A Woman Scorned by Liz Carlyle Page A

suddenly realized, since he had slept well. And Lady Mercer certainly seemed to shake his sanity at odd moments. Absently, Cole pulled the eyeglasses from his face and began to rub hard at his left temple.
    His head was beginning to ache again, and the new glasses had not helped at all. “Perhaps your sons are struggling with their father’s death rather more than I had initially suspected, ma’am,” he finally managed to utter. “And I hope you will take no offence when I say that your children are in need of more attention than I had first believed.”
    Lady Mercer nodded slowly, still looking past his shoulder. She had the look of a woman caught in the web of her own introspection. A woman who, just perhaps, had a few regrets after all. And what sort of regrets? Cole burned to know. In truth, he burned to know her better.
    He did not like her, it was true. She was proud, distant, and almost painfully beautiful to look upon. And it was entirely possible—entirely likely, in fact—that she had had a hand in her husband’s death. But she was a fascinating woman just the same. Moreover, he was a philosopher, a student of human nature, was he not?
    A very devoted student, too, it would seem. For at that very moment, Cole would have cut off his right hand to know what was in Jonet Rowland’s hard, but very obviously melancholy, heart. Perplexingly, however, Lady Mercer neither asked for nor offered further explanation. Instead, her words seemed carefully chosen and hesitantly spoken.
    “His late lordship had many failings, Captain,” she said quietly. “But he
was
an adequate father. Perhaps not the sort I would have chosen for my children, had I any say in the matter. But Lord Mercer did care for his sons, and they loved him deeply. And they now suffer greatly from his loss.”
    Cole politely attempted to keep the cynicism from showing in his face, but apparently he failed. Lady Mercer fixed him with a long, assessing stare, as if taking his measure against some standard he did not understand. A ghost of what looked like regret drifted over her eyes, and abruptly, she shoved aside her sewing, jerked from her chair, and crossed to the window.
    Cole felt tension draw tight in the air as he watched Lady Mercer pull back the draperies and stare out into the street. When at last she spoke, her voice was thick with emotion. “Did you imagine, Captain, that I was so unfeeling as not to know that? That I had failed to notice my children are hurting? If so, let me disabuse you of that notion. I do feel, and I do know it. And it is breaking my heart.”
    Cole could hear the catch in her throat; he could almost see the unshed tears which threatened, and he felt deeply ashamed. He had risen from his seat and unwittingly crossed the room to join her by the window. Lightly, he laid his hand upon her shoulder. “I am sorry, ma’am. I did not mean to imply that—”
    “I do not give a damn what you did or did not mean,” she interjected harshly, spinning away from the window to stare up at him. Cole stood facing her now, but she jerked her eyes away, refusing to hold his gaze, as if she were ashamed of her own weakness. In the pale sunlight, Lady Mercer’s face was wan, her eyes limpid, rapidly blinking. Inside the sheath of black, which she wore with such innate elegance, she seemed almost to tremble.
    In the face of such profound emotion—grief, guilt, pain; he neither knew nor cared—Cole’s gentlemanly instincts rose to the surface. Unfortunately, a few of his more libidinous ones came along with them. He was frustrated to realize how urgently he wished to draw her into his arms, to kiss away the tears that now spiked her long black lashes. She was dangerous.
Wicked
. And yet, in that moment, Cole ceased to care.
    He stood very near to her now, near enough to draw in her exotic fragrance, made more potent by the heat of her emotion. The turn of her cheek and jaw was delicate, her face molded as if from the finest ivory