***
Wells had reacted instinctively, half aslumber and half aroused, for having found a warm body in his bed, he’d done what any red-blooded man would. Yet it was only after he’d spent himself across his mistress’s backside, collapsing onto the bed beside her, that he realized the gravity of his error. He’d promised to go slow with this girl, yet already he abused her.
He let out a snort of irritation at himself, afraid almost to look at her lying there beside him with her eyes shut tight, breathing hard still from exertion. She lay curled away from him, hugging her knees to herself in obvious distaste.
Fuck, he silently swore to himself.
“Charles.” He ventured to touch her; at least she did not flinch. “Charles, I am . . . I forgot myself in my state of half-sleep.”
Still she said nothing.
“Are you alright, girl?” he gruffly asked.
She sniffed. “I’m fine.”
She did not sound fine.
“I am sorry I . . .”
“Only you’re not,” she said, hurt. “You are not truly sorry ever, sir. It is not within a lord’s purview to be sorry, and so I cannot . . . I cannot even hold you accountable for such base and beastly actions.”
This, more than anything, struck a nerve. For his apology had been genuine and she’d dismissed him as if . . .
Realization dawned as to why this woman maddened him so. She did not, in truth, defer. Even in deference she remaineddefiant. Even in apology she oozed disdain. She did not believe him worthy of respect or trust. She held him to some impossibly high standard of behavior he would never be able to live up to, a standard no man could, and yet a part of him desperately, miserably almost,wantedto.
Wells remained sunk in his thoughts as his mistress stewed beside him, clearly appalled by his rough treatment. He hadn’t meant to be rough, damn it. Well, maybe he had. He’d enjoyed her, after all. He liked things rough but reminded himself she was new to all of this, newer than new as he’d only just taken her maidenhood last night. Twice.
Bloody hell, he swore again.
And then he huffed with disgust, angry at himself as much as at her. He should have sent to London for a mistress instead, someone he’d not have to train. Someone less prickly and more pliant. A woman from whom he could simply take what he liked, when he liked. Someone who . . .
A face swam before his eyes from his past, followed by the face of his betrothed, whom he’d by no means loved, but whom he’d settled on. And here he had a girl at his utter command, slave to his physical desires as punishment for her crime, and he had no idea why he couldn’t enjoy her more.
“Iamsorry,” he insisted, “whether you believe me or not, Fox.” He took her in his arms, knowing no other way in which to prove himself to her, and began to stroke her hair.
She merely sighed into his chest, that small puff of air her sole response. Or so he thought.
“I beg your pardon, my lord, for my liberty of expression.” She stiffened in his arms. “I should not have been so bold.”
Yet this irked him only more—that she should foist some insincere apology now athim, when he knew damn well she wasn’t sorry for her words one bit.
He rolled her away from him. “Take it back.”
“What?” She looked surprised.
“Take back your half-wit apology.”
“But my lord, I?—”
“Do it.” He glared at her.
“No!” She glared back.
Wells pinned her down, looming over her as he repeated the order that was now a threat. “You mock my own sincerity with an apology so hollow it rings yet in my ears.” His will hardened. “Take. It. Back.”
***
“You take yours back!” Charles threw at him and then flinched as his face came to within an inch of her own, eyes boring into her skull.
