She laughed lightly. “Little about your family tree is not known to the servants who worked in that house the last few days. A bit here, a bit there, and a total picture comes together. I daresay that if I were willing to visit the others who left today as I did, I could have learned most of what transpired at that meeting without your visiting to tell me.”
He watched how the low fire sent golden patterns across her form. “Yet you had me visit anyway.”
That caught her up short with a smile half formed. He took the pause as an opportunity to move over to the divan and sit beside her, turned in so he could watch those patterns more closely.
She scooted away a few inches. “I allowed you to visit because learning about the meeting from you was more efficient.”
“Is that what this is? Efficiency? It is not a word I would use to describe the mood in this chamber tonight. Or the last time.”
Flustered now. Charmingly so, mostly because she never showed anything but self-possession. “I cannot trust you,” she murmured, to herself more than him.
“You do not have to trust me yet. You only have to kiss me.”
“You came to my house looking for evidence I killed the duke. I could never want to kiss you.”
“And yet I think you do.”
“You don’t even deny your dangerous suspicions.”
“I will explain all that in a moment.” He leaned in, noticing how deeply dark her eyes looked in the low light. “Later.” He touched his lips to hers, ignoring the inner voice warning of impossible complications.
She did not veer back, but allowed it. It entered his mind that she was too stunned to resist, but the softness of her lips and the warmth of their closeness diverted his attention from that idea. He lingered in the kiss, and when she still did not object, he gathered her toward him and into an embrace.
* * *
She waited for the sad, dull emotions that ruled her whenever she seriously considered intimacy with a man. They did not come. Instead his kiss enlivened her. She dared not move lest she ruin it. She wanted to both laugh and weep at the irony that this man could evoke excitement with his embrace instead of loathing.
It would not last, of course. It couldn’t. For a moment, however, she allowed herself to pretend that she did trust him. She ignored all the warnings her mind tried to shout, and permitted her body to respond if it could.
A quiet bedazzlement that she had known long ago sparkled in her blood, far better than what she experienced in those recent dreams. The girlhood she had lost in every way possible raised one hand above the dank waters that submerged it. Her spirit took hold of that hand and held tight so it would not disappear again.
That meant letting the kiss continue. She noted every second of it. Every warmth, every touch. How it changed to something deeper and the way his hands rested on her back and side. She relinquished confusion and just floated in the sensations, amazed.
He took her face in his hands and looked in her eyes. Not frowning, but with an intensity that made the beauty pause.
“You have not kissed me,” he said. “Do you not want to? If you don’t, if I misunderstood—”
She placed her lips on his to silence him. She must have done it right because he took over again and there were no more words.
It could not go on. Soon, it would be ruined. A corner of her mind waited for the moment that would happen while the rest of her relished the brief rejuvenation while she could.
True desire worked its ways with her, transforming her, starting a strange hunger that only seemed to grow. She lost hold of her thoughts, her judgment . . . herself. His hands moved in a caress that spoke of his own desire and rising passion.
That possessive hold should alarm her, but didn’t. A part of her awoke to what was happening, however. To the time and place of it, and who he was. His dominating presence provoked her vulnerability. Her desire actually enjoyed that. A primitive inner voice urged him on. Rationality spoke louder. How they had met, what he might seek besides pleasure, pressed itself onto her consciousness.
Regretfully, she moved her head to break the kiss. Battling a preference to embrace and hold him close, she placed her hands on his chest, stopping him. “You should go.”
He did not cajole or reveal disappointment. Whatever he had thought to have tonight, he seemed to accept that this was all there would be.
One more kiss, a sweet one, and he released her. “Of course. You should sleep. You were too long a servant and should stay abed until noon tomorrow.”
“Yes, I should retire.” Alone. She did not have to say it. She released the hand she clutched above the water and let it sink again.
After Chase took his leave, Minerva sat on the divan, eyes blurring, finding herself amidst the chaotic reactions those kisses had caused. It had been stupid to allow herself to taste that which she dare not enjoy in full. She was well along on a good scolding when she realized that his “later” explanation had not come.
Glad to have something to do so she did not weep from disappointment, she marched down the stairs and hurried through the garden to the small carriage house in back. She knocked on its door. “Are you asleep?”
Jeremy opened the door. “Have you been crying?”
