She eyed him. “And what’s that?”
“Well, ask you to marry me, of course.”
Every bit of color drained from her face. Then she gave her hand a wrench, trying to pull it from his. “Let go of me,” she said, in a voice he didn’t recognize.
He tightened his grip. “No. Listen to me, Kate—”
“I heard you,” she said, and he realized then that the reason he didn’t recognize her voice was because it was filled with tears. “Please let go of my hand, and go back to your seat.”
“Kate,” he said, trying to speak gently, “I know you’re angry with me, and you’ve a right to be. But I think—”
“If you do not let go of my hand,” Kate said, sounding as if she were choking now, “and get back to your seat, I shall tell the driver to drop me at the nearest crossroad.”
“Kate. I don’t think you understand. I—”
“No,
you
don’t understand,” she said, her voice shaking every bit as violently as her fingers had shaken when they’d been taking in the laundry. “I will open that door and jump, so help me God, if you don’t do as I ask.”
He felt, for a moment, that he might like to open the door and jump. Or at least throw something through it. But since this would accomplish nothing whatsoever, he did as she asked instead, and retired to the opposite seat, where he sat, his arms folded across his chest, staring at her perplexedly.
What in God’s name was wrong with her? Here he’d tried, to the best of his ability, to rectify the situation, and she had reacted as if he’d … well, as if he’d suggested that she become his mistress again. She had a right to be angry at him for that, God only knew. But why was she angry with him for asking her to marry him? It was his understanding that women considered marriage proposals worth more than diamonds, and prized them accordingly. Was she miffed, perhaps, because his hadn’t been accompanied by a ring? Well, he hadn’t exactly had a chance to stop and get one yet. He was in the act of trying to stop his daughter from eloping with a scoundrel, and hadn’t time to think these things through.
Across from him, Kate had wedged herself as tightly into her corner of the carriage as she could, and turned her face as far from him as she was physically able, to keep him from seeing her tears. The rain had started, a hard, pelting rain, accompanied by a good deal of lightning, and thunder that grew louder with each clap. Raindrops streaked the glass in the window. But as she was incapable of seeing anything, thanks to her tears, this hardly mattered. What she was doing instead was thinking, What have you done? Kate, what on earth have you done? The man asked you to marry him—something you’ve been waiting to hear him ask for the past three months, and you say no to him? Why? Why?
She knew why, of course. Because she was a perfect fool, that was why. She’d been a perfect fool to accept a position in his household in the first place. She’d known from the start it was a bad idea. Look at him! Just look at him! Wasn’t he everything she had come to despise? Wealthy and arrogant and entirely sure of himself ….
And she’d been right. Look what had happened.
The worst. The only really sensible thing she’d done in the past six months, she told herself, was leave him before her feelings for him became too impossibly tangled for her to extricate herself.
Not that she was extricated even now. When she’d pulled down that sheet and found him standing there, it was as if no time at all had passed since she’d last seen him—except, of course, that he looked so very different now, so deliriously vulnerable and hurt.
But that, of course, was due to worry over Isabel, not, as she’d initially thought, with the first flicker of hope she’d allowed herself since the night she’d left, because he’d been heartbroken over her abandonment of him. It had taken all the strength she had to keep herself from throwing her arms around him, and kissing him a thousand times, as she’d fantasized every single night since she’d left London.
But then she’d remembered.
When she’d first shown up at Nanny Hinkle’s door, the evening after that sleepless, heavenly—but in the end, utterly wretched—night with the Marquis of Wingate, she had felt only sorrow. But when the days crawled by, and formed into weeks, and then the weeks formed into months, and he didn’t come … well, that was when she realized how extremely fortunate she’d been, how narrowly she’d escaped something that, in the end, would have only turned out wretchedly.
And then he had appeared. As suddenly as if the wind had blown him to her.
