A broad hand, painted tan by the fierce Spanish sun, covered hers.
“Verity…”
She would not turn. She wouldn’t.
And yet she did, meeting his forest-green gaze. Not at all empty as she had depicted on the battlefield but full of life and verve. And she didn’t understand how he could not blame her for upending his life.
From the nature he adored to war.
From flowers and life to mayhem and death.
But then he bent near and she merely closed her eyes, let herself feel for once.
Waited.
“My intention was to hear the truth from you,” he said with a rasp. “But I never seem to care about the truth when you are close. Because all is just as it should be.”
And his lips met hers, this time languid and soft. A sweet reunion of disparate sensations: the rough bark of the tree at her back and the soft treacherous warmth of his kiss.
A first kiss for an innocent debutante.
Not a twenty-four-year-old spinster who’d lost her bloom. One with no status amongst theTonor dowry for an earl. One with fractures.
So Verity drew aside. “I should go,” she muttered, feeling every kind of coward.
A nod and he likewise drew aside, arms wide. “Go then, Verity. As you always do. But you can’t hide yourself away in that little box forever.”
She stilled. “No.” Her lashes fell and she closed her eyes for a moment. “But it’s the safest place I have.”
15
“THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS IS A GENTLEMAN!”
(W. SHAKESPEARE)
Walnut desk, bookcases, globe, a few lit candles to counter the dusk, papers and a bloodhound dozing in front of glowing coals.
A study fit for a gentleman.
Or a Prince.
A smart manservant had shown him here, eyes lowered as he’d murmured the Prince would join him shortly, so now Miles paced and waited, the rumble of laughter and clack of dice echoing from the floor below.
On the panelled wall, a painting caught his eye and he approached it. A woman with dark tussled tresses was dashing through a meadow, pale-pink skirts melding with the wild blooms, and her expression was one of such freedom and joy.
She reminded him of a young Verity, of a day when a single glance from her had ignited in him the innocent joy of requited love.
The meadow flowers were of spring and… “Somerset,” he murmured to himself, “the Vale of Tau–”
A hand spun him, another tight at his throat that shoved him to the panelling, his head thudding. “What the bloody–”
In his years of service, Miles had encountered many a broken man, their vacant stares betraying shattered spirits, but this man’s pitch-black gaze outdid them all. Not to mention the stealth of his entrance…
“What of it?” the Prince snarled, his grip tightening.
Miles remained calm.
Then prodded the man’s gizzards with the knife he’d freed as soon as that hand had spun him.
