Awareness prickled over Emma’s skin. As ever, her senses reacted instinctively to his presence even before she saw his leanly powerful figure in one of the alcoves. He was staring out the window, his hands clasped behind his back. His head turned immediately in her direction, and the intensity of his gaze sizzled through her.
In several strides, he crossed over to her. A faint smile edged his lips as he touched the choker, his finger running over the pearls, causing the strands to clack softly against one another.
“How beautiful you look,” he murmured.
“What are you doing here?” she said. “I thought we couldn’t be seen together.”
“I came in through a private entrance. No one saw me.” He caressed her jaw. “Hasn’t anyone told you never to accept arendezvouswith a stranger?”
Given the many trysts he’d apparently had, he was one to talk.
Lifting her chin, she said, “I thought that was why unattached ladies attended these functions in the first place. To find a beau.”
His eyes darkened. “You are not unattached.”
The gossip she’d heard continued to sting. She gave a slight shrug. “That is a matter of opinion. Now, your grace, what are you—”
The rest was lost in a gasp as she was yanked into his embrace. His lips claimed hers in a hot, demanding kiss. Desire rose in her, drowning out the protests of her wounded pride. She clung to his hard shoulders as he ravished her mouth, his tongue plundering, luring hers into a primal dance.
When he ended the kiss, they were both breathless.
Eyes gleaming, he said, “That settles that. It seems I can’t leave you alone for a day without you forgetting who you belong to.”
“I don’t belong to you,” she retorted. “At least, no more than all the other women you’ve dallied with.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you going on about?”
He wanted her to report on theton’s gossip? Fine. She told him.
When she finished, his face was utterly devoid of expression. She frowned. Did he not care? Where was his reaction? She’d expected embarrassment, perhaps, or even anger. Instead, he was eerily... still.
When she could stand the silence no longer, she said, “Well?”
“Well, what?” he said evenly.
“Is it true?”
“I’m no saint and never claimed to be. I don’t see what the problem is.”
“The problem is I thought that what passed between us was different.” She had to force the words past her cinched throat. “Yet you’ve done the same things with other women.”
“What happens between you and me has nothing to do with other women.”
“How can you say that?” she said, her voice trembling. “When you made love to some Lady M. on thesame deskwhere we made love?”
That fact, she realized, bothered her the most: he’d taken her in the same place he’d taken other women. As if she didn’t have a special place in his life. In the heart he professed not to have.
The world tilted with disorienting speed. Before she could catch her breath, he’d deposited her none too gently on the padded bench of the alcove. She scooted away, her back wedging up against the window as he leaned over her, his velvet-encased shoulders blocking out everything. All she could see was the savage flame in his eyes.
Suddenly, she realized that he wasn’t indifferent at all. He wasfurious.
“First of all, Lady M. and I did not make love. We fornicated—which is different from what you and I do. Second, I did not fuck her on the same desk. I do not invite casual bed sport to my home. You’ll recall I retain a cottage for that purpose.”
Relief unfurled in Emma at his clipped words. At the same time, feminine wariness arose at the tension vibrating from his muscular frame.
She wetted her lips. “I thought—”
“You made it quite clear what you thought. Now let me make it clear that I will not tolerate baseless accusations,” he bit out. “I will not be controlled or manipulated by jealousy—I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime.”
