“You don’t. But I promise you that it is better for you. I shouldn’t have stolen this little extra time with you this afternoon, pretended that I could have it. But I enjoyed every moment, Flora.” He drew a little closer. “Everymoment. Goodbye.”
He swung up on his horse and swiftly urged the animal down her drive and back out onto the street. She watched him go, heart throbbing, and only when he had disappeared from view did she realize he had said goodbye to her. Not good afternoon, not good day…goodbye.
Like she would never see him again. And her heart ached that it was a possibility.
* * *
Roarke knew he had been difficult to read during his day at the museum with Flora. He also sensed that his hot-and-cold demeanor had confused and potentially hurt her, and he hated himself for that. When he’d asked her to see the exhibit, he had wanted it to be a last good time together, without any thought to his cousins and their wicked bargain with him to investigate Flora.
But it had turned into something far more. Why had he taken her into the private room? Why had he watched her become aroused by those wicked, beautiful, passionate images Pembroke had painted of his lovers? And why the hell had he almost kissed her?
Worse, the real question that bombarded him, tormented him, was whyhadn’the kissed her? He should have kissed her in that gallery. He should have pressed her against the wall, felt her mold to him and moan against him. He should have given her what her sharp breaths and unfocused stare revealed she needed so badly.
He grunted as he adjusted himself, his cockstand desperately uncomfortable when he was riding a horse. He deserved that. He deserved worse, truth be told.
He turned up a lane and realized where he was guiding his horse without even meaning to. To his cousin’s home, the ducal estate where he’d been given his orders and turned into a vile spy what let like a lifetime ago. And of course that was where he needed to go. To end this.
Shedeserved that.
He rode the remaining distance and pulled to a stop in front of the large, beautiful home. He looked up as he swung down and handed over his reins to the stablehand who raced to greet him.
He’d never had many thoughts about this place. It was just a big house where he’d visited his aunt a few times as a young boy. Then, after the death of his father, the decline of his mother’s health and his own foolish fall, it had become a prison where he had no choice but to come to beg for money from his cousins.
But now he looked up and up and saw the place whereFlorahad lived. Flora had stood at these windows and looked down at arriving friends and family, probably smiled before she came down to greet them. Flora had arranged the parties and balls, Flora had walked with her late husband through the gardens. Flora had lost his uncle here, setting her on the path where she now stood. Where she now looked at Roarke with a trembling need that called to him so loudly and keenly.
One he couldn’t respond to. She didn’t know who he was, not really, she didn’t know how he was related to her sad past. She didn’t know that he had been sent as a infiltrator and a betrayer. He didn’t want her to know.
So he’d end this now. Sharp and firm and in a way that would cut his cousins’ machinations off at the knees. He only hoped they would all be here.
His cousin’s butler met him at the door and frowned. “Were you expected, Mr. Desmond?”
Roarke pursed his lips. “No,” he admitted. “But if you tell the duke that this is about the dowager, I’m sure he will wish to see me.”
Both the butler’s brows raised slightly and he inclined his head rather than simply dismissing Roarke as it was clear he’d been about to do. “I will ascertain if His Grace is in residence.”
“And the others,” Roarke said sharply. “If my other cousins are here, I want to see them, too.”
The man looked irritated to be ordered around so by a man with no title, but didn’t argue. He simply pointed Roarke to a parlor off the foyer and went down the hallway toward the back of the house. Roarke entered the room, rubbing suddenly sweaty palms against his trouser legs.
He knew what he had to do. But he also knew these actions might…probably would…have consequences. Potentially life-changing ones. But there was no going back now.
CHAPTER8
In a few interminable moments, the door to the parlor opened and Roarke turned to watch his three cousins come in. They looked a bit windblown, and he realized they must have been out on the veranda or in the garden together.
“Good Lord, Roarke, you could have sent word,” Thomas snapped as an abrupt greeting, even as he slammed the door behind the three of them. “We were in the middle of a garden party and there are important guests to get back to. What could you possibly want?”
Roarke arched a brow. “I thought you weredesperatefor news of the dowager.”
He was careful not to call her Flora, even though her name was on the tip of his tongue. They would pounce on that like rabid dogs and he was in no mood to explain himself to them.
“Thomas, let him speak,” Gertrude insisted, stepping forward. Her eyes shone with excitement, with cruel glee. “Tell us what you’ve learned, not that we haven’t already guessed.”
Philip’s eyes were just as bright as his sister’s though Roarke thought for a different reason. “She’s been whoring around, hasn’t she? She has lover, kept secret so that she may claim what is not rightfully hers. Tell us everything, sparenodetail.”
Roarke winced at the harshness of his tone, and because when Philip saidlover, Roarke couldn’t help but picture Flora staring up at him in the gallery, her breath short as he fought the wave of desire between them. Whatever man would one day be Flora’s lover was truly lucky. Roarke tried not to hate him.
Thomas glared at his brother. “Christ, Philip, enough.” He stifled a yawn. “Do go on with it, though, Roarke. I’d like to get back to drinks and fine ladies, not waste more time on our father’s concubine.”
