My Seductive Innocent (48 page)

Ellison shook his head. “Marguerite. She was waiting at my townhome, er, your old primary one, when I returned.”

Nathan stared at his cousin. He was acting odd, but it was likely the shock and embarrassment, maybe, of Nathan knowing about Marguerite. Nathan drew closer to Ellison and turned his back on the line of gapers. Harthorne discretely stepped away, and Nathan caught Ellison’s darting gaze. “I will not lecture you on Marguerite, nor ask you why of all the paramours, you chose to bed her. I know why. She’s beautiful and beguiling, but she’s also cruel. All I will say to you is to be careful. She is not to be trusted.”

Ellison gave Nathan a hard stare. “I’m not a child in need of protection, Scarsdale.”

“All right,” Nathan said, his right temple beginning to tick. He flicked his gaze toward Frazier. There was a great deal more he and Ellison needed to discuss, but it was going to have to wait. The line of people waiting to speak with Frazier was dwindling, and Nathan didn’t want the man to become lost in the crowd of people at his own ball before Nathan dealt with him. “Ellison, I need to have a word with Frazier, if you’ll excuse me. I’ll come see you tomorrow so we can talk, all right?”

Ellison nodded roughly. “How soon do you want me out of your townhome?”

The halting question surprised Nathan. “Stay in it. You may keep it. I’ve two more and already have settled into the one on Mayfair.”

“How very kind of you.”

Nathan sighed wearily at his cousin’s petulant behavior. He was in no mood to appease him tonight. “As I said, we can talk tomorrow.” With that, he left Ellison standing there alone and headed toward Frazier.

Harthorne immediately fell into step beside him. “How did it go with Ellison?”

Nathan shrugged. “About as well as I expected, seeing as his life was upended with my death and has now been upended again with my resurrection.”

Harthorne clapped Nathan on the shoulder. “Take heart. He’ll get over it.”

Nathan paused and looked at Harthorne. “Frankly, at this moment, I don’t give a damn whether he gets over it or not.”

“Understandable,” Harthorne said with a nod. “I think I’ll wander into the ball and see if I can find Amelia and Aversley. I suspect you’d like a moment to speak with Frazier privately.”

“Thank you,” Nathan said.

After Harthorne walked away, Nathan closed the distance between him and Frazier. He offered Lady Chatworth, who was speaking with the Scot, a smile and joking assurances that, indeed, he was not a ghost, and she excused herself, likely sensing Nathan’s anger.

Frazier must have sensed it, too. He motioned for to Nathan to follow him, and the two men strode through the crowd, which parted with stares of wonderment and a flurry of prattling and exclamations. Nathan nodded to people as they greeted him, but he didn’t stop and neither did Frazier. When they came to the man’s study, he gestured Nathan inside and then shut the door behind him and turned to face Nathan.

Frazier crossed his arms over his chest. “Ah dinnot remember inviting ye ta th’ baw.”

“You invited my wife; therefore, you invited me,” Nathan clipped.

“Ah see. ’Twas weeks ago, ye ken.”

“I don’t give a damn when you invited her. You should have rescinded the invitation if you valued your life.”

“Ah value mah life. Neither o’ us thought ye alive. Given that, kin ye blame me fur desiring yer wife?”

Hell no, Nathan couldn’t blame Frazier for desiring the temptress, but that didn’t make Nathan want to kill the man any less. Instead, he flexed his fingers and clamped control on his anger. “Well, now you know I’m alive. So there will be no more forgiveness on my part. Do you
ken
me?”

“Aye,” the man said with a courteous, slightly cocky smile. “Now, ’f ye’ll excuse me, Ah need ta attend ta mah guests.”

“As long as you’re not attending to
my wife
, I can excuse you forever,” Nathan replied and walked away without a backward glance. When he entered the crowded ball he paused, even more distasteful now than he had previously been of such affairs. Where the hell was Sophia? Was she here? Would she dare? He glanced over the guests and forced a false smile to his lips as people waved at him.

