Page 56

His horses whinnied. Wisps of dust floated through the beam of light streaming from the window. Tension held too long pulsed within his eyes. In the darkness behind his lids, he listened to her labored exhale. Each hitched breath lacerated him anew.

“I apologize,” he rasped.

In slow, jerky motions, she lowered her arm, but her gaze remained fixed to the floor at her side. Sweat had misted and curled the dewy hair at her temples. Her pale skin made the clean line of her jaw more severe. Tears caught between her lashes.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do. The only thing he wanted to do was hold her close.

He felt as if he’d opened his eyes to a completely different world.

But he wasn’t alone. And suddenly that was all that mattered.

“That wasn’t fair. I—I—” What could he say? As a man of honor, as her guardian, and as her friend, he’d utterly failed. She had to forgive him.

“Lenora...” Her name came out as a whisper. Please.

He shook his head.

The thought of begging sent a slight shiver down his arm, making his hand tremble. No. He’d never beg again. And yet a thin, high-pitched squeal rang in his ears.

Do something, you lily-livered fool.

But he remained fixed, rooted. Color returned to her face, not evenly, but in blotches, as if thinned blood could only paint her cheeks in fragments.

“Lenora...” he started again, still raspy but, this time, loud enough for her to hear.

She turned her head in uneven, spastic measures. “Fr—friends...”

She’d spat the poorly constructed word at his chest.

“Yes,” he said softly. “We agreed to be friends.”

“Friends tell each other the truth.” Her shallow breath quickened, as if summoning the effort to speak. She raised her gaze. “Why wouldn’t friends,” her voice grew loud, spare and harsh, “be free to ask one another questions?” Her chest expanded. “Friends confide in one another, Asquith.”

Ah, Lenora. A sharp sting prickled on the bridge of his nose.

He’d never confided in anyone. He wasn’t free with his tongue. Ever. Not even Neville knew for certain how he felt about his worst day.

Words had a way of whipping back and scourging.

“Is that why you spoke about me to Amelia?” he asked. “Because she’s becoming your friend?”

“You pompous cad!” An angry crease furrowed her eyebrows. “You weren’t the only topic we discussed.”

Her face was awash with color now. Was an angry Lenora better than a despondent one? He could not decide.

Both disordered his mind.

She glared. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked her what you were like in your first Seasons, but clearly, I couldn’t ask you.”

His throat roughened. All this, because Lenora had wanted to know what his early years in London had been like?

“What did she say?” he asked.

“She described you as cold.”

The devil. He had worked himself up for nothing. And he had made Lenora cower.

Lenora wrapped one arm around her waist and cupped her forehead with the other. “But