She looked so incredibly beautiful—and very sweet and trusting. His chest squeezed as a hot swell of an unfamiliar emotion rose up inside him. It was the same strange feeling that made him want to hold her against his chest and protect her.
Protect her.
The realization did what the cold water had not, cooling the heat from his blood. He couldn’t do this. He had to stop. It was wrong even if nothing had ever felt more right. He couldn’t take her innocence no matter how hard his body urged it. She wasn’t his, and doing this wouldn’t make her so. He’d given his word. He wouldn’t back out of the planned betrothal with Elizabeth just because her cousin made him out of his mind with lust.
So instead of ravishing her senseless as every fiber of his body urged to do, he kissed her gently. Tenderly. Telling her in a way that words could not how much what had just happened meant to him.
Ithadmeant something to him, he realized. Though what, he wasn’t sure. Nor did he like it. But whatever it was, it didn’t make a difference.
Reluctantly, he lifted his head and gently stroked a wet lock of fair hair from her brow. Her pale skin was like velvet, and his thumb lingered on the delicate bones of her cheek as if he could hold on to the moment for just a little longer.
Even though he knew it had to end.
Izzie could tell by the way he was looking at her that something had changed.Regret.That’s what she read in his eyes, and it cast a sudden shadow over what might have been the most wonderful moment of her life. For the briefest instant—not much more than the space of a heartbeat—when his lips had caressed hers so tenderly, so lovingly, she’d felt that she wasn’t alone. She’d felt as if the same strange emotions that were confusing her might be confusing him, too. That maybe—just maybe—he might be falling for her, too.
She’d felt the possibility of something wonderful. Something special. Something that might be meaningful. But now that feeling was slipping away.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
His brows drew together in a slight frown. “Nothing.”
“Then why did you stop?” Her cheeks heated as she realized the boldness of what she’d said.
She sat up, no longer feeling comfortable lying on the ground with him stretched out half on top of her. Though a moment ago she’d thought being under him the most natural place in the world.
He followed suit, and without the closeness, without the connection, without his heat, she was suddenly cold. She drew her knees in tight against her chest and wrapped her arms around them, unconsciously perhaps protecting herself against what he was about to say.
He bent one knee and looked idly at the pond, his thoughts inscrutable. He must be freezing as well, but he gave no hint of it. Feelings, emotions, cold… he looked like a man impervious to anything so plebeian. “Because if I went any further, honor would demand that I ask for your hand.”
The stab between her ribs was surprisingly sharp. She understood. “And you don’t want that.”
He gave her a sharp look as if her words had pricked. “I’m practically engaged to your cousin.”
“Practically,” she said. “But not actually.”
She hadn’t meant it as a challenge, but he seemed to take it as such. Some of the stiffness and defensiveness that had been absent for most of the day returned. “It’s the same thing. I gave my word to Douglas that I would offer for his sister, and I can’t go back on it.”
“Can’t or won’t?” She couldn’t believe she was talking to him like this—about this—but somehow she knew if she didn’t say something now, it might be too late. It had suddenly become imperative that he not become betrothed to her cousin. Whatever possibility she’d felt in something wonderful would be gone.
His mouth pressed in a tight line. “Both.”
Izzie had never lacked for confidence, but even she was surprised when she said, “Even if you want me?”
He didn’t deny it, but neither from the way he shrugged did it seem overly important to him. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she’d just imagined something that wasn’t there. Maybe it didn’t mean anything. Maybe what she’d felt had been one-sided. Maybe for him it was no more than desire. Lust. Something he was used to.
He did this all the time. She knew that women loved him. Flocked to him. Shame heated her cheeks.Offeredthemselves to him. Why should Izzie think she was any different?
Why would he care about someone like her? He was extraordinary, and she was… not.
Just look at him. He had everything. He was a knight at the peak of his prowess, gorgeous beyond reckoning with his dark hair, piercing greenish-brown eyes, and too-handsome features; he was one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom, the favored nephew of the king, and a legend in the making with his fantastic feats on the battlefield. If she’d written a faerie tale she couldn’t have come up with a more unbelievably perfect hero.
Of course women loved him. But they didn’t see what she saw. They didn’t see the real man underneath. The man who could be dry and sarcastic, who could sing like an angel one moment and be as devious as the Devil the next (she was determined to get him back for tricking her into leaning over the pond), who shared her interest in architecture and could hold her spellbound while talking about rocks—right before he heroically saved her life from an avalanche of them. The man who was driven to be the best, and yet had time to help nuns fertilize their garden and make a dying young peasant girl feel like a princess. She could admire the hero like everyone else, but that was the man whom she could love.
“I see,” she said and started to stand up.
He grabbed hold of her arm, his hand wrapping around her wrist like a brand. “No, you don’t.” His sudden fierceness made her think maybe he wasn’t as uncaring and ambivalent as he seemed. “I gave my word, Izzie. Myword.”
Was that supposed to make her understand? Because if so, it wasn’t working. She suddenly felt like crying. “You said that.”
