“Where is he?” Morgan asked, and his voice was now low and dangerous. “Tell me where he is and I will do what your brother could perhaps not out of a desire to protect your good name. I will rip him to shreds.”
She shut her eyes and shook her head. “He is dead. About a year later, he did the same thing to Amelia. Made her think he was a man worthy of her. Hugh found out about their engagement and he was overwhelmed by guilt. So he stepped in, taking her from Aaron. They fell in love and they are very happy, but ultimately there was a fight. Aaron lashed out and tried to hurt Amelia and Hugh, and he was killed in the melee.”
Morgan’s jaw tightened and he brushed his hand across her cheek. She found herself leaning into his palm. Taking some of his strength. Wishing she had more of her own.
“His death must have been complicated for you.”
Her lips parted in surprise that he would guess that. No one else had. Her brother and Amelia had been supportive, of course. Tender, gentle. But they didn’t fully understand her emotions. And she had chosen not to share them. So the thing she was about to say was a secret she had always held close to her heart.
“It was,” she admitted. “I had once told myself I loved this man, enough to run away with him. Enough to give myself to him. Whatever he’d done, however I felt later, that had once been true. Then he was dead. So I felt grief and pain, anger and betrayal, and also relief all at once. I hated myself for all those feelings and for what I allowed him to do to me.”
“That isn’t your fault,” he said, so swiftly that there was no doubt he believed it down to his core.
She shook her head, for she had certainly heard that before. It wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t her doing, it wasn’t because of her.
“Of course it was my fault,” she said, straightening her shoulders and stepping away from the comfort she hadn’t earned and shouldn’t take. “I snuck out to meet with him. If I’d thought that was the right thing to do, I wouldn’t have done it like a thief in the night.”
“You were a young woman feeling the flush of attraction, emotion,” he said. “Thinking he was…decent.”
She shook her head. “Don’t absolve me. Ileftwith him when I knew it was wrong. I gave him what he wanted instead of protecting my future.Iruined everything.”
“Wait, you said Amelia had a similar interaction with the bastard,” Morgan said. “Do you blame her for her interest?”
“Of course not,” Lizzie said. “He made himself into what she wanted and she couldn’t see what he was.”
“So you will give her that grace, but not yourself,” Morgan said, lifting his brows. “Not well played, Elizabeth.”
She frowned. “The difference is that Amelia didn’t go as far as I did.”
“Because she didn’t, er…” He seemed to struggle. “I can only think of vulgar ways to describe it.”
Lizzie’s face felt like it was on fire. “Yes, because she didn’t allow him to bed her. She wasn’t weak like me.”
“Desire is not a weakness,” he said. “And she seems to share it in spades with Brighthollow, if the fact that they can barely keep their hands off of each other is any indication.”
Lizzie dropped her gaze. She didn’t really want to discuss that with this man. Her brother’s relationship was something private. Though Morgan was right—Amelia and Hugh did little to hide their powerful physical connection from the world at large. Three years into their marriage and it hadn’t lessened or waned.
“Need, desire, passion,” she whispered. “For me they will lead to nothing good. I don’t enjoy them and I refuse to surrender to the danger they pose ever again.Thatis why I can’t go around kissing you, as much as any other reason. What you make me want is wrong.”
His frown was dark and deep, and he shoved a hand through his hair out of what felt like frustration. She flinched away from it. Well, that would end that, it seemed. He was upset at what she’d said. Upset that she was putting a final distance between them.
“I see you are angry,” she whispered. “I’ll go back to the ball.”
She moved toward the door, but he sidestepped into her path. “Yes, I am angry,” he said through clenched teeth. “But not at you. I’m angry you were put in that position by someone who used your sweet nature so he could obtain what he wanted. I’ve known men like him all my life. They are the worst…well, to take a word often used to describe me…libertines. And if the man were not already in the ground, I would find him and exact a little revenge on your behalf.”
She ducked her head. “Th-thank you.”
She expected that to end the conversation, but he didn’t move away from her. Instead his finger slid beneath her chin and he tilted her face up toward his. He felt very close in the warmth of the parlor. Very close and big and all-consuming.
“I’m also upset that you see desire in such a poor light,” he continued. “Because as I said earlier, there is nothing wrong with wanting. With pleasure. Using them to hurt someone else is wicked, but giving in to them isn’t. That man…that bastard who hurt you, he should have seen what you gave him as the gift it was. He should have taken care of it and you. He should have made certain there was pleasure for you and not just for him, so you wouldn’t cringe away from any hint of it. So you wouldn’t conflate the stir in your belly when you feel attraction with the pain in your heart at what he did to you.”
She could hardly breathe, because his finger was now tracing her jawline, her cheekbone, her ear, the side of her throat. And there was a tingle of awareness that seemed to crackle from his finger, as if he had electricity in his veins and she fire in her own.
Add to that the things he was saying, the forgiveness he demanded she give to herself. The forgiveness she could see perhaps for the first time in years. She found herself lifting toward him, saw his eyes widen with surprise. But he didn’t pull away as she wound her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.
He froze for a moment. She felt his uncertainty and hesitance, but then he made a soft sound of desire and returned the kiss. It was tender, slow. His arms came around her and he cradled her against his broad chest, careful and gentle. She knew she should pull away. They’d made an agreement not to do this again, but whenever he touched her, whenever his mouth met hers, she could almost forget it wasn’t the first time she’d been kissed.
She could almost do exactly what he said and let the desire and the pleasure be a positive, not a negative. She lifted on her tiptoes, pressing a hand to his chest, her fingers clenching against the fabric of his jacket as she sighed and he finally let his tongue dart out to taste her.