Frazier’s question rang in Nathan’s mind. Could he blame him for desiring his wife? Nathan clenched his teeth. He knew personally how hard she was to resist, because when he’d touched her for the first time in fourteen months, he’d lost every bit of civilized self-control he had ever maintained. A need to possess her that he could no more stop than the act of breathing had driven him to take her like a savage. He’d held nothing back, and she had taken it all and even made a good show of enjoying it. He’d been deeply sated when finished, but on the heels of that satisfaction came shame and dread―shame that he could not control himself and dread that she would gain power over him every time he touched her until he became like the child he once was, longing for love that she would never give.

I don’t love you anymore
, she’d said.

It had reminded him so much of something his mother had said to him so long ago. He’d tried to flee the hurt he could not deny by fleeing her, but he could not put thoughts of her out of his mind. And the hurt was still there like an open wound. She haunted his every moment, awake and asleep, and it was driving him mad.

“Scarsdale!”

Nathan turned to the right to see who had called to him. Aversley was walking toward him with Amelia at his side. He raised his hand in greeting, even as he scanned the crowded ballroom once more for Sophia. In the distance, at the top of the stairs on the far side of the room, a flash of crimson caught his attention, and his body grew rigid as he caught sight of his treacherous wife descending the staircase in a dress that would tempt the angels themselves to sin. And on top of that, hovering around her, were two soon to be sorry gentlemen who appeared to be vying for her attention.

“Excuse me,” he bit out and sidestepped Aversley and Amelia just as they reached him. As the thin thread of self-control he had left broke, he cared about nothing in the moment but reaching Sophia. He pushed through the crowd, glaring at every person who tried to stop him, but just as he was passing the refreshment table, he was grabbed from behind. He swung around and met Aversley’s knowing stare.

“Judging by the look on your face, you have seen your wife.”

“Indeed. Now unhand me.”

Aversley increased his grip. “I think you should get your temper under control before you talk to her. I don’t know what she has done―”

“No, you don’t,” Nathan snapped.

“Well, I do!” Amelia chimed in, huffing out a breath as she came to Aversley’s side. “And it is not as you think! But even if it were exactly as you thought, you deserved that and much more. She gave you her love and you...you...
you
sent your mistress back to London to the townhome you bought for her.”

Of course he had. But how the devil did Amelia know that? “What else would you have had me do?”

Her eyes narrowed, and she set her hands on her hips. “I would have had you been faithful to Sophia.”

“What?” The woman babbled nonsense.

“Don’t pretend you don’t understand,” Amelia snapped. “She worshiped you. You made her fall in love with you. Heaven knows how! And she almost died mourning you. She refused to eat, to drink, to live. We had to lie to her to get her out of bed. And then she spent an entire year trying to make herself into a duchess you would be proud of. You are a fool!” Amelia whispered harshly under her breath.

What Amelia said was impossible. Wasn’t it? His stomach clenched with doubt. He scanned the faces and found Sophia across the room with her head pressed close to Frazier’s, the stupid bastard. Nathan jerked his arm out of Aversley’s hold. “Then how do you explain what I came home to? How do you explain me finding her in her bedchamber with Frazier?”

Amelia’s shoulders sagged. “It’s for her to explain, Scarsdale, not me. I urge you to go to her. Give her a chance. Give yourself a chance.”

“She’s had plenty of chances,” he growled, determined not to let his guard down again. “I’m going to go to her certainly. I’m going to drag my coldhearted wife out of this ball, whether she likes it or not.” And before either of his gaping friends could protest, he stormed away, fairly shoving Lord Peregrine, who was grinning at him, out of his way.

“P
lease go away!” Sophia begged, discreetly pushing at Mr. Frazier. Of all her ill luck, he had been one of the first people she had seen, and she had only stopped when he’d asked her to so she could tell him she simply could not speak with him anymore. The minute she had pressed her head near his to whisper the private words, she’d felt, rather than seen, Nathan. When she had looked up and swept her gaze over the buzzing crowd, she nearly swooned at the sight of him plowing through the ballroom like a man bent on revenge.

