This time he pulled back at the insult.
“Every time you saw me after that, you sent me back to the manor like I was a disobedient child that you did not want underfoot. I could not understand why you treated me so coldly after such a wonderful kiss and then to tell me that I could never return.” She glanced down and away from him and any humor Lucian had experienced dissipated.
Eliza thought he had rejected her. He had but not for the reasons she believed.
“Had your brother not come across us, you would have been ruined and we would likely be approaching our tenth wedding anniversary.”
“I know,” she answered, her fingers on the stem of her glass as she slowly turned it.
“That is the reason I sent you away when I came across you alone.”
“You did not want me around. You do not have to explain it to me.”
“Oh, but I did,” he answered quietly. “I just couldn’t trust myself around you.”
Her hand stilled and Eliza looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“I wanted you, Eliza. That kiss stirred something in me, but I was not in a position to even consider marriage, and you had not had a Season, and I did not want to see both of our lives ruined because of kisses. I feared that if I was alone with you, that I’d not be able to help myself so I sent you away.”
Her grey eyes lightened. “Really?”
“Yes, that and you did not do as you were told. I ordered you not to search my estate, yet you did. You could have visited with Elaina, but you did not. Instead, you liked snooping around, not content to spend your afternoon stitching or doing watercolors. I was not quite certain what to do with you and the only thing that I really wanted was prohibited.”
“What did you want to do?” she asked with a grin, to which Lucian only glared at her. He was not going to verbally answer that question.
“It was not rejection for the reasons you believed,” he offered quietly. “Had we been older when those circumstances came about…” As they were older now, he did not add.
All this timeEliza had been convinced that Lucian did not care for her. Kissing a person passionately only meant desire—a physical need, and emotions were not necessary. If a heart needed to be involved for intimacy, then mistresses would be wives instead, and brothels wouldn’t exist.
“I still wish to apologize for how I portrayed you in my stories. It had not been my intention to insult you.” Had she known the truth, she would have written that character in a much more favorable light, including making him the hero far more often and perhaps succumbing to his desires to be with the heroine.
While everything could work out perfectly in a book, where she was in control of the characters, Eliza still wasn’t certain how things would progress or end between her and Lucian.
Lucian chuckled. “It is not necessary.”
She frowned at him. “It is not? Is that not the reason you stormed away and went riding in the rain?”
“It was,” he answered and took a sip of wine.
“Then why should I not apologize?”
“I had the opportunity to reflect on the matter.” He set his glass aside and smiled at her. “It tells me that you have been thinking about me for nearly ten years.”
“I have,” Eliza answered.
“While the depiction is not flattering, you still did not forget me and if it were dislike, you would have been happy to always cast me as the villain, perhaps even caused the death of the character and then forget my existence.”
“I suppose,” she muttered.
“Instead, you included me in story after story.” His eyes darkened. “Almost as if you cared, even if I am a grumpy auburn-haired earl.”
“I never claimed to dislike you, Lucian,” she confessed.
“In fact, you were once infatuated with me.”
Her face heated and Eliza wished she could take back that confession. Would he now tease her about it incessantly? Except, he had wanted her also.
Did he still?
