“I don’t know anything,” he said. “I see things—there is a difference. And what Iseeis that you have a scandal to overcome. Or at least youthinkyou do.”
“You think my husband…” Her cheeks darkened further. “…dyingthe way he did is not truly a scandal?”
“I don’t think his death is the scandal.” He smiled. “You see, my dear, a passionate nature isn’t appreciated by Good Society. And yours has been revealed. Sothatis your scandal. The world knows you have wants and needs, things that wake you in the night, trembling and wet and shaking as you try to find release.” Her lips parted and she stared up at him, hands trembling, eyes glassy and dilated with desire. He leaned closer, taking another generous whiff of that amazing smell of her hair. Her body. “Or am I wrong? Am I forgetting myself?”
She straightened her back and folded her arms, putting up that useless shield she wanted so badly. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“Of course you don’t,” he pressed. “Because I can already see it. A tiger knows another tiger if they’re in a room of housecats. I see what you are. What I don’t see is why you so desperately want to deny it. Deny yourself instead of embrace it.”
She tilted her head. “And I suppose the way you define embracing this nature you see is by giving myself to you.”
He smiled a little, but didn’t respond. It was almost impossible not to. Almost impossible not to touch her and draw her into his embrace to let her feel what it could be like. This wasn’t the time. Chasing her wasn’t working—he had to make her lean into him now.
But she didn’t. She glared at him and hissed, “I will never—”
She didn’t finish her sentence. Instead, her gaze flitted past him. He turned. Graham was standing at the door to the ballroom. The footman said, “The Duke of Northfield,” as an announcement.
He barely got the words out when there was a little cry from the crowd. As everyone watched, Adelaide rushed across the room. Graham started toward her and they collided midway through the chamber. Apparently oblivious to everyone else, he caught his wife in his arms and placed a kiss right on her mouth. Her arms came around him and they stood like that together for a moment. Far too long for propriety.
When Adelaide stepped away at last with a blush, there was no mistaking the tears on her joyful face.
Robert glanced down at Katherine, expecting that now that the spectacle had passed, she would return to railing at him. She didn’t. She stood there, staring at the happy couple as they faded into the crowd of friends. Her face was no longer blank, no longer controlled.
It was twisted in a pain so powerful that it was palpable. Robert felt it in his gut as he watched her.
“Katherine?” he said softly.
She jerked her face toward his for a beat. Two beats. Then she shook her head. “I’m sorry, excuse me.”
She said nothing more, nor did she wait for his response before she broke away from him and tore off through the crowd. He watched her exit the room and turned his face.
His purpose with this woman was seduction. That was all. He didn’t care about her crumpled expression. He didn’t care about the emptiness in her eyes that called to the emptiness in his own broken soul. Hedidn’tcare.
And yet he felt this foreign desire in his chest. Something unexpected and unwanted and unwarranted given his plans for her. He felt a need to follow her. To comfort her. To somehow soothe the pain in her face and in her heart.
And that had nothing to do with seduction or wagers or need. It had to do with something else.
He tried to fight it. Tried to ignore it and put Katherine out of his mind. But it didn’t take sixty seconds before he swore and followed her same path out of the ballroom. He had to find her.
And once he did, perhaps he’d know what to do.
Katherine’s hands shook as she staggered down the long hall and into the first parlor she found unlocked. She pushed the door shut behind her and moved across the room. The curtains were shut, so she shoved them aside and revealed a bay window that jutted out from the house. Stepping into the space there, she looked out into the moonlit garden and tried to breathe again.
Her eyes stung with the tears she didn’t want to shed, with the feelings she didn’t want to feel. She liked the duchesses. She truly did. And despite the fiasco of Roseford being here, she appreciated their attempts to assist her.
And yet, being around them made her so very aware of the emptiness of her life. They all had love, families, futures. The abstract of that was painful. The concrete? The very real exchange she had just witnessed in the reunion of Graham and Adelaide?
Thatwas excruciating, for it highlighted all she had secretly wanted in her life. All she had been denied. All she had pretended didn’t truly exist. And yet there it was, played out in color as Adelaide and Northfield rushed to each other in a reunion that didn’t care who was watching.
She gripped the edge of the curtain with her fist and bent her head.
“Katherine.”
She stiffened. Roseford. Of course he was here. To see her in this most vulnerable of moments.
“Oh, please,” she whispered, hating how her voice cracked. “Pleasestop following me.”
He was silent for a moment, then she heard him move closer. Felt him move. Felt his presence. “You are not on a terrace,” he said, his tone very gentle. “I thought my not following you was limited to terraces.”