“Go now!” she hissed again and abandoned propriety to shove Mr. Frazier in the arm.

Mr. Frazier was looking in the same direction she was and his jaw had hardened into a line of stubborn determination. “I’ll nae leave ye alone. He looks angrier than th’ devil himself. Ah em nae a coward.”

She fisted her hands at her side. “You’re a fool! He will kill you, and I don’t think he will pause to hear explanations. Not that he’d believe them, anyway.”

She glanced back up and gasped. Five more breaths and he’d be on them. She swiveled toward Mr. Frazier. “I love my husband. I’ve only ever loved him. It was a terrible, foolish mistake to think I could forget him, and I’m sorry I almost used you. Now, please, go.”

“I suggest you do as my wife says,” Nathan said in a tone so cold Sophia shivered.

“Nathan,” she rasped, turning toward him and losing all thought for a moment at his nearness. His raw power overwhelmed her senses. She pressed her fingertips to her temples and inhaled a shaky breath. “Please. It’s not what you think. It never was. If you will just give me the chance to explain.”

His dark, gleaming gaze slid from her face to Mr. Frazier’s, who still stood there like the daft man he obviously must be. Nathan moved his arm in front of her and slid her behind him, as if she were a mere chess piece he moved on a board. The contact of his hot skin to her abdomen almost made her moan. All that effort to forget him had been for naught. She would never forget her love for him, no matter what happened tonight.

He stepped toward Mr. Frazier and said something she could not hear, and Mr. Frazier immediately rushed off without a good-bye. When Nathan turned to face her, his gaze was guarded, his face weary. The thought that she had caused him pain made her ache.

Nervously, she licked her lips. “What did you say to him?”

“I asked him if he preferred to die now or tomorrow. Apparently, he prefers tomorrow,” Nathan drawled in a ruthless tone.

She so desperately wanted to talk to Nathan without such a large barrier between them. She wanted nothing more in this moment than to hear the truth from his lips and tell him the truth in return. As noise and people swirled around her, she swallowed hard. She didn’t care about her pride at all. She would give up her pride and every worldly possession she now owned if it meant the happiness she had glimpsed with Nathan so long ago could be theirs again.

Looking up into his implacable, unrelenting gaze, she flung her pride to the wind. “I never slept with Mr. Frazier.”

His scorching gaze searched her face, and it felt as if he were delving inside of her.

She swallowed her fear and continued. “I’ve never slept with any man but you. I’ve never even kissed another man but you.”

If she’d not been searching for a sign of hope, she wouldn’t have noticed that his eyes widened ever so slightly. She wanted to swoon with relief. She was getting to him. She hoped. “I died inside when I thought you were gone forever, and then later when I learned you had lied to me and betrayed me with that woman Marguerite, I wanted you alive so I could kill you and hurt you as you had hurt me. So I set out to destroy my love for you and the memory of you that was imprinted on my soul.”

He reached out and smoothed back a tendril of her hair that had fallen into her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. The gesture was so intimate, so loving, she could not suppress the cry that escaped her lips. His eyes widened another fraction, and he took her hand in his and peeled her glove off. She trembled as he splayed her fingers out and interlaced his with hers. Her heart exploded as his strong, rough hand curled around hers and he drew her close.

He leaned in and whispered in her ear. “And did you succeed?”

His hot breath fanned over her neck and made goose flesh cover her body. “It’s an impossible task.” Her voice shook as she spoke. “I love you. I didn’t mean what I said before about no longer loving you. I was hurt and angry.”

His lips parted at her statement, and then his eyes, which had been like granite, softened and filled with a glint of wonder. “Are you offering me your love again?” Disbelief filled his voice.

She nodded. “I am. I am offering all I have to give, But only if you love me, too.”

Without saying a word or releasing her hand, he turned on his heel and tugged her up the stairs toward the exit. As they went, several people attempted to talk to Nathan, but he kept on walking as if they did not exist. Unsure what was happening, whether she was being dragged away for love or to be sent packing and back to isolation, she pasted a smile to her lips and mumbled greetings to the people he’d snubbed.