But it hadn’t been the wind. It hadn’t been the wind at all. It had been Daniel. Lord, what could Daniel be thinking? He couldn’t possibly be in love with Isabel. Men like Daniel were incapable of feeling love for anyone but themselves. So what was he up to? What could he be hoping to accomplish? The girl had money, yes, but then, so did Daniel, now that his mine had paid out. So if he hadn’t stolen Isabel for love or for money, then why?
Something cold was gripping her heart, had been gripping it since Burke had first uttered the words “Daniel Craven” back there, by the wash line. Because Kate had a terrible feeling that she knew what Daniel was up to. She hoped she was wrong. She hoped against hope she was wrong.
But no other explanation made sense.
She wouldn’t, however, share her fears with Burke. No, he had enough to worry about. Better that he think Daniel really intended to marry his daughter, than that he knew the truth ….
Lord. The truth.
He’d found out the truth—one truth, anyway—and now he wanted to marry her. Because he had found out who her father was. Because he had found out she was a gentleman’s daughter, he wanted to do what he ought to have done no matter whose daughter she’d been.
Well, it wasn’t going to happen. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow it.
The only problem, of course, was that it wasn’t going to be easy to keep that in mind. Even now, as he sat opposite her, his jade-green gaze fixed unblinkingly on her, she couldn’t help noticing the backs of his hands, which were bare. The backs of the Marquis of Wingate’s hands were covered with the same coarse black hair that covered the rest of him, the parts only she—well, and half the actresses in London—had ever seen. Seeing that hair now reminded Kate of the time when she’d seen him without the hindrance of clothing, and that put her in mind of something she’d been deliberately trying to forget, the night they’d spent together, the only time in life she’d ever felt fully alive. He’d made her feel things that night that she knew she would never feel again.
Which only made her cry harder.
“Kate,” he said, from the duskiness of his corner. It had grown steadily darker outside as the rain grew heavier. Now it pounded down upon the roof of the chaise, which had slowed to a crawl, due to the mud on the road, and the fact that the driver surely couldn’t see where he was going.
She didn’t reply. She couldn’t reply. She was crying silently, hoping it had grown too dark within the carriage for him to see her tears. But she couldn’t speak without giving herself away. She didn’t dare.
“What I don’t understand,” he said, ignoring her silence, “is why you felt compelled to run away. If you didn’t want … if you didn’t want to be my mistress, Kate, why didn’t you just say so? It wasn’t as if I would have tried to force you. You surely can’t think me as base as that.”
She bit her lower lip. His voice, coming out from the darkness like that, was gentler than she’d ever heard it, soft as velvet.
“I can understand,” he went on, when she did not reply, “your being angry with me. I’m only asking that you try to understand. I didn’t know what I was saying that night. I’m not just saying it now because I know you’re a gentleman’s daughter. I should have said it to you that night—I would have said it to you the next morning, I swear it, if you’d stayed. I realized as soon as you left that I was in love with you—”
He continued speaking, of course. That was not all he said. He spoke for some time, and with a good deal of energy. But Kate did not hear him. Because he had said that he loved her. He had said that he was in love with her.
Oh, God. Of all the things he could have said, why had he said that? The one thing, the one thing guaranteed to make her melt! How had he known? How had he known? And how was she supposed to harden herself to him now? It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. He was only saying it because he knew—he knew, dammit—what it did to a girl, hearing the man she loved say something like that. He was using weapons against her for which she had no defense, no defense at all. Oh, God, she told herself.
“I should have realized it before, I know that,” Burke was saying, when she was able once again to focus on his words. “But it had been so long since I felt anything, anything at all but rage, I didn’t recognize it for what it was, and … Well, after all, Kate, you know how my first marriage ended. I haven’t exactly been anxious to try that experiment again. But you, Kate. Since you left, I’ve been doing everything I could think of to hasten the end of this empty, blockheaded life of mine ….”
Remember, she said to herself, trying to summon up the sort of indignation she knew she ought to feel. For he was, after all, the enemy. One of them. A member of the tribe that had, in the end, betrayed her family, and let their killer go unpunished. He could not be trusted.
She said aloud, her voice constricted, “A black phaeton. With yellow trim.”
