“If I ever see you touch her again, I’ll snap you like a twig.”
Suddenly two small but surprisingly strong hands were on his arm. “Peter,” Lenora cried, breaking through the haze of fury that pounded through his blood. “Stop, Peter.”
Her voice anchored him to sanity, bringing him crashing back to earth. He blinked, looked down at her. Her face was white, pain imprinted in every line and curve.
He stumbled back, away from her touch. His fists loosened on Redburn’s lapels and the man crumpled to the floor, gasping. Peter watched, dazed, as Lenora rushed to his side. She looked him over, her graceful hands skimming the man’s crumpled jacket, before she turned her eyes to him. “Peter, please go.”
The small hitch in her voice was the thing that finally cleared his head. He cast a desperate glance around at the crowd of partygoers. Their faces were alight with shock and horrified glee.
But the sight that destroyed him the most was the horror and disappointment in Lenora’s eyes. Ah, God, what had he done?
Sending her one final, agonized glance, he pushed through the tight group of onlookers until he was outside again in the cool sea air. But even then he couldn’t escape the reality of the monumental mistake he had made.
Chapter 28
Lenora hurried on bare feet down the hall, pausing only a heartbeat before quietly rapping on Peter’s bedroom door. She refused to think about the wisdom—or lack thereof—of what she was doing. After all, the last time they’d been alone in a room, they’d wound up in each other’s arms.
But that would not happen this time. She was too furious to let it.
He opened the door. Before he could react, she pushed past him. His room was dark, not even a fire in the hearth, a single lamp beside the bed the only light. And it smelled of him, dark spice and utterly male. She closed her eyes as memories assailed her, fighting against the pull of them.
“Lenora—” he began.
“No.” She steeled herself and turned to face him. Too late she noticed what she had failed to upon entering: that he was shoeless, shirtless, his hair unbound. He looked like a Viking lord with his feet planted wide, his shoulders a tense line, face hard and hands in tight fists at his side.
But she would not let herself get distracted. She focused on the hurt and anger that had been burning in her breast since the debacle of a scene at the assembly hall.
“What did you think you were about, accosting Lord Redburn like that?”
He flinched at the tightly wound fury in her voice. “It was badly done of me,” he said through stiff lips.
She gaped at him. “Badly done of you? That’s all you have to say?”
The sigh that escaped him sounded agonized, pulled from the bowels of his soul. “What do you want me to say, Lenora?”
“An apology would not be remiss,” she gritted.
“Very well.” He lifted his arms, as if offering himself to her. “I apologize. With every ounce of my being, I apologize. I never meant to create a scene, to embarrass you as I did.”
She slashed a hand through the air, her anger mounting—and her heart aching—with every word that spilled from his lips. Damn him. Why couldn’t he just leave her in peace?
And why did she still care so very much?
“I think Lord Redburn deserves your apology much more than I,” she snapped.
He looked like he might explode, so tense had he become. Then, in the space of a moment, he seemed to deflate. His shoulders dropped, and he looked more haggard than she had ever seen him. “Yes, you’re right. I will apologize when next I see him.”
She gaped at him. Surely he wouldn’t stand there and take whatever she had to give. He was stubborn, and overbearing, and never couched his words. This wasn’t Peter at all.
Fury flared hot, that he would deny her a fight when she was fairly itching for one. “One moment you declare you will not have me. The next you’re attacking a man—my intended, I might add—for touching me. Why, Peter? What do you want from me?”
Finally emotion flared in his face, yet it was dark, and desperate, and called to something deep inside her. He drew in a ragged breath but remained silent.
So this was how it was to be? He would stand there in silence while she railed at him? Fury pounded through her, for all she wanted and could never have. And for all she loved him still.
She advanced on him. “How dare you! How dare you come here and crash into my life and turn everything on its head. I was fine before you came along—”
“You were not fine,” he exploded, the words sounding as if they were ripped from him. “You were a shell, hiding every ounce of emotion you could manage. Do you think I didn’t see how it pained you to draw? How you refused to open yourself up to it?”
