After eating, they’d returned to bed. But instead of taking each other again, instead of getting lost in the physical, something unexpected had happened.
They had talked.
Actually talked.
Ash lay beside her, his arm draped loosely over her waist, his fingers absently tracing shapes against her skin.
“Do you remember the time Lady Oxbridge’s wig came off at the musicale?” he asked, his smile unguarded, real. The one she coveted.
Clare bit her lip to keep from bursting into laughter. “And her daughter had to chase it down the aisle as if it were a wayward kitten.”
Ash let out a deep, rumbling laugh, shaking his head. “God, I had forgotten that part.”
Clare was grinning so hard her cheeks hurt. When was the last time she had laughed like this?
Certainly not in the company of a man.
Her mirth faded slightly as she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “Lady Oxbridge, wigless at the musicale. And yetI’mthe one Society shuns,” she mused. “I hardly think it’s fair.”
Ash chuckled softly, but his humor didn’t last long. His expression sobered, and a moment later, he reached out, running the back of his fingers along her jaw, as if memorizing the shape of her face.
“You didn’t deserve what happened to you,” he murmured.
Clare’s throat tightened. She looked away. “No lady deserves to be shunned for the same sins men commit without consequence.” She exhaled slowly. “But when has Society ever been fair?”
Silence stretched between them.
She risked a glance at Ash. Why did he have to be so damnably handsome? Why did he have to be charming and clever and—God help her—kind?
This would all be so much easier if he weren’t.
She wasn’t even certain why she’d insisted on the rule.No falling in love.Maybe she had been trying to protect him. Maybe she had been trying to protect herself.
But the awful, sinking feeling in her gut told her the truth.
The rule had been for her.
Because if she hadn’t said it, if she hadn’t put that safeguard in place, she would have fallen headfirst into something she couldn’t control.
And yet…she was still frightened. Though she did not regret tonight, or any of the other nights, for that matter.
She should. But she didn’t.
And that might have been the most dangerous thing of all.
ASH SHOULD NOT BE THINKINGabout her like this.
He should not be watching the delicate rise and fall of her bare chest, should not be marveling at the way she sighed in the aftermath of taking her pleasure, stretching like a satisfied cat in his arms.
He had never cared much for lingering after sex. Never cared much for talking to the women he slept with.
Yet here he was.
He couldn’t stop looking at her.
She had blindsided him in ways he never expected. Yes, she was beautiful—achingly so. And yes, she had wit and sharpness and an ability to hold her own against anyone. But it wasn’t just that.
It was the way she fought.
