hide.”
He arched a brow. “And that matters why?”
“I don’t know,” she said brokenly. She knew she was babbling now, forming not a word of sense.
“Where is the girl with the fire in her belly? The one who has men eating out of her hand? The one who makes me eat out of her hand?” he asked slyly.
“She’s tired.” She sank to the ground, the earthy scent of the summer grasses almost comforting. Elizabeth gave in to the enigmatic look on his rigid face above her. “My father refused the general’s offer because I asked him to. You see, at first I thought Leland Pymm everything noble and courageous, yet as time passed I thought I saw glimpses of an odd and sometimes cruel man behind the façade. I believe I misjudged him initially.” She inhaled sharply, and said disjointedly, “Less than a week after the refusal, my father and Sarah’s husband were killed at the siege of Badajoz. I believe Pymm had a hand in it.”
He grasped her arms and forced her to stand. “Really?”
“I knew you wouldn’t believe it,” she said, unable to keep the peevish tone from her voice.
“No. It’s just I had no idea old Pymm had it in him—never thought he’d like someone as much as he likes himself. A bit gothic, isn’t it?”
“I told you it’s something I can never prove.”
“I’m sorry, but I fear I’ve missed something,” he said. “Why haven’t you just told the sodding goat to go to hell? Tell him you don’t want the piles of money he would lavish on you, or his bloody title. This is the nineteenth century, not the Middle Ages, is it not? I’m beginning to think you’re the one who is…Christ, he didn’t ravish you, did he? Ruin you for…”
Her heart melted a little. He did not once question her certainty of Pymm’s guilt, despite her complete lack of evidence.
It meant everything to her. Even Sarah had had grave reservations, and in her heart, Elizabeth feared her friends were helping her despite their own serious doubts as well. Sarah, and Ata, and all of her friends were loyal to a fault.
“Of course he did not ravish me. Don’t you think my father taught me how to defend my virtue? I know where a man’s vulnerable parts are.”
His lips were trembling, and she very much feared it was with laughter.
“I won’t forgive you if you laugh at me right now.”
A wicked smile curved his lips but not a sound escaped. “So…what sort of hold does he have on you, Elizabeth?”
“I did not give you leave to use my Christian name.”
His silent mocking smile was all she was to receive.
“I’ve told you everything of importance,” she insisted quietly. “Now, let go of me.”
“Or what?” he murmured. “About to breach my vulnerable parts, are you?”
“No. Yours are not in the usual place.”
He gaped at her. “Really? And just where are they?”
She looked up at the hardened planes of his lean face—a face that gave away nothing and wanted nothing. Here stood a human island buffeted by the winds of his ruinous past.
And she took a chance.
All at once she stood on her tiptoes and gently, oh-so-gently, brushed her lips against his firm mouth. “Here,” she whispered.
He exhaled roughly with a hiss.
“And here,” she continued, pressing her lips against the hollow of his faintly whiskered cheek. She pulled back slightly to examine his reaction.
He stood as expressionless and still as a sentry at St. James Palace. Only his eyes tracked her.
She pressed another kiss on his neck and felt his Adam’s apple bob. It was the only sign that she had breached the emotional landscape of a man who had formed private walls more secure than any fortress. She suspected he revealed himself to no one, not even to himself. It was the effect of grave deprivation in his childhood, something that could never be overcome. Yet she offered tenderness in the face of such stark austerity of emotions. Her hands barely touched him as they moved toward his taut belly—the root of his
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