it, he bent and kissed her.
CHAPTER 20
It was a hard and reckless kiss, delivered as if the world might end with the dawn.
Lavinia’s lips parted, startled, and for a single, wild moment she thought she might drown in the force of it—the taste of rain, the scrape of his unshaven jaw, the impossible heat of his mouth against hers.
Then, just as suddenly, the aggression faded. The pressure gentled, shifting from anger to something raw and searching. She felt his hands, so broad and sure, ease their grip on her shoulders. One slid up to the nape of her neck, and the fingers splayed wide, as if he could steady himself only by anchoring her to the earth.
Lavinia kissed him back. She did not know why, only that to do otherwise would have been a lie. The truth was in the storm, in her shivering bones, in the frantic beating of her heart and the faint, frantic purr of the kitten trapped between them.
When they broke apart, it was not with passion’s triumph but with shock. They stared at each other, rain sluicing down their faces, both breathing as though they had been running for miles. The silence was immense.
Tristan spoke first. “You will catch your death,” he said, but the words were raspy and unsteady.
She wiped her face with her cloak and glared at him, “You might have warned me.”
He looked as though he might laugh or howl or strike the nearest tree. Instead, he ran a hand through his soaked hair and said, “Inside. Now. Bring the damned cat.”
She was too cold to protest. Besides, her boots had begun to squelch ominously, and the kitten was threatening to crawl down the bodice of her nightdress. She gathered it tighter and followed him across the churned lawn, mud clinging to her hem.
He did not touch her again; he did not even look at her as they passed through the servants’ entrance and down the dark back hallway. Only when they reached the main hall did he turn, gesturing her onward as if she were some recalcitrant livestock to be herded into safety.
The library was empty and faintly warm with the lamps turned low. Lavinia stood on the threshold, dripping water onto the Turkish carpet, her breath coming in small, involuntary gasps. The kitten, finally realizing it was safe, began to mewl with pathetic regularity.
