“Jack?” Ottilie’s voice pulled him back to the present.
He looked down and blinked her into focus.
“Did you kill him?” She whispered the question as if she was afraid to learn the answer.
“We left him breathing. But what happened after that, I can’t say.”
A sardonic smile pulled at the corners of Jack’s mouth as he pictured Wardell sliding on his belly through the grass like a snake. “There were a lot of angry Yankees and wild animals roaming the area at the time.”
Ottilie turned her face from his and wrapped her arms around herself.
Jack grimaced. It was just as he thought. His truth was too ugly for her liking. She admired his intellectual personae—Jack the writer and Jack the gentleman, not the man with the dark past and devil’s soul. It wasn’t her fault she’d been spared life’s horrors.
“Perhaps, you should go home,” he said. “If the servants can keep a secret, your aunt will likely never know.” He moved toward the door. “Get dressed; I’ll wait for you downstairs.”
“No!” she said. “I want to stay.”
Jack turned. “Even after what I just told you?”
“You’ve told me nothing other than the tale of a young man cruelly abused by the adults he trusted.”
“But there’s more. You don’t know—”
She strode toward him and slipped her arm around his waist. “Why are you trying so hard to chase me away?”
Jack cupped her face in his hands, unable to believe this beautiful woman still wanted him.
“Did Wardell give you this too?” She touched the small scar at the corner of his eye.
He smiled. “No, that’s from boyhood wars.” He moved to kiss her, but she turned her face and bit her lip.
“What’s wrong?” His throaty voice revealed his desire.
She pulled his hands from her face and clasped them between hers. “Earlier this evening—” her skin flushed pink—“before we fell asleep—I don’t remember exactly…everything.”
“We ate sandwiches, drank ale, and kissed.” He leaned toward her, hoping she’d stop talking and let him kiss her again.
“Is that all?” she asked.
“That’s all,” he said soothingly.
“So, you remember everything?”
He straightened. “It’s not altogether clear, and I admit experiencing a moment of panic when Hudsyn woke me up with his incessant banging, and I saw you lying next to me in your chemise, but—”
“What?”
“I fell asleep with my trousers on, so—”
Ottilie’s skin turned a deep shade of pink, and she lowered her gaze.
“That is what you were worried about, wasn’t it?”
She nodded.
“Well, you can rest assured I would never do anything to dishonor you. Nothing happened. I promise.”
Ottilie glanced up at him, her cheeks still flushed. “Good,” she said, a shy smile playing on her lips, “because if something had happened, I would at least want to remember it.”
