She glued her lips together.
“Excellent,” he said. “As I was saying, both times, you’ve immediately regretted it. Do you regret it now?”
She bolted up right, inching her chin into the air. “I have never regretted it, Jackson Cavendish. Never.”
“The first time, you pretended like it had never happened. And while you are perched quite comfortably in my lap right now, you’ve grown all stiff. Not a good sign, that. Explain to me, please, how those reactions are not indicative of regret.”
She settled against him. He had the right of it. But she would not bolt this time. “If I’ve regretted anything, it’s hurting you. Something I can’t keep from doing, it seems.”
“Then you do not regret pairing with such an inexperienced lover? You do not wish for a man who can give you more pleasure than I ca—”
She silenced him with a kiss. “No man has ever given me what you have. You light me on fire, and I welcome the burn.”
“Hell,” he whispered as he slid his tongue into her mouth.
She swallowed the curse because it felt like fire in her blood as winter tried to devour them through the glass and shutters. When they pulled apart to quiet their rapid breathing, she settled into a tighter ball against his chest, and he ran light fingers down her back.
“And you?” he asked finally, disrupting the quiet that had settled around them. “What is your last memory of your parents?” Each word quieter than the last. “I’m sorry. I… don’t even know if they are living or—”
“Living. I think.” She could not quite be sure. She’d not seen them or even spoken to them in six years. The last time she’d seen them had been in a crowd of curious Londoners and ambitious journalists. She closed her eyes against the memory of bodies pushing against her, trying to get closer, to tear pieces of her and have her scandal for themselves. Not to share its load, but to gawp at it, to make themselves famous through a brief brush up against her infamy. She swallowed the fear as it crawled up her throat. “We were in a crowd, and people were pulling at us. And I… I reached for them. For help. But they turned away from me.”
He spat out a curse so foul she’d never even attempted it. Then he kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry. I—”
“Do not apologize. I think… I think it must be done. It’s this or run, and I cannot abide the thought of leaving you. I might as well rip out my own heart.”
He squeezed her tight, held onto her as if some current might sweep her away.
A part of her bristled up thorns, or tried to, a way to put more distance between them. But they would not grow. So she rubbed her temple against his jaw with a satisfied catlike purr and said, “You need to shave, Jackson Cavendish.” She didn’t mean it.
He slanted her a glance that revealed he knew she rather liked his scruff. Then he kissed the top of her head, the last thing she remembered before she fell into the haunted dreams of sleep.
Sixteen
Had Jackson thought winning Gwendolyn’s trust would solve everything? Had he truly believed the moment she ran willingly into his arms, the future would open clear as dawn before them?
He had. A little bit. That hope that often made him a fool with her had suggested it, and he’d accepted it with little argument.
Reality proved more complicated.
Messier.
Better than he’d imagined too.
They rode side by side on a mission to speak with the local rector, to pick through his memory for any clue of Jackson’s father’s manuscript. He liked being in step with her rather than several steps behind. Yesterday’s storm between them had broken up the landscape of their relationship and reshaped it.
He rather liked the terrain.
He snuck a glance at her. Her spine was stiff yet elegant perched atop that sidesaddle, and the jauntiest hat sat on her golden hair, deep velvet blue with yellow feathers. Did he want to look at it and appreciate the picture she made or tear it from her head and disarrange that picture entirely? Difficult decisions. She managed the chocolate-brown mare beneath her with a firm kindness she used for all living things, and it responded well to her every command.
One should not find that erotic. He did, though.
Yes, he’d disarrange her.
But first the rector. Not disarranging him. Visiting him. Picking his brain for information, working together to solve a mystery, as they often had in their years together. Jove, he’d hoped focus on such tasks would cool his rising ardor, but it sped along its rampant heat. He enjoyed watching her work.
Above them, the sun shone high and warm and clear, heating the otherwise cold day, and in his gloves, sweat beaded on his palms. From the sun or from her? She certainly heated him more.
“It is a lovely day,” she said, smiling.
