“You have lived an unconventional and worldly life. I can be excused, I hope.”
“It is a small thing.”
“Hardly. Gentlemen do not ruin innocents.”
“Nonsense. I’m sure they do all the time.”
“Not this one.”
She straightened and looked at him. He meant it. His expression still bore the signs of passion. His eyes still burned and his face’s planes remained tight. But he was not going to take her above. Enough of the most ducal duke had returned to his face for her to know that.
“Well, damnation, Your Grace. It is rude to seduce a woman, to get her into such a state, and then not—not—” Several scandalous words popped into her head, but none of the medical ones.
She scooted off his lap. “We will wait a short while so that you can get yourself in order.” She gestured at his lap. “You do not want to leave in high salute, I am sure. Fortunately, women do not give evidence of their arousal so easily.”
“You don’t think so? I wish there were a looking glass here.” He laughed out loud, then pulled her closer and reached to stroke her head. “One good thing about hair that length is that it does not appear disheveled after such an indiscretion.”
The playfulness died away, leaving them looking at each other wistfully.
“Was I supposed to tell you about my inexperience?”
“The misunderstanding was all my fault. I allowed myself to believe what I wanted to believe, so I could continue being a scoundrel.”
“Not a scoundrel. Do not think that. True, you gave no quarter, but I—well, I didn’t mind nearly enough for you to call yourself a scoundrel.” It had been wonderful, and she would not be a coward and pretend it hadn’t been. She suspected the woman in her would feast on the memory for months. Her body, not yet becalmed, still sent sparks into her blood. She wished she had never given him cause to become noble with her.
He stood. “That is good to know.” He cupped her face with his hands and gave her a final kiss, then released her. “Now you should go above on your own. I will wait a short while.”
She went to the door, hoping he would follow. Of course he didn’t.
“I suppose now we return to being enemies,” she said.
“That might be impossible. Let us be friends with different goals.”
Oh, how handsome he looked there, his gaze still warm and the corners of his eyes crinkling a bit with his vague smile. She looked long enough to keep the memory, then left the chamber and made her way to her empty bed.
Chapter Sixteen
When a well-ordered life veers off its cleanly marked path, there is normally a good reason. Eric decided it was all Scotland’s fault. He might have succeeded in releasing his frustration with that idea, except he had to acknowledge that he had kissed her first in England.
He should be proud of his restraint. Instead, he argued all night against the rules that demanded it. It seemed to him that Davina had been more rational than he. She perhaps felt life owed her the experience. That he was the convenient man for the purpose did not flatter him, but it damned well suited his own purposes.
Which were—what? That was the devilish detail that kept him from sleeping, and, as she so adorably put it, saluting. She was not typical of his women at all, which probably was her appeal. He could not simply dance a few dances, make a few calls, bring an expensive gift and require discretion. Everything in his world and hers said he should never have touched her, let alone driven them both to a point twelve stairs away from an irreparable blunder.
Yet he had. Nor did he regret it. He could not even swear he would not do it again if given the chance. It had been a long time since he had known mindless, driving passion. His sensuality luxuriated in having been given free rein for a while. It beckoned him all night to find a way to have a wild, adventurous rut with someone, if not Davina than anyone else would do.
She thought they could keep turning back time. That they could forget about that first kiss and now, after this, after being damned close to having each other on the floor of an inn’s dining room, they could go back to being enemies. That spoke to her inexperience as much as her artless embraces did. Which, if he were honest with himself, had told him she was probably an innocent, but hope and hunger conquered that notion in a blink.
Nothing much was resolved in his mind when dawn broke. When Davina came below with Miss Ingram, he received one warm, almost nostalgic smile before she guided the old woman to the coach. He climbed up beside Napier and took the reins. Driving the horses would give his mind something to do besides ruminate about Miss MacCallum, at least. Besides, Teyhill waited down the road, and he needed to prepare himself for a visit he did not want to make.
* * *
“You will stay here.” Brentworth announced the plan as soon as Davina stepped out of the coach. “The top floor has an apartment kept for me. You and Miss Ingram should be comfortable there. It has several chambers, and the windows look out on a little kitchen garden to the south. The smells from the yard are not bad up there.”
Mr. Napier removed all the baggage from the back of the coach, even the duke’s.
“Will you be staying here too?” she asked. “I would think you would stay at Teyhill.”
“If I were staying there, you would be too.” He did not even look her way, but watched Napier. Then he turned to her with one broad step. “I choose not to live there. That is why I let the top of this inn, so it is available should I ever visit.”
