She recognized he sought to distract her from the fraught conversation. He didn’t need to say he’d sealed that confession inside him since his unhappy childhood.
Yet he’d told her.
Guilt tasted like bile on her tongue. After tonight, she couldn’t pretend her only importance to him was as a temporary mistress.
Somewhere in the last days, her life had meshed with his. Passion was a bright golden thread in the tapestry, but it wasn’t the only color in this rich weave. There was liking and shared humor and mutual, unacknowledged loneliness.
Her pain when he told her about his mother was a terrifying sign of how profoundly she was involved. Pain worsened by proof he trusted very few people, and now he trusted her—and she was as fated to betray him as the sun was to rise on the morrow.
The urge to confess her misdeeds rose like a tide. She dammed the impulse. What did she expect him to do if she told him she used him for her own selfish purposes?
If she delayed the revelation of her perfidy, she had a chance at brief happiness. Except what lurked in her heart didn’t feel like happiness. It felt like treason. She hated that she was such a coward.
He carried her up the magnificent staircase, past leering plaster cherubs and smug young men staring out from huge paintings. Her hand tightened around Ashcroft’s neck as they approached the room where five days ago she’d sampled paradise. For all her turbulent self-hatred, excitement pounded like a drum with every step closer.
He kicked open the door so it slammed hard against the wall. So swiftly that her surroundings became a blur, he crossed the sitting room into the candlelit bedroom.
The unseen presence of Lord Peregrine’s staff was everywhere. In the vases of sweet-scented lilies on each flat surface. In the turned-down sheets, waiting in crisp readiness. In the windows open to the garden, catching any phantom breeze that offered relief from endless heat.
Panting, Ashcroft slid her onto the bed and followed her down. Automatically, she parted her legs so he settled between them, trapping her skirts. He raised himself on his elbows and stared at her as if she were the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.
Still, he didn’t kiss her.
She’d die if he didn’t kiss her soon.
Tenderness ran beneath hunger like rich harmony under the melody of a symphony. She smoothed his black hair from his brow. His hair was thick and soft. Softer than William’s. He closed his eyes as if savoring her touch.
His revelations burned her mind, stabbed her heart.
She’d known love. Her father. Her mother. Laura. William.
Ashcroft had never known genuine affection.
That made her want to cry. And cherish him forever.
She ached for the ostracized child. A piercing mixture of pity and pain coiled inside her. She tried to stifle her futile yearning to make everything better, cure the ills of his past.
How could she save him when she was so utterly irredeemable?
He opened his green eyes and smiled. Not his usual worldly, cynical smile. Something sweet and dear that made him look ten years younger. Her susceptible heart lurched with agonized longing.
“I told you I was too heavy,” she said, her voice cracking.
She wanted him to tell her more of his past, so she could try to heal him. But when he found out the truth, he’d think she pried these confidences from him to forward her deception.
“Desperation lends me strength.” Laughter bubbled in his voice like champagne.
“Not the answer I wanted,” she retorted without venom. She lifted her other hand and began a gentle exploration of his face. Tracing the arrogant black brows, the blade of his nose, the slashing cheekbones, the hard angles of his jaw. “Mmm, you’ve shaved since I saw you this afternoon.”
He laughed softly, pressing into her touch with a naturalness that sent another jolt to her heart. “I needed to pass the time before you deigned to arrive.”
“You could pass the time now by kissing me,” she murmured in amused reproof, loving the playful give-and-take.
Every second’s delay built delicious expectation. In spite of lies and betrayal, she was happy. And happiness, especially since William’s death, was rare enough for her not to dismiss it, however unexpected, however undeserved.
More than anything, she wanted to share that happiness with her lover. She suspected that pure, unfettered happiness was a fleeting visitor in his life too.
“You’re a demanding baggage,” he said with equal lack of heat.