Two Little Lies by Liz Carlyle Page B

possibly mean to me? I fear you think too well of yourself if you imagine I have spared you a thought these last many years.”
    The derision in her voice was too much. He felt a powder keg of old emotions explode in his head. And then, somehow, his mouth was crushing hers. Viviana tried to shove at his shoulders, but reality had spun away, and there was only his frustration, raw and visceral. He drew in her scent, exotic and still too familiar, and urged her back against the desk.
    Viviana moved as if to kick him, but he let his weight bear her down onto the desktop, and caught her wrists. It was as if a driving madness possessed him, compelling him to kiss her, possessively and openmouthed.
    Beneath him, she shuddered and it felt, fleetingly, as if she relaxed. Quin plunged inside her mouth again, and felt lust go spiraling through him, stealing his breath and sending blood rushing. He felt as if he were drowning in her. Desperate for her. Every sense came alive, as if too long dormant. But beneath him, Viviana stiffened, and bit down on his lip. Pain snapped him back to reality.
    With one last desperate jerk, she tore her face from his. “Fa schifo!” she spit, jerking up her knee as if to do him serious injury. “Sporco! Get off me, you bastard English pig!”
    On a quiet curse, Quin shifted his weight away. Too late. Viviana had drawn back her hand and lashed her riding crop hard across his face.
    Suddenly, there was a terrible thud. A short, sharp scream. Quin turned to see Aunt Charlotte lying across his threshold, her eyes rolled back in her head. Esmée stood in the corridor, her hand over her mouth. Two housemaids pressed in behind her, eyes agog.
    Everything happened in a blur. Viviana shoved him away. She bolted across the carpet to Charlotte, the hems of her habit almost sending her sprawling. Esmée fell to her knees, the blood drained from her face.
    He started toward them, but Viviana cried out, forestalling him. “Quin, you fool!” she said, stroking the hair from Charlotte’s face. “Basta! Basta! Now you have killed your aunt!”
    Esmée had her fingertips on the old woman’s throat. “Her pulse is fluttering,” she said. “But she is not dead.”
    Quin stood, frozen in horror. Good God, what had he done now?
    Esmée looked over her shoulder at the gaping housemaids. “Shut the window,” she snapped. “Wynwood, send someone to fetch a doctor. For God’s sake, hurry!”
    Quin was halfway to the door when Aunt Charlotte emitted a pitiful groan. “No…no doctor,” she managed.
    “Oh, poveretta!” Viviana murmured, rhythmically stroking the old lady’s face. “Oh, non ci credo!”
    Viviana looked stricken. Quin plunged into action, pushing his way past the housemaids and bolting for the great hall at a run. Dear God. His life was over. His servants had likely seen everything. Esmée would hate him. Viviana already did. And now he had killed Aunt Charlotte.
     
    Quin lived much of the next half hour in turmoil, pacing the floor in his mother’s private sitting room as he waited for the worst to happen. The footmen had carried his great-aunt to his mother’s suite, the nearest to hand, and the immediate family had slowly gathered there, one by one, their words whispered, their expressions stricken. The aura of death seemed to surround them all, and Quin knew it was his fault.
    But Aunt Charlotte, as it happened, was made of sterner stuff.
    “Nothing is broken,” pronounced Dr. Gould when at last he came out of the bedchamber. “But her pulse is still erratic, as it has often been this last decade or better. I wish her to have a day’s bed rest, and her usual heart tonic. Tomorrow she’ll be her old self, I hope.”
    Quin sagged with relief. “Oh, thank God!” said his mother, clutching a crumpled handkerchief to her breast. “Oh, I feared the worst!”
    Quin’s elderly aunts and uncles commenced a recitation of Charlotte’s many ailments, including her lifelong propensity to faint