“No, you’re much more interesting.” Before he mustered a protest, she went on, stepping closer to where he skulked in the shadows. “Where were your parents?”
This strategy was fatally flawed. He should have leaped on her as soon as she arrived, distracted her with pleasure. He abhorred the idea of swapping confidences in the moonlight.
His plans for the evening had been perfectly clear, reasonable. He wanted her to answer his questions, then he wanted to take her to bed.
“Diana, this is ancient history.”
God help him, the sweet, low sound of her laugh disarmed him, sapped stirring anger. “Believe me, I want to hear.”
“My mother was thrown out in disgrace when I was a child.” He spoke stiffly, quickly. “My father died not long after.”
“I’m sorry.” Did his ears deceive him, or did she genuinely regret his unhappiness?
Feeling like the biggest sapskull in London, he emerged into the revealing moonlight. He wasn’t making much of a fist of concealing his reactions while he probed hers. Like so many of his games with her, she still held the advantage. Perhaps because she didn’t care, and he, much against his will, did.
“Don’t be.” He wanted to tell her to mind her own business, but instead he found himself admitting the truth. “It was hardly the happiest of marriages in the first place. By all reports, my mother was a wanton who never spared her husband or her child a thought once she left. My father disliked me intensely. I remember that well enough.”
“How old were you when he died?” Her voice was still artificially even.
“Four.”
“Old enough to feel the rejection.”
“Oh, yes.” Talking about his childhood revived all the dark unhappiness. Damn it, couldn’t she leave it alone?
She drew a shaky breath. His instincts had already told him she wasn’t as calm as she tried to appear. “You speak so harshly of your mother. She may have had good reason for what she did.”
Her voice vibrated with sincerity. Against his will, he moved closer to that sound. Then he realized what she said, and he straightened in resentment. “Good reason to chase after a dozen men in London while her husband cowered at home and bore the humiliation of being a public cuckold?”
“What happened to her?”
The question emerged with such sadness, it made him want to hit something. He thought with fulminating regret of his sensual expectations, drowning now in a sea of maudlin emotion.
How had she done this to him? Diana Carrick was dangerous. She affected him like no other woman.
His voice was harsh with control. “She became some rich man’s slut, then sold herself to another after her first keeper tired of her. She died in the gutter, rotten with gin and disease.”
“That’s terrible.” She sounded shocked, devastated.
“She deserved her fate,” he said flatly.
“You judgmental bastard.” Her voice vibrated with feeling.
He took a moment to register what she’d said. And an extra, crucial moment to realize she’d turned on her heel and headed toward the gate.
“Diana, wait!”
He, who never pursued any woman, lunged after her. The first time he grabbed for her, all he caught was a handful of cape. With a savage movement, she twitched it free and kept going. She’d reached the gate before he gained a decent grip on her arm.
“Let me go,” she snarled, straining against his hold. She was a tall, strong woman, and he needed to exert a surprising amount of force to stop her marching off.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
He’d had enough experience to know that when a woman spat “nothing” like an expletive, something was indeed wrong. She trembled under his hand.
Good God, what had he said to send her into such a taking?