Her creamy skin turned the color of roses, even down her slender neck.How much would her skin blush with pleasure after passionate lovemaking?He longed to find out.
“Apparently, constant worry suits me,” she said wearily. Another woman’s tone would have been tart with censure and anger, but he rarely felt she directed either at him.
“I am truly sorry for the worry this situation has caused you,” he said, meaning it with all his heart. “If I could relieve you of it, I would.”
“Tell the police how ridiculous your accusation is,” she said softly. “Or tell me why my brother did what you say he did. Give me one reason that makes any sense.”
Staring at her, unable to answer, he shook his head. Finally, he said the only thing he could imagine had caused the dreadful act. “A crime of passion.”
Adelia let out an exasperated sigh and walked past him. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning I could tear your brother limb-for-limb over what he did, so huge was my love for Sophia, so deep is my anger.” He clenched his hands as she blinked at him with her gorgeous green eyes. But he’d had to say it as he had never lied to her.
“If, as I suspect, your brother and my sister were lovers—”
She exhaled a puff of disbelief, but he continued.
“I can only imagine that somehow, your brother thought he would lose her or that she had played him false. In the heat of the moment, he killed her.”
This time, Adelia flinched at his words. “Is that how men think?”
“Not only men. Women have done terrible deeds for love or jealousy or revenge.”
“Would you ever hurt me?” she wondered, blinking up at him guilelessly.
Her question caught him off guard, but his answer came swiftly, “Absolutely not.”
She took a step toward him, the opposite of what a sane person might do when they were discussing such a subject.
“If the situation were as you’ve described, if we were…lovers and I played you false, then what? In your passion—and I’ve seen you have a great deal of it—would you unleash it upon me in rage?”
He swallowed and searched his heart. He closed the gap between them and took her in his arms.
“I could never hurt you. If you played me false, I might despise you and possibly go after the one who’d stolen you from me. Yes, I could see harming that man, but you? No. I don’t have it in me, I swear it.”
“Neither does my brother,” she insisted.
He closed his eyes. An instant later, he leaned forward to what he now knew was her deaf ear, and he whispered against it, “I love you.”
She drew back. “I cannot hear you.”
He nodded. “Your father was a beast to harm you, to lay hands upon a girl, his own flesh and blood. It sickens me.”
“It sickened Thomas, too, and he protected me as soon as he was old enough. After this—” she touched her ear, “my brother made sure my father never got near me again.”
“And what drove your father’s anger?” Owen embraced her more tightly, wishing he could erase the damage the old earl had done.
She craned her head back and looked at him.
“He had absolutely no patience for my stuttering and shyness. He considered both to be moral failings, something I could control with a stronger will.His, not mine.”
“I am very sorry.”
She shrugged lightly in his arms, and he couldn’t resist another second from kissing her. He had a fleeting thought of hoping she didn’t mind as he lowered his mouth to hers.
Evidently, she didn’t, for she slid her hands up his chest and clasped them behind his neck. Feeling her fingers at his nape, tugging his hair, was astonishingly arousing.
Owen opened his mouth and slipped his tongue between her welcoming lips. He couldn’t restore her hearing, but he could let her know in no uncertain terms how very much she meant to him.
