With every breath, every blink, every thought.
“About the ruination?” she added.
Who had ruined her? Hollingsworth? Or had it been someone before him?
She turned her focus to the balloon and looked at it lovingly. “I don’t see something that’s been torn asunder. Each of these rips, when repaired, will be like a scar. Scars fascinate me. They are a symbol that life came hard and fast and perhaps without mercy and the scar bearer told it to bugger off. Every scar is a story. Of survival, or pain, or, for some, perhaps the very worst day of their lives. Sometimes looking at them makes the unpleasantness difficult to forget. They’re a reminder. However not only of what happened, but that we defeated it, that in the end we were stronger. We survived.”
She turned her attention back to him. “But not all scars are visible, are they, my lord?”
He felt as if she was staring straight into hissoul, poring over it, encountering the scars, examining them. Yet he was powerless to see hers. Oh, certainly, he could view the injuries the storm had inflicted. Perhaps some might leave a shallow scar—but what others might she already harbor? For surely, she must have a few in order to speak so passionately about what they could represent.
She’d spoken with such honesty, such forthrightness, such conviction.
She’d held him mesmerized. So much about her did. She deserved his honesty. His truth.
“I determined not having you at all was better than having you for only a few hours. I switched my cards that night because never in my life had I ever wanted to kiss a woman more.”
Chapter 14
Marlowe’s breath caught, held, until finally like the air in a balloon, it slowly leaked out. The way he’d looked at her that night—no other man had ever regarded her with so much heat in his eyes, like a fire slowly simmering until it was smoldering.
Oh, certainly, she’d seen want, lust, and yearning. She’d reveled in her ability to bring it to the fore, to be able to create such desire. But it had been different with him. Terrifyingly so.
When Hollie had offered her up, she’d objected because her body had been reacting as his eyes had, until every inch of her was so heated, hot, that she’d been certain if he touched her, she’d combust. Perhaps they both would. Much as she’d once witnessed a hot-air balloon going up in flames. It had happened so quickly, so unexpectedly, there had been no time to react. She’d been able to only watch in horror.
Yet it hadn’t deterred her from taking the same risk each time she ascended into the air. Sitting herenow, she knew the same was true when it came to Langdon.
From the moment she’d awakened in his presence, she’d been tamping down her unbridled longing. How could she want a man who didn’t fancy her? Only, he did. Quite powerfully, according to his words and the manner in which he now looked at her.
She’d misread him before, thought he’d been disgusted by her.
It was so much easier to be in his presence when she believed that to be the case. But the truth, dear God, the truth made it so much harder to resist the temptation that was Viscount Langdon.
Was he disgusted with himself, with his yearning for the woman she was, a woman kept? He hadn’t treated her as if he had no respect for her, but then as a gentleman he was unlikely to show unkindness or be rude or give her a cut direct.
Reaching out, she grabbed the area of cloth she’d been working on and dragged it onto her lap. Quickly she plucked up the needle, hoping he would do the same with his. It would be easier to say what she wanted to say if he wasn’t watching her so intensely. Everything about the man was extremely passionate whether he was reading, eating, or sewing. She suspected his kiss left a woman in a pool of fevered sensuality.
Finally, finally, he looked at the tip of his finger that she’d licked and, she assumed, after confirming it was no longer bleeding, returned to stitching up the cloth, creating a scar that would forever remind her of him when she was aloft. She’d alreadymemorized the exact spot. Besides, it would be easy enough to find because his needlework was not as refined as hers. And yet in a way she thought it more beautiful.
“At the College of Arms, as I’m sure you’re aware because you’re no doubt included, is a document known as the Roll of the Peerage in which every title and the name of its holder is listed. A Registrar of Arms showed it to us and explained no Earl of Wishingham had ever existed. The gentleman, bless him, spent hours searching for my father’s name, on the off chance we had the title wrong.” She shook her head. “But he was nowhere to be found. My mother wasn’t a countess, I wasn’t a lady, and my father wasn’t a lord.” She was acutely aware of him going still, but she continued to pull needle and thread through the cloth, quickly, hurriedly, her fingers keeping pace with the memories dashing through her mind. “My mother decided we would return home—because we certainly hadn’t the means to stay in London—but we wouldn’t tell anyone what we’d discovered. She was mortified and didn’t want her friends or associates to know what a fool she’d been.”
“She wasn’t alone. The entire village had been duped.”
“Oh, but she’d married him, kept him there. They’d given him goods and services without requiring payment. She feared they might demand payment of her, if the truth ever came out. Of course, we had no idea who his family truly was. Where they lived. How to find them. If they were in a position to help. They could have been as pooras church mice. She didn’t want to be a burden to them.” She hugged the cloth briefly. “She never wanted to be a burden to anyone.”
“How did you manage?”
She glanced over at him. One leg was bent, an arm draped across his raised knee. Did he always have to look so bloody masculine? “The cloth isn’t going to mend itself.”
A corner of his mouth hitched up. “Regretting that you ever started the tale?”
Slowly she shook her head. “Where I am, Langdon, is not where I ever expected to be. And yet, eventually, it seemed an inevitable course.”
He skimmed his thumb along her jaw, stopping when he reached her chin, his forefinger joining the effort to stop her from turning away. “I’m not sitting in judgment, Marlowe.”
“I thought you were that night. I believed that was the reason you cheated.”
He tilted his head slightly. “Is it cheating if I lose?”
