Lockhart poured two glasses of brandy and mounted the stairs. The anticipation of what awaited him beyond the bedchamber door raised a satisfied smile. Indeed, he almost chuckled aloud when plotting the ways he might tease the woman currently waiting in bed.
Gripping both glasses in one hand, he turned the doorknob and entered the room.
Miss Darling’s faint gasp reached his ears. The lady sat propped up against a mound of pillows. Like a virgin on her wedding night, unease flickered in her eyes. With the fire still burning in the grate, she had no reason to be cold. Yet she’d thrust her hands beneath the gold coverlet and pulled it up to her chin.
“Your brandy,” he said, placing the glass on the side table next to the bed.
She offered him a weak smile, but his attention shifted to the silky blonde tresses spilling over her shoulders. During the month he’d stayed at the cottage, he had never seen her hair down. She looked virtuous, angelic, so beautiful it only made him want her all the more.
“You look more relaxed with your hair loose,” he said to justify why he happened to be staring for so long. His rampant imagination formed images of what lay beneath the blankets. She had trim ankles—he knew that much—perhaps shapely calves, too, and soft thighs that flared into curved hips and—
Damnation!
If he didn’t dampen his ardour, she’d get a shock once he’d stripped to his shirt.
Deciding conversation was the best way to proceed if he hoped to think of anything other than Miss Darling’s naked body, he said, “What were your initial impressions of Terence and Selina?”
Miss Darling straightened a little upon hearing the question. “A small part of me pitied them. Though I doubt they have suffered as you have. The sight of you caused them both great pain.”
“And the large part?”
“Despised them for not welcoming you home, for not throwing their arms around you, for not giving you the comfort you deserve.”
He sipped his brandy while studying her over the rim of the glass. Her honesty hit a nerve. It took an effort to dismiss the heavy cloud of sadness forming. “I despise them, too, for the reasons you so eloquently explained.”
Silence descended.
“Were they always so cold and unfeeling?” she asked.
Lockhart wasn’t sure where to take this conversation. He suspected this was the first question of many, and so he placed his glass on the mantel and set about slowly undressing.
“No, not always.”
Memories came flooding back.
Being the younger brother, Terence had once respected Lockhart’s opinion. For a time they were inseparable. They went riding together, hunting, played piquet. They often vied for the same girl’s attention—all part of the game—all part of brotherly camaraderie.
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Miss Darling said. “We can blow out the candles and go to sleep. But if you need to talk, know that what is spoken between us is said in the strictest confidence. Know I would never betray a trust.”
“I know,” he said as his chest grew warm and the strange feeling of nerves and excitement surfaced again. Perhaps he was standing too clo
se to the fire. Perhaps, despite believing he could never trust anyone fully, this odd connection he shared with Miss Darling meant she was different.
“We used to be close,” he said, shrugging out of his black coat and throwing it over the chair flanking the fire. “It changed in those last few months before I fled to India. It changed when I grew closer to Selina.”
“Selina?” Miss Darling seemed puzzled. “Was that before or after she married your brother?”
“Before.” He tugged at the ends of his cravat and loosened the knot. “While we’d failed to make any formal announcement, our parents expected we would marry. The night I left for Portsmouth, I asked her to join me, to elope, but she declined.”
“Oh, I see.” Miss Darling fell silent as she stared, trance-like, at the swirling pattern on the coverlet.
“One might say that being rivals in love is a good motive to commit murder,” he said, his thoughts returning to Terence as he pulled the cravat from around his neck. The motion made him think of what it might be like to feel the rough strands of the hangman’s rope chafing his skin.
“That explains why the lady had conflicting emotions upon seeing you.” Miss Darling sighed. “Nothing about this situation is simple.” She paused and did not look at him directly when she said, “Do you still love her?”
Love? He knew nothing of the emotion.
He’d been a young man, blinded by beauty, believing in loyalty, believing that any sentiment expressed came from the heart. Lies and deceit were foreign words, murder something one read about in the broadsheets.