“Kate!” He launched himself across the chaise, and this time, it wasn’t her hand he snatched up, but all of her, taking her in his arms as if she were no weightier than a doll.
“What,” he demanded, giving her a shake, his livid face just inches from hers, “am I going to have to do to make you forget I ever said any of those things? What am I going to have to do? This?”
And then he was kissing her.
As simple as that, he was kissing her, and she …
Well, she thawed.
He was an excellent kisser, Burke Traherne. Not that she hadn’t known that before. She remembered, only too well. But as if he wanted to be sure—perfectly sure—she hadn’t forgotten, he reminded her, his mouth moving over hers in a slightly inquisitive manner—not tentatively, by any means, but as if he were asking a question for which only she, Kate, had the answer.
It wasn’t until Kate felt the intrusion of his tongue inside her mouth that she realized she’d answered that question, somehow—though she hardly knew how, much less what that question had been … until suddenly there was nothing questioning at all in his manner; he’d launched the first volley and realized that Kate’s defenses were down. That, then, had been the question. Now he attacked, showing no mercy.
It was then that it struck Kate, as forcibly as a blow, that this kiss was something out of the ordinary, and that perhaps she was not in as much control of the situation as she would have liked. Though she struggled against the sudden, dizzying assault on her senses, she could no sooner free herself from the hypnotic spell of his lips than the iron grip in which he held her. She went completely limp in his arms, except for her hands, which, as if of their own volition, slipped around his neck, tangling in the surprisingly soft hair at the nape of his neck. What was it, she wondered dimly, about the introduction of this man’s tongue into her mouth that seemed to have a direct correlation to a very sudden and very noticeable tightening sensation between her thighs?
Even in her heightened state of arousal, Kate was not unaware of the fact that Burke seemed to be suffering a similar discomfort. She could feel it, pressing urgently through the rings of her crinoline. He had let out a low moan, smothered against her mouth, when she’d slid her hands around his neck, and now, as his need for her chafed against the front of his trousers, his strong arms tightened possessively around her. Callused fingers caressed her through the thin material of her dress, and she realized they were moving inexorably close to her breasts. If she let him touch her there, she’d be lost, she knew.
And she had to stop him, because she was no Sara Woodhart, who was loose enough to enjoy without compunction the attentions of men she had no intention of marrying. She was Kate Mayhew, who had a reputation to uphold. Granted, that reputation was not exactly a flawless one, but it was all she had, after all ….
And then those strong, yet incredibly gentle, fingers closed over one of her breasts, the nipple of which had already gone hard against the heat of his palm.
Tearing her mouth away from his and placing a restraining hand against his wide chest, Kate brought accusing eyes up to his face, and was startled by what she saw there, a mouth slack with desire and green eyes filled with … with what? Kate could not put a name to what she saw within those orbs, but it frightened as much as it thrilled her.
She had to put a stop to this madness, before things went too far again.
“Burke,” she said, through lips that felt numb from the bruising pressure of his kiss. “Let go of me.”
Burke lifted his head, his expression as dazed as a man who’d just been roused from sleep. Blinking down at her, he gave every indication of having heard her, and yet his hand, still anchored upon her breast, tightened, as if he had no intention of releasing her. When he spoke, it was with a hoarse voice, his intonations slurred.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “The last time I let go of you, you went away, and it was three months before I saw you again.”
So what if in response, she seized his face in both her hands and dragged it down until his lips were on hers again? Who could blame her? It wasn’t as if she could help it. It wasn’t as if it made her happy, the ease with which he was able, with the merest touch, to render her so helpless in his hands. Especially when those hands were doing things to her, as they were just then. For though he kept one hand clamped firmly around the back of her neck, beneath the fall of her hair, obviously to keep her from pulling away—as if she’d ever be foolish enough to want to do that—the other was still singeing her breast straight through the material of her dress, and threatening to dip even lower ….
But not before the carriage driver was rapping on the door, telling them that the roads were too flooded to travel, and would his lordship mind waiting out the storm at this inn to which he’d just now pulled up?