That train of thought seemed both dangerous and inauspicious, and Matilda stopped it in its tracks. The man had not even slept with her, for heaven’s sake. He had barely been willing to let her travel to Northumberland with him. He did not want to install her in his country estate and keep her there forever, no matter what her ridiculous heart wanted to hope for.
He had been married. It had been, as far as she could tell, a disaster. She could not possibly hope to tempt him to enter into such an arrangement again.
And oh Lord, some spanking and an orgasm and she was plotting how to get the man to propose. She had gone mad. She needed to get some air. She needed to go check on her cat.
Cautiously, she slithered out from underneath Christian’s arm. He sighed and muttered something in his sleep, then caught her about the waist and pulled her back against his body.
She was fairly certain the man was aroused which wasnot at all interesting.
“God,” he mumbled. One hand cupped her breast, and he gave an appreciative grunt. “Matilda. I—”
He froze.
Ah, there it was. Consciousness. Recollection. Regret.
She tried not to feel hurt. She tried not to feel anything at all. “Good morning,” she said. Somehow, her voice was as crisp and cool as if she’d greeted him on the street and not naked in his bed with his erection pressing into her backside.
He let her go and rolled to his back, where he lay as motionless as a corpse.
The sun was fully risen now; the light through the window had brightened. It burned her eyes.
She sat up and wrapped the bedsheet about herself, leaning against the spindled bedframe. “Perhaps you will go downstairs and procure breakfast while I dress.”
“Matilda.” He sat up as well, and she did not want to look over at him. “I’m sorry. I should not have taken advantage of you the way that I did.”
She gritted her teeth. “You did not take advantage of me.”
“I did. Your youth, your inexperience—”
Oh, she wanted to throw down the bedsheet and leap upon him. She wanted to shove him out of the bed and onto the floor. She wanted to cry.
“I am not entirely inexperienced,” she said stiffly. “Perhaps not as experienced as you are, nor as old as you are, but I am not some virtuous young miss. I am a Halifax Hellion.”
Was her reputation good for nothing, then? She had acted so outrageously, so absurdly these last seven years—to protect Margo, to push back against a society that told her to be quiet and demure, that told her some made-up notion of virtue and decorum meant more than who she really was. And yet—what had it gained her?
She and Margo had not changed the world. They had not even changed theton.All that scandal and it was not enough to convince this man, whom she wanted beyond all sense or reason, to see her as his equal in the bedchamber.
“Nonetheless,” he said, his voice a bit uneven, “I accepted responsibility for your safety when I agreed to bring you to Bamburgh. I have not acted as I ought.”
She turned to look at him then. His hand lay open on the sheet, and as she watched, his fingers flexed. She longed to drop her hand, to link her fingers with his. The desire to touch him was so powerful, she almost succumbed: she wanted to place her palm at the center of his chest and feel the steady beat of his heart.
“I assure you,” she said, “I am perfectly safe.”
Though it did not feel true. It was dangerous to want too much. She knew that.
He did not look at her. “I can bring up some breakfast. I am sorry, Matilda. What happened last night cannot happen again in Bamburgh. It should not have happened at all.”
“To be sure,” she said. And though she had expected it—hadknownthis was how he would react—her heart gave a painful little twist in her chest.
Was he ashamed—to be seen with her? In front of his sister?
He did not mean that. She did not think he meant that. Only she could not be certain.
Her chest felt tight with regret, and she could not be sure what it was that she regretted. Her reputation? Would it have helped, just now, if she’d been a perfect lady like his marchioness? She did not think so. Had she lived that way—coy and retiring, hiding herself behind her fan—she would have lost some part of herself.
She would have lost Margo.
Christian got out of bed. He still wore his trousers, and he slipped his rumpled shirt over his head before he left the room.
