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“No,” he breathed.
“Yes.” Her voice was sharp. “But it never worked. After the eighteenth time, I couldn’t stop laughing. Not for anything. I inhaled water into my lungs and was bedridden for days on end.”
“Oh. God.”
“What did you think you were doing to me when you called me those names? When you egged on your friends to poke fun at me?”
“But you were so serene. I wasn’t even sure you heard me half the time. You never—” He swallowed his protests. She shouldn’t have to break down in public for him to have a conscience.
“I’ll be the first to admit, Westfeld, that you’re an attractive man. When you’re not being cruel, you can be quite charming. You’re handsome.” Her voice dropped. “And I’m very curious about what we spoke of the other night.”
Such a bare recitation. Any other lady would have gladly accepted him for half as much reason, and he’d be kissing her already. Too bad he didn’t want any other lady. He wanted this one. He was only beginning to realize how much.
“But none of that matters. When I see you, I remember that you made me want to drown rather than be myself.”
He’d known he had been cruel. But this was the first time he’d really felt it, a deep ache that went straight to his bones. He didn’t want to believe that that could be chalked up to his account. How could he ever make up for that?
You can’t, you ass.
He’d never understood what regret meant until now. It wasn’t the pallid sort of wish he’d entertained before. He wished he could reach inside himself and take back what he had done. He didn’t want to be himself any longer.
No words could make it up to her. And perhaps that was precisely what struck him at that moment. He was always going to be the man who had done that to her. No matter how hard he wanted, his past followed him around as faithfully as his shadow. He would always cast darkness on her.
“Well,” he said eventually. “That’s it, then.”
She met his eyes. She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. “That is it.”
When a man was nineteen, he felt invulnerable—as if nothing could touch him. That stupid belief had been the basis of a great many idiotic things that Evan had done in his life. But this notion that all the hurt he’d caused could simply disappear because he wanted it to—that had been the last childish dream he’d held on to. He let go of it now. What you did when you were young could kill you. It just might take years to do it.
“We can still be friends,” she was saying calmly. “Just...not anything else.”
“Friends.”
“Even...even back then, there were times I almost thought I could like you.”
“You are too generous.” The words came out sounding bitter, but he didn’t intend them that way. He wasn’t bitter. He wasn’t. Friendship and kindness from her—it was more than he deserved. Less than he wanted, true, but…
“I haven’t got it in me to give you any more trust than friendship. I’m still not sure I can trust you past three minutes.”
He swallowed. If he’d been his young self, he’d have stalked away in a fit of pique, furious that she’d thwarted him. He would have had his revenge upon her for rejecting him. But he was a great deal older now. And he’d cast enough shadows.
“Good.” He leaned closer to her. “Then in three minutes, we can be friends.”
“Three minutes? Why wait three—”
“Because friends don’t do this,” he replied, and leaned toward her. This time, he didn’t put his arm immediately about her. His lips touched hers. She was still—too still—and for a moment he thought he’d read her wrongly. But then she kissed him back.
She tasted like mint and wild honey. She was soft against him. And, oh, how easy it would be to let his control snap. To see precisely what he could do in the three minutes he’d given himself.
She liked kissing him. He could tell by the tenor of her breathing, by the sound she made in her throat as his tongue traced the seam of her lips.
He could tell because she hadn’t slapped him.
He set his arm around her and pulled her close. When she opened up to him, it felt even better than any of his fantasies. His mind could only envision one part of her body at a time—lips or breasts or buttocks, but never all three together. But here in the flesh she was a solid armful, an overload of good things. He could not break her down into constituent parts. It was just Elaine leaning against him, Elaine that made that sound in her throat, and then, by God, she moved closer, until her chest brushed his. He was on fire for her.
Still, in the back of his head, he could almost hear the inexorable tick of clockwork, as if this tryst were timed by the watch in this pocket. Three, and his other hand crept down her waist, cupping her close. Two, and his tongue sought hers out. One…
One kiss, and he’d come to the end of her trust.
He pulled back. Her fingers had slipped under his elbows, and they bit into his arms, ten little needle points of pressure. He wasn’t sure if she was holding him close or keeping him at arm’s length.
“Westfeld.” Her voice was just a little rough. “I...I...Please don’t do that again.”
He wanted to ask if she’d liked it. He already knew the answer. She’d liked it, but he’d reminded her, once again, of drowning. He wanted to curse.
“No,” he said softly. “We’re simply friends now, and friends don’t do that to each other. Not ever again.”
Chapter Seven
London, nine months later.
When Westfeld had first offered her friendship, Elaine hadn’t believed it. Friendship was a concept men bandied about to save face when they were rejected.
But he had nonetheless become her friend. He didn’t dance continual attendance on her, but he talked to her on regular occasion and he made her laugh. He introduced her to his friends—all his friends, that was, save Lady Cosgrove—and he talked with hers. As word spread of what he had said, she simply stopped being an object of fun. For the first time in a decade, she could go to a ball and breathe.
She couldn’t forgive him—how could she?—but was it so awful to enjoy his company?
“I think,” he said to her on this evening, his voice barely audible over the roar of the crowd at the soirée, “that your seamstress needs a new palette.”
A year ago she’d have bristled, hearing an implied insult. Today she smiled at him indulgently. “Why ever is that? Just because I happen to like pink doesn’t mean you must wear it.”
“That wasn?
??t why.” He grinned. “Although I’ll have you know that I turn out very nicely in pink. And purple. Any man can don white and black. It takes a truly masculine fellow to manage lavender.”
She laughed. And that was the best part of it: she could laugh without flinching. It was still too loud and still too long, but she no longer drew whispers from around the room.
“Then why?” she asked.
“Because one day, I want to see you walk into a room not in any of these watered-down colors.” He reached out and flicked the pale rose of her gown. “I want to see you in vibrant red or dark blue. I want to watch you walk into the middle of the room.” He dropped his voice. “And I want to see you take ownership of it.”
“I—oh—I couldn’t.” But what an enticing vision. Still, she would have to be as unaware as her mother to do that. Everyone would look at her. Everyone would talk, and laugh. “I’m not a middle-of-the-room sort of person,” she said apologetically.
“Yes, you are. You’ve hidden it deep inside you, but you are.” He was watching her, and she felt something all too familiar stir inside of her.
At times like this, she wished he had never kissed her. She could almost call to mind the feel of his lips against hers. It was a disconcerting thought to have about a friend, and he was a friend.
Just a friend, and friends didn’t think about kissing friends. He certainly had put all thoughts of kissing her out of his mind. He was affable. He was amusing. He was even reliable, something she never would have predicted. It was just that he wasn’t going to kiss her, and she wasn’t going to kiss him back.
“I prefer to enter the room like a mouse,” Elaine said, joking to dispel her uncertainty. “I creep very quietly along the wainscoting. Have you ever tried to creep wearing bright red? It can’t be done.” She glanced across the room and caught sight of her mother.
“If something is worth doing,” he said, “it’s worth doing bravely.”
“I’m brave,” she protested. “As brave as a mouse. It takes quite a bit of courage to enter a room populated by people a hundred times your size.”
