“That leaves the matter of the earrings, I suppose.” She hurried to the chair where she’d tossed her cloak and snatched it up, rifling through the pockets. When she turned to face him again, the earrings were pooled in the center of her palm, the firelight catching at the jewels and making the rubies flash with red fire.
She was gazing down at the jewels, an odd expression on her face. Not covetousness, but . . . relief, almost, the opposite of Selina’s expression when he’d given the earrings to her, with that flash of pure, naked greed in her eyes. The first thing Selina had done when she got her hands on them was assess the size of the rubies and judge the weight of the gold in her palm.
“Here you are, Your Grace.”
She held them out to him, and he took an instinctive step backward.
He didn’t want the cursed things back.
Everything that had happened these past few months—the regrettable wager with Major Thorne, the ugliness with Selina, Miss Thorne’s desperate attempt at blackmail, and the secrets, all the shameful secrets he’d kept from his grandfather and his friends . . . somehow, that small pile of glittering stones in her palm had come to represent the worst of what he was.
He could hardly bear to look at them, much less touch them, but what could he do, besides take them? He crossed the room with reluctant steps, but when he reached for them, she closed her fist, trapping the earrings inside.
“Wait, Your Grace.”
If she’d asked him to give the rubies to her, he would have done so in a heartbeat. How might she look, with jewels glittering at her throat and ears? Not rubies, though. No, not rubies for Prudence Thorne. Emeralds, perhaps. Yes, emeralds would look lovely on her, the vivid gleam of the stones coaxing out the deep, lush green of her eyes.
But she didn’t ask. Instead, she met his gaze without flinching. “I want you to know how much I regret taking these from you. I never should have done so. When I found them, I intended to return them to you at once, but . . . well, I shouldn’t have taken them in the first place, nor should I have blackmailed you.” She took his hand, pressed the earrings into his palm
He closed his fingers instinctively around them, then shoved them into his pocket. “Miss Thorne—”
“It was very wrong of me, and I beg your pardon,” she said, then turned to go.
He didn’t plan on stopping her. He certainly didn’t plan on touching her. If he’d been in his right mind, he would have bid her a terse goodnight, then breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t given into the temptation of touching her.
Prudence Thorne wasn’t the sort of woman a man touched on a whim.
She was the sort of woman a man could drown in.
But he was already turning her toward him, drawing her closer, his fingers clasped gently around her wrist, her impossibly soft skin gliding under his thumb, and she was so close he could taste her scent, honeysuckle rushing over his tongue with every breath he drew.
She didn’t resist when he urged her closer, nor did she protest when he lowered his mouth to hers, but only gazed up at him with darkened hazel eyes, her lips soft and open with wonder.
He couldn’t do anything else then but take her mouth in a dizzying rush of desire. She let out a soft gasp when his lips brushed hers, her warm breath a maddening drift over his lips, but she didn’t draw away, and he let his hand settle on the back of her neck, a low moan tearing from his throat as he coaxed her with gentle strokes of his tongue to open to him.
Her plush lips parted on a sigh, and God, her mouth was like silk, warm and smooth and sweet against his. He slid his hand down her back in a slow caress, the dark green silk gliding under his palm, and settled it on the curve of her hip, his other hand caressing the soft, secret skin of her neck, his fingers tangling in the loose locks of her hair, his need for her rising higher with every panting breath shared between them, heat thrumming in his belly.
Had he thought he could kiss her sweetly, chastely? Had he thought he could kiss her once, and let her go? Then he was a fool. The moment he touched her, he wanted more—all of her—every sigh and moan, her long, slender legs wound around him, his hands tangled in her hair, her body trembling for him—
He let out a defeated groan, then summoned every shred of his self-control and set her gently away from him. “We can’t. . . . Go upstairs, Miss Thorne.Now.”
She was still for a heartbeat, her fingers pressed to her swollen lips and her eyes wide, then without a word she turned and fled, leaving him alone in the darkness, his harsh breath tearing from his chest and his lips on fire with the taste of her.
He was still for a long time after she’d gone, unmoving, the ruby earrings heavy in his pocket, but when he came back to himself, the room was dark, and the last few coals in the grate had collapsed into ashes.
Miss Thorne’s cloak was still draped over the back of the chair.
She’d left it behind.
He caught the earring up in his fist and studied the pearls dangling from the ends of each ruby. They weren’t large pearls, but they were lovely, perfect ovals with that luster only pearls could boast, and subtly beautiful in the way the finest pearls were. He gazed down at them, at the dying firelight playing over them, making them glow like stars.
He couldn’t give her emeralds, but he could give her these. Not because they were valuable, or because he owed them to her, or because tonight had left him, for reasons he didn’t understand, with a tiny tear inside his heart.
But because they were beautiful, and he wanted her to have them.
He turned them over in his hand. The pearls were secured only by a thin gold loop. It wouldn’t take much to pry the circlet open and slide them free . . .
He didn’t give himself a chance to think about it, but hurried across the room and down the corridor to Basingstoke’s study, where he rummaged about in the desk until he found the letter opener. It was a crude, blunt instrument for such a delicate task, but it took only a few twists with the tip of the opener to create a space in the tiny gold circle.
