“I understand.I feel the same way about my own siblings.For a long time now, they are all I have had in the world.And it has made all the difference.It is how I came to live and work here, after all.”
Here, she was aware that he skated close to a difficult subject—his illegitimacy.The bastard brothers of Mr.George Salisbury fell into the category ofacknowledged natural childrenin society.But some whispered that their father had never acknowledged them in his lifetime.
“When was that?”
“After my father’s death.My sister had taken over matters—she was very young, but George was younger still, only a boy, and Mrs.Salisbury knew little about estates or farming.Beatrice has always been… well, you saw her tonight,” he said with a laugh.“She has always been precisely like that.”
The marchioness was certainly formidable.She had been an unconventional match, to say the least, for her husband.But the story was that she had so utterly conquered his heart that he would do anything for her.
“Did you know your father?”
He shook his head.“Barely.It was Beatrice who brought us all to Parkhorne after his death.”
So, it was true, then.If Malcolm and his siblings were acknowledged as natural children, it was by their sister and brother and Mrs.Salisbury, not their father.
They had reached the hunting lodge, and he held open the door for her.The entryway was dark, except for a single lantern left out for them by the maids.When they stepped inside, the confined space made her aware of his peculiar scent, the woodsy, earthy one, that reminded her of cedar.
She sucked in a deep breath and prepared to bid him adieu for the evening, as she had in the nights since their rapprochement after the balloon incident.
And then she felt his hand close around her wrist.“Wait, please, Miss Perkins—Scarlett.”
He dropped her wrist, but she turned toward him, and in the close space, they were almost touching.
“I wanted to make something clear.Because I fear that it—that it might not be.”
Her stomach dropped.Here it comes, she thought.She knew what he was about to say.He would reassure her that he had no intentions with her of an amorous variety.That he did not see her in such a light, despite what had transpired between them.She was sure the words were on his tongue.
“If I had answered my sister’s question honestly tonight, I would have said your name.”
This declaration was so the opposite of what she expected that she gasped.
“I think you’re the most beautiful woman of the party,” he clarified unnecessarily.“I have thought that from the first moment I saw you.I was struck—tremendously struck—by you.”
She tried to open her mouth to speak, but she found she could form no words.She didn’t even know what she would have said.She was stunned.For a moment, she wondered if he was making fun of her.If he was mocking her.But his expression was so ardent that it beggared belief.No, he was being sincere.
“Perhaps you already knew that,” he continued.“It is probably obvious.”
“No,” she finally managed.“I didn’t know.”
“Oh.Then I am glad I said it.”
She wasn’t surewhyhe was glad.It didn’t seem an obviously positive development if they weren’t supposed to be involved with each other any longer.
“I wouldn’t want you to have the wrong impression.Of my feelings for you.”
She looked up at him then and her lips parted from pure desire.She wondered if she looked as hungry, as needy for him, as she felt.She wasn’t brave enough to say to him what he had said to her.She didn’t have the courage to state boldly back,When I met you, I thought you were the most handsome man I had ever seen.It felt like too far to leap in such a short span of time.But she had less trouble, for some reason, suggesting through look or action her lust for him.That felt safer, somehow.
He leaned forward, his green eyes glinting in the dim light.She wanted to run her fingers through his blond hair, which he kept far too long, and which she knew he slept with unbound at night.She wanted to once more feel small in his arms.
He didn’t move forward any farther.He seemed held back by something—a reserve that hadn’t existed in the closet.
But then she realized that in the closet, she had essentially begged him to touch her.
She couldn’t beg him now.She didn’t have the surge of fear driving her.
However, she could dosomething.
She reached out and found the button on his waistcoat.She fingered it and then laid her palm flat against his chest and looked up at him.
