“Why are you staring at me as if I am a madwoman?” she asked, her mortification growing because her tone was a choke-filled sob.
“I don’t understand you,” he said softly. “You’re my prisoner. How can you be jealous? That would imply that you have feelings for me, your captor.”
“I’m not jealous.” She turned away, perilously close to allowing those forming tears to fall.
He seized her arm, reeling her back around. “How could I have hurt you?”
“You haven’t!” she lied, furiously batting back the tears.
“You’re crying—again.”
“I’m not. I don’t care about you and I don’t care that you prefer Fiona,” she said. “Please don’t touch me.”
But as he released her, he also cupped her chin. “Only a foolish man would prefer the maid to you.”
She was sure she hadn’t heard him correctly. “What?”
“I don’t prefer her. In fact, I had forgotten all about her.” He hesitated. “I am sorry she spoke so freely to you, Virginia. I had also forgotten that I gave you your very first kiss.”
They had never spoken so sincerely before. Virginia bit her lip, then had to say, “But I didn’t forget.”
His jaw flexed. “I wanted to discuss some important matters with you, but this is clearly not the time.”
She shook her head, touching his sleeve. “I thought you liked me,” she heard herself say, and it was as if she were a little girl begging to understand.
He was so motionless it was as if he did not even breathe. Very quietly, after a long pause, he said, “Men use women all the time. It means nothing. It is a means to an end. Fiona was eager to service me. I didn’t go to her. I didn’t seek her out. I can’t even recall what she looks like, except that she is fat. But I needed the release physically. I am sorry if I made you jealous, that was not my intention. To be truthful, I had forgotten entirely about the incident.”
She shook her head, incapable of understanding, and now tears wet her cheeks. “I thought you liked me.”
And two pale spots of pink seemed to appear briefly on his cheekbones. “You’re a beautiful woman. I am hardly immune to that and we both know it.”
She stared up at him, suddenly aware of her heart pounding, slow and deep, suddenly aware of how late it was, how dark, how quiet, and suddenly aware that the desire had never died. She was alone with Devlin in her room, which was lit only by a few candles and the fire in the hearth, and he had just admitted that he found her beautiful.
“Do you want me still?” she whispered, but somehow she knew the answer.
His gaze held hers, unflinching. “Yes.”
She leaned forward. “Then I still do not understand, Devlin. Why leave me and go to her? I was in your arms—”
“I didn’t go to her. She was waiting in my room, Virginia, and I had forgotten she was there.”
“Why did you leave me?”she cried, her hands on his chest.
He finally smiled, though it was slight and filled with self-deprecation. “I am the son of Mary and Gerald O’Neill,” he said, as if that explained everything. But he didn’t move away from her. She felt his chest rising and falling beneath her palms, more quickly than was natural, and she felt his heart there, too, pounding, becoming erratic.
“That explains nothing.”
“I had a sister once,” he said, his jaw flexing hard. “Had she survived, she might have been like you—a planter’s daughter, a defiant and outspoken woman, someone brave and beautiful.”
And Virginia finally understood. “You were trying to respect me and your sister’s memory and your parents’ teachings.”
He didn’t speak.
“So you left me in order to save my innocence. Fiona was in your room when you went up—she means nothing,” she breathed.
“I see you are becoming a woman of the world,” he said. He took her hands and removed them from his person. “Nothing has changed. My resolve remains. I am not going to seduce you and I will not be your first lover. Good night.”
He was actually walking away, across the room, toward the door. It flashed through Virginia’s mind that the hussy would be in his bed once more, if she wasn’t there already. She could not bear that thought—just as she could not bear the thought of his leaving her now.
