“Silly wee chit, don’t you know yet that every step of the way, I’ve done exactly what I want?”
She studied him, her brow wrinkling in puzzlement. “Have you?”
“Aye. Unless you’d prodded me out of my bachelor squalor, I’d never have come to know the villagers. Or you.”
“Oh.” She put more effort into her smile. “I’m glad.”
“That I joined in?”
“Yes. And that I got to know you, too.”
Dear Lord, he ached to kiss her. To do more. Only with the greatest effort did he resist hauling her up against him. He’d been bold enough to kiss her that first day. Now too much hinged on what happened between them for such recklessness.
Her smile faded, replaced by an intent expression that corroded his frail self-control. “I know just how I’d like to pass the time.”
“We could swap life stories. Although no doubt mine would shock you.”
“Perhaps it would.” She paused. “And perhaps I want to be shocked.”
He didn’t understand. “Bess?”
She licked her lips and tilted her chin at a defiant angle. “Lord Channing, would you please kiss me again?”
Chapter 7
Lord Channing’s striking face tightened with shock. His jaw hardened and a muscle flickered erratically in his cheek. He looked like she’d asked him to shoot his best friend.
The bed suddenly felt intolerably small. Sick with humiliation, Bess wriggled to escape the arm she now realized that he’d placed about her for purely practical reasons. Her cheeks burned hotter than his skillfully built fire. “I’m sorry. I was stupid to ask.”
“It’s too dangerous to kiss you here.” He sounded austere and resolute, and not at all like the lighthearted man who had teased her about her mythical wicked past.
“I told you I won’t kick up a scandal.”
“But if I kiss you—devil take you, lassie, will you sit still one wee moment?—it’s surer than sunrise that I’ll do something worthy of a scandal.”
Puzzled, she stopped pushing and studied his somber features. “I trust to your honor.”
His lips twisted in self-derision. “Well, that makes one of us.”
A deep breath fought her dizziness. “I…I liked it when you kissed me before.”
“So did I.”
That was something. She seized her courage with both hands and squeezed it until it squeaked. “So why haven’t you done it again?”
“Because you’re a virtuous woman, and gossip runs through this damn village like a flood down a dry valley.”
“People will think we’ve been kissing anyway.”
> “People will think a lot more than that,” he said grimly. “If I kiss you, they’ll be right.”
Monumental disappointment crushed her. He tried to let her down lightly, but rejection was still rejection. She went back to trying to escape. “Please forget I said anything.”
Despite her best efforts, tears clogged her voice. She’d never invited a man’s attentions before. After today’s debacle, even if her life depended on it, she’d never invite them again.
But, oh, how it smarted to hunger so desperately, and know Channing felt nothing in return.
“Bess, you make it so impossible.” He sounded like she tested him to the ends of endurance.