“Ah, there’s the word I wanted. No chaste pink or white gown tonight, eh, Lach?” Ciaran arched an eyebrow at him. “I’m not complaining, mind you, but why do you think she decided to wear that particular gown tonight?”
To torture me.
She was punishing him, for trying to send her off to Brighton. To teach him a lesson about doubting her.
To make himseeher.
He’d tried not to. He’d tried to convince himself she was some pure, untouchable being—an angel, rather than a flesh and blood woman, with a woman’s desires, and a woman’s needs. Under that tight bodice and clinging silk she was still Hyacinth, with all the same sweet kindness that made his heart race and his lungs struggle for breath.
But tonight, she didn’t look like an angel. Tonight, she was all woman.
Warm, seductive, tempting woman.
Those alluring tendrils of hair teasing at the long, smooth expanse of her throat, her white shoulders rising from the tight embrace of the violet silk, the upward thrust of her breasts, with just the faintest hint of her nipples straining against the flimsy silk…
Lachlan drew a deep breath and tried to will away the blood now surging into his shaft.
That was why she’d worn the gown. To remind him of her soft skin, and her warm, plump lips and wicked, seeking tongue. But it wasn’t just the gown, or the arrangement of her hair that made him weak with desire. It was the mysterious, feminine half-smile gracing her lips.
That was no angel’s smile.
It was the smile of a woman who knew what she wanted, and had set out tonight to remind himhewanted it, too.
He dragged a hand through his hair.
She needn’t have bothered. Her scent, the way she’d trembled in his arms, the taste of her on his lips—he could never forget it. Those memories haunted him every moment of every day, until he felt as if he were drowning in them, the water closing over his head—
“Damn it, Lach. Stop gaping at her with that miserable expression on your face. If you want her—and the entire bloody ballroom can see you do—then why don’t you tell her? I have a suspicion Hyacinth won’t send you away if you do.”
Ciaran’s last comment hit Lachlan like a fist to the gut. It was bad enoughhewantedher, but to think she might actually want him in return was torture. “I can’t tell her, Ciaran. You know it as well as I do.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t know any such thing. If you care for her, and she cares for you, then I don’t see what all the fuss is about. You’re waffling, brother, when what you should be doing is making Hyacinth yours. Seems to me you’re damn lucky to have the chance.”
Lachlan didn’t miss the trace of bitterness in Ciaran’s voice. It was the same bitterness that had been there ever since they left Scotland, with Isobel Campbell’s curses still ringing in their ears.
“For God’s sakes, Lach. You really have become an Englishman, haven’t you? No Scot would stand about like a bloody fool while some other man steals his woman.”
Lachlan glanced over at Hyacinth just in time to see her raise her face to Dixon’s and offer the man a sweet smile. Lachlan looked away from her, his chest tight. “She wouldn’t want me if she knew who I really was. What I’d done.”
“Oh, what bloody bollocks. You know it is.” Ciaran’s voice was hard.
“You didn’t see her face the night we arrived, Ciaran. She pointed right at me, and called me a murderer. She was horrified. Worse, she was…”
Frightened of me.
She’d been terrified, as if she thought he was going to lunge for her. Hurt her. She’d shrank away from him, revulsion clear on her face. He still shuddered when he remembered how she’d looked, how just the mere sight of him made her panic.
“Damn it to hell, Lachlan.” Ciaran turned on him, his face tight with fury. “She made a mistake, nothing more. She was horrified because she thought you’d done somethingyou didn’t do.”
“But I did do it.” Not in the way Hyacinth imagined he had, no, but what difference did it make? He was still a murderer.
“No, you did what you had to do—what any decent man would have done in your place. It went wrong, yes, and that’s bloody awful, but it wasn’t your fault.”
Lachlan turned to stare at Ciaran, and saw the furrow between his brother’s brows, the edge of white at his pinched lips. Despite his words, there was a part of Ciaran that still blamed Lachlan for that day, and for everything that had come afterwards.
Perhaps he always would.
“What about the lie, Ciaran?” Lachlan’s voice was quiet. “Maybe any man would have done as I did, but a decent man wouldn’t have lied about it.”
