Page 39 of Forgotten No More

“Mayhap to visit your dear mother again?” He knew she’d used the excuse with Lady Haversham to cry off the night’s entertainment for an activity a bit more risky in nature. Her startled look told him he’d guessed correctly. “I thought not.”

“You’re insufferable. Why can you not leave me to my own devices?”

“Because your own devices could get you caught in another compromising situation—that includes a man not as honorable as I.”

“Honorable?” she huffed.

“Yes.” His voice rose in volume.

“An honorable man would not insert himself into the business of a lady who does not specifically need nor want it.”

“Perhaps what you need is a nursemaid.”

Her face flamed red in fury. “A nursemaid? I take it back, you are not insufferable, you are completely and totally senseless.”

“I will show you senseless!” Before she could move, Harold grabbed her, wrapping his arms tightly around her. He leaned her back and smashed his lips to hers. She struggled to push him away, but her arms were pinned between them. After several long seconds, he felt the moment when she conceded, her lips parted, allowing his tongue to explore. It only took a moment before her tongue sparred with his, seeking control as she always did.

Without warning, he let her go and stood her upright. “How was that for senseless?” he asked, slightly breathless.

She stared at him, eyes as wide as saucers, gathering her next words.

And Harold knew from the sparks that flew from her glare, those words would cut him to the quick.

“You vulgar, unbearable man! How dare you take such liberties with me?”

“You didn’t seem to mind the liberties I took at the playhouse.”

“I’m not some common woman who would take up with a man out of wedlock.” The similarities to her mother’s actions and her own—at the same playhouse—were not lost on her, but she would not fall into the trap her mother had. No matter how right his hands upon her had felt, or how much she wanted his mouth upon hers again, she was not so easily led astray.

“I never suggested you were any such thing,” he said, confused. “It was little more than a touch—a touch that had you all but purring beneath my hand this eve. Your moods change with the hours.”

She knew that if he was like other men, he would expect more. A simple touch here or a kiss there was never enough. He would ask more and more of her; before she knew it, she would be madly in love with him and forsake her own ideals to please him. Ruby had read of the way her mother was discarded, ridiculed, for her love. She was not willing to trust any man with the power to destroy her heart.

“Why do you continue to plague me?” she asked, desperate to push him away before it was too late.

“I plague you to keep you safe.”

Of course he did. Everything he did was to protect her, but she didn’t want that. “You are mistaken if you think any woman will long for your knight in shining armor act. You are little better than the men about the stage tonight. All show with little to no substance.” His despondent look told her she’d said exactly the right thing. Precisely what it would take to drive a wedge between them that would prove unfixable. “You don’t belong here. You belong in the country with other such small-minded peasant folk.”

The hurtful, angry words dripped off her tongue, taking with them a little piece of her. Of all people, Ruby knew how it felt to be wounded by another. To do everything in one’s power to make another love you and take notice, only to be speared straight through the heart by evil words or a cold shoulder.

“Is that what you think of me? A simple-minded dullard?” The sorrow in his words almost had her apologizing for every syllable she’d uttered since the day they’d met.

But she knew she had to push on. “The true fools never see it for themselves. I think it best for everyone involved if you go back to your father’s home and take over the vicarage, where you clearly belong—and let me find where I belong.”

“Is that how you truly feel?” His eyes searched hers.

She wanted to weep, knowing she’d caused the pain in his gaze.

“Yes. I have been trying to tell you for days.” She pronounced every word carefully, as if explaining the simplest thing to a child. “Leave me be, stay out of my life, and—for the Lord’s sake—hang up your suit of armor before you impale yourself on your own sword.”

Chapter 16

Harold stared at amber liquid as he swirled it in his glass. He had no idea what it was, but he was sure it wouldn’t burn as much as Ruby’s words had. He wanted nothing more than to swallow his drink in one gulp and then continue through the remaining liquor in the crystal decanter sitting next to him.

Maybe he was the weak man both Ruby and his father thought.

The next rational step was drunkard. Titleless, fortuneless, and a drunkard; what more could his father have predicted for him?