Startled to hear him echo her own wanton thoughts, she put down her glass. “We only came downstairs an hour ago.”
His black brows lowered in a frown. “Is that a no?”
“No.” Then, when the frown darkened, “That’s not a no.”
He laughed softly, and the deep sound skittered up her spine like hot lightning. He quickly rounded the table to pull out her chair.
“I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you,” he said fervently.
She sent him a level look. “Neither do I. And don’t think you can always use sex to distract me.”
“Why not? It works.”
Smug again, damn him. He was so beguilingly pleased with himself.
But if he thought she’d abandoned her curiosity, he was wrong. Last night, he’d forced her to come to terms with who she was and what she’d done. Her love made her determined to help him conquer his demons in return. If this determination abetted her purely feminine need to learn about the man she loved, so be it.
Something terrible lay buried in his past. He’d never be free until he confronted it.
She was thoughtful as she left the parlor on his arm.
Kylemore crossed his arms behind his head and relaxed against the pillows while he studied Verity. To his drowsy chagrin, she’d just tugged a green day gown over her delicately embroi
dered chemise. The shift had done nothing to hide the splendors of her body. The dress required him to use a little more imagination.
She sat down at the dressing table and began to brush her long, shining hair. The regular pull and release of the silver brush was sensuously soporific.
His body ached pleasurably in passion’s aftermath, and unfamiliar contentment lulled his mind. The afternoon edged toward evening. Outside, rain fell, filling the room with cold, gray light.
He’d always watched her. From the first, when he’d been desperate to have her and her elusiveness had proven so frustrating. But after last night, it was as if she was giving him permission to stare. The pastime would never pall.
A feline smile curved her lush mouth as she caught his eye in the mirror. She knew he couldn’t get enough of her, the witch.
She was the most intriguing mixture of sophistication and innocence. Over the last hours, the sophisticate had dominated. But at the height of their pleasure, he’d caught a flash in her eyes that had pierced straight to the soul he’d sworn he didn’t possess.
Until now.
In the mirror, she regarded him with the thoughtful expression she’d worn downstairs.
Hell, he should have known she wouldn’t forget her damnable questions. Perhaps he should have tried harder to divert her. Unbelievably, given what had just taken place, his body expressed its enthusiasm for the idea.
“Mr. Macleish said I should ask you about your father,” she said evenly.
Blazing anger banished his sleepy well-being. He thrust himself up against the bedhead and glared at her with all the hauteur a duke could muster. “Did he, by God?”
“Yes,” she said with remarkable calmness, considering his growl. “He wants me to cultivate a better opinion of you.”
“I’ll have his head on a plate,” he muttered.
Hell, he wasn’t just furious; he felt betrayed.
Hamish Macleish had witnessed every humiliating moment in a boyhood crammed with shame and pain. Someone bruiting those tribulations as idle gossip wounded him to the marrow.
“He presumes too much on old obligations.” He used Cold Kylemore’s voice, clipped, frigid, cutting. “As, madam, do you.”
In the mirror, he watched the light fade from her shimmering gray eyes. “Yes, Your Grace,” she said listlessly and returned to fiddling with her hair.
The formal address stung. It always had. But it smarted more today. He sighed and rose from the bed. Her expression indicated that he was unlikely to coax her back into it any time soon.