Sensation shattered her every thought.
“Elizabet.”
Marie froze.
Elizabet?
She plunged to realty with a sickening lurch.
Colyne’s eyes widened at the realization of what he’d said, the fire within shattering to panicked disbelief. “Oh, God. I am sorry.”
She shoved away from him as her cheeks burned with mortification and jerked up her gown. The entire time he’d been kissing her, touching her, he’d been thinking of another!
He reached toward her. “Alesia, I—”
“Stay away from me!” Her words trembled, filled with the shame of what she’d allowed. Memories of how the Earl of Archerbeck, a man she’d loved in her past, and a man who had used her for his own gain, had tainted her senses like bile in her throat. An ache built inside. She knew better than to trust a man, a lesson Archerbeck had taught her all too well.
“How dare you!” Shaking with disbelief at her own weakness, Marie took another step back. How could she have allowed a stranger past her barriers? Have responded to him with complete abandon?
Or wanted him even now?
A ruddy hue swept across his cheeks. He shook his head. “You do nae understand.”
“You are wrong,” she replied with as much dignity as she could muster. “I understand completely.”
He caught her shoulders as she turned to run.
Marie glared at him, unsure if anger or humiliation guided her actions. Or both. “Release me!”
As he stared at her, his eyes darkened with sorrow, and she remembered him mumbling Elizabet’s name during his fever. “You love her?” At his silence, she wrenched free. She was a fool to punish herself this way, but she needed to hear him admit the truth.
He watched her a moment longer, the regret in his eyes matching her own.
“Colyne,” she urged.
A muscle worked in his jaw, and then his expression grew unreadable. “’Tis nae a subject I will be wanting to discuss.”
The quiet calm of his voice stoked her ire. How could he retreat with such stoic efficiency while her emotions still roiled? “I did not ask for your kiss.”
“You did nae,” he rasped.
“After what has passed between us, do you not think I deserve an explanation?”
Apology burned in his deep blue eyes. He swallowed hard. “Elizabet is someone I once cared about. She chose another.”
Cared about?From the heartache in his words, he loved Elizabet still. “Why did you kiss me?”
“When I awoke with you in my arms . . . God help me, I wanted you.”
“Non,” she charged, angry he’d used her in place of another woman. “You wanted Elizabet. Deny it.”
Anger clouded his face. As quick, defeat. “You are wrong, ’twas you who drew me.”
Marie opened her mouth to disagree and then refrained. As if her own actions were proper? She was promised to Gaston de Croix, Duke of Vocette. A marriage that would take place before summer’s end. Yet she had returned Colyne’s kisses, shivered at his touch, as if she had the right to give her favors to another man.
Her guilt grew.
How could she condemn Colyne for saying the name of a woman he obviously loved? He had his own life, one that didn’t include her.
