“Because-because it’s not gentlemanly!”
“Whoever said that I was a gentleman?”
They appeared to have stopped their progress toward the dungeon.Indeed, Severn and Tilly seemed to be right against the closet door itself.
He felt Scarlett right her skirts in the dark.There was no way, he feared, of fixing his own appearance.He could only be thankful that he was wearing dark trousers.Still, he knew that it would be miserably uncomfortable to face Severn and Tilly with his smalls soaked in his own seed.
Dear God, what had he done?
It wasn’t as if he were some rake who could expect himself to be insensitive to the touch of a woman.He wasn’t surprised that he had spent in his trousers from feeling Scarlett’s delicious quim on his fingertips.
However, he was enraged at himself for his complete inability to stop hounding her.She had made clear that she wanted him to stay away.And even if she hadn’t seemed very repulsed by him a few minutes ago, that didn’t change anything.They had been, once more, in a strange situation.It didn’t change how she clearly felt about him.That she wanted him to leave her alone.
And yet he couldn’t stop, could he?
Why did this woman have this effect on him?
But before he could contemplate that question any further, Tilly’s voice came through the other side of the door again.
“Even you have honor, Severn.Do what you may in London.”
“How can you be sure?”
While there was nothing about this conversation that was explicitly inappropriate, Malcolm did think it sounded a little bit too… intimate… for one between Severn and George’s favorite.
“I just am.”
It sounded like Severn and Tilly were speaking to each other quite closely, indeed.If he wasn’t mistaken, at least one of them was leaning against the door itself…
“We need to getout,” Scarlett whispered to him in the dark.
She was right.But he wasn’t eager, as it were, to face the cold light of day—or to give up his intimacy with Scarlett, which he could only guess would never again be repeated.
“You forget I wasn’t born a gentleman, Tilly.I was born a disgrace.And so I make my own rules of conduct.”
“I don’t believe that you would ever want to upset a lady.I don’t believe that of you.”
“I am not going to be silent and let my brother give you less than you deserve.”
“It is not your right to say what I deserve!”
“Am I mistaken then that you would want a honeymoon?That you wouldn’t be content to settle immediately?”
“I-I—”
“Because I remember when we spoke last spring, Tilly.You told me something different.”
“I don’t… recall.”
“You don’t?I think you do.I believe you told me that you dreamed of seeing Paris.And Vienna.And Rome.That you hoped to go to these places on your honeymoon.”
“I say many silly things to silly gentlemen at silly balls.”
“Maybe,” Severn said.“But did you kiss all those other silly gentlemen?”
Dear Lord,Malcolm thought.Had he heard that correctly?
No, it couldn’t be.
