She blinked, arrested. “What?”
His ears were pink, but his face did not break from its stern lines. “It was the first time for me.”
Somewhere inside himself, Henry groaned. He had not meant to admit that.
He was panicked, utterly at sea. He’d woken in the gray hours of pre-dawn, Margo fast asleep on his chest, her body a warm marvel of freckles and curves. He’d wanted her instantly, insanely; he wanted to wake her with his mouth on her quim. He wanted to never let her sleep any way but this, sprawled across him, her hair tickling his mouth.
He wanted to tell her he loved her. He wanted to tell her that he’d always loved her, that he would sell his soul to be inside her once more.
And he wanted to run. He didn’t know how to do this any longer. Everything had shifted, a sea change in who they were to one another. Was he supposed to pretend things were as they had always been?
What if, when she woke, she flashed those crooked teeth in a grin and acted as though nothing untoward had occurred? He would not put it past her: one more adventure, one more laughing plunge into delight.
But—it was both better and worse to contemplate—what if she woke and wanted him again?
What then?murmured his heart.What then?
He had no future with her. She was the daughter of an earl, he the son of a pipe-fitter. Even if she did not care about such things—and in truth, he knew she did not—she wasMargo.She was life and joy and adventure, and he was the man at the side of the room, watching her light. He was no fit match for her.
And he didn’t know if he could have her again, without having her forever.
But then she did wake, and he promptly lost his mind. He wanted her—Christ, he wanted her so much—the previous night had not taken even the edge off his black lust for her. But he’d panicked, too: afraid she would say what she wanted from him, afraid she would want nothing from him at all.
When she’d said she was ruined, something had split in his heart. Some dam inside him had burst, and he was going to tell her that he loved her, consequences be damned. But instead the words that had spilled from his lips had been a confession of his recently lost virginity, which was not precisely the way he’d imagined declaring his affections.
“Henry,” she said, blue eyes round as coins, “how is that possible?”
“In the regular way, I imagine.” Jesus Christ, his face was on fire. “I’d not performed that particular act. I had—I was not—I was not entirely new to the experience.”
Henry prayed for lightning to strike him, but none seemed forthcoming.
She blinked once, very slowly.
It was suddenly very important to impress upon her that he had not been a complete novice in sexual relations.
Jesus. Had heseemeda complete novice?
“There are preliminary acts. Which I had, of course, engaged in. Before, er, last night.”
She blinked again, then nodded. “Yes, I’m not surprised. You seemed—” She appeared as lost for words as he was. “You seemed not to, er, require a map.”
This was a disaster. There was no coming back from any of this.
He had not precisely intended to pursue a lifestyle of celibacy. At twenty-one, when he’d first met Margo, he’d been bookish and shy—no opportunities to indulge in fleshly pleasures had presented themselves, and he had been too reticent to seek them out. And after he’d met Margo—
He’d never met anyone who held a candle to her. He’d tried, several times, to disengage his interest from Margo, to make himself admire someone else, but all to no avail. After those failures, he’d taken a passive tack. Surely, he’d thought, surely someday his heart would abandon its hopeless fixation on her.
He was not making very good progress on that front.
“I’m going to dress,” he said. “And then we’re going to ride to the next town.”
“You are?” Margo bit her bottom lip. “We are?”
He tried to ignore those two crooked teeth, sunk into the pink curve. He tried not to think of how frantic with need he had been when she’d bitten his lip the same way.
“Yes. Eat your cheese.”
She looked down at her reticule, then back up at him. “Do we have a horse to ride?”
