“If I will be finished with it, maybe you should be too. Do the details matter once we put it all behind us?”
She smiled sadly and squeezed his hand. “What were you reading when I found you in that room that morning? What did you learn about my father and yours? I think we both need to learn what is between us if we are ever to truly be finished with it.”
He hesitated. He considered arguing. Instead he rose and went to the desk, and came back to hand her a letter. “It was from the last Duke of Brentworth.”
She read it. Her gaze returned to the top and she read it again, slowly. By the time she finished, tears brimmed in her eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Oh, Papa. She could barely believe what Brentworth revealed. For her father to have gone to such lengths to ruin a man . . . He might have held that gun that took the last duke’s life.
This was not the man she knew. Not the father who taught her to ride and spent hours with her after her mother died. Not the man who allowed her to become the woman she was meant to be. That man was generous and loving and good, not this vengeful, cruel person who needed to win so completely it meant a man died.
Grief swelled in her, as raw as it had been right after Papa died. It inundated her heart, only it was worse this time because she did not even have refuge in memories she could trust. She closed her eyes until that wave of emotion ebbed.
She let the letter fall on her lap. It gleamed brightly against her black dress. “No wonder you looked so serious and lost that morning. I find myself thinking I should beg your forgiveness in his name.”
“It had nothing to do with you, or with me. Nothing to do with us. Not directly, and not in the future.”
He looked very sure of that. Determined. He gestured at a small stack of papers on the corner of the desk. “You said you want to know everything. You know what matters already, but if you need more, there is a letter there to my mother that explains it all, including what few questions remain. You can read it if you want, now or later.”
“Perhaps I will. Later.” She reached out to him. He came over and she urged him to sit beside her. “Did you mean it when you wrote that you loved me, Adam?”
“I am insanely in love with you. I even wrote a poem about you.”
“Is it any good?”
He laughed. “It is terrible.”
“I still want to read it.”
“It will make you laugh.”
“More likely it will make me cry. No one has ever written a poem about me.”
“I am sure there are dozens tucked away in drawers throughout London, unbeknownst to you.”
She adored him for really believing that. She took his strong hand between hers and raised it to her lips. “Did you describe me kindly?”
“I described you adoringly.”
“Even my mouth?”
“It includes a scandalous line about your mouth.”
“Oh. It isthatkind of poem.”
“A very loving that kind of poem.”
She moved closer yet, so their faces were an inch apart. “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
“You wrote there would be no kissing.”
“That was at tomorrow’s meeting.”
“Well, then.” He raked his fingers into her hair and held her head to a thorough kiss. “Come upstairs with me, before I make shocking use of the carpet in my impatience.”
He spoke of impatience, but he showed none. Not in leading her to his bed. Not when he undressed her, and not when he laid her down and covered her with his body. He took his time with every kiss and every caress. He murmured words of love in her ear while he gave her the sweetest pleasure. First in English, then in French, his words gave voice to the emotions filling her own heart too, until the pleasure and love were one and the same, each stronger for the power of the other.
