“Sometimes I feel as though you don’t understand me at all,” he said finally.
Delilah was speechless.
“I—need to sleep somewhere else tonight.”
And to her absolute astonishment, he dragged his shirt back on and flung open the door.
She flinched when it slammed behind him.
Captain Hardy could hear his own furious breath as he stalked down the hall.
He stopped abruptly in surprise when he encountered a stalking Angelique, who was wearing a pelisse over her night rail and much the same expression he expected he sported.
“There’s a vacancy with Lucien if you need a place to sleep, Captain Hardy,” she told him coolly.
“Likewise with Delilah,” he said bluntly.
They passed each other in righteous huffs.
Hardy paused outside the room Angelique and Lucien shared. Their door was wide open. Quite as though it had been flung dramatically so.
He found Bolt was sitting upright in bed, wearing a stunned expression. The lamps were still lit.
Lucien took one look at Captain Hardy. Read his face correctly.
And then wordlessly, shifted over and patted the pillow next to his.
Captain Hardy shut the door, rapidly shucked his trousers, then plucked them up off the floor. He stood motionless for a moment clutching them in his fist.
And then he whirled and hurled them in a very uncharacteristic fit of pique across the room.
Lucien snorted.
Hardy got into bed in just his shirt and pulled the covers up.
They lay there in absolute silence for quite some time.
And then Captain Hardy sighed, got out of bed, fetched his trousers, folded them neatly, laid them on the desk, and got back into bed.
Military training really never released its hold.
“Are you ever going to share with anyone the nature of the particular stick you’ve got lodged in your arse lately, Hardy?”
It was Captain Hardy’s turn to snort.
“I know how you feel about St. Leger is complicated,” Lucien continued. “But it’s more than that, I would warrant. And whatever it is, if you won’t tell me, youhaveto tell her.”
Captain Hardy lay still, eyes on the ceiling, arms crossed behind his head. He took a few deep breaths to settle his temper.
“I know. I don’t know why it’s so bloody hard to do that,” he said finally. Softly. Genuinely pained.
“Because something in you believes she’ll findsome fatal flaw in you and just stop loving you. But she won’t.”
Captain Hardy turned to Lucien in amazement.
And then after a moment he said, “Are younaked, Bolt?”
Lucien sighed, got out of bed, snatched his nightshirt from the back of his chair and threw it on over his head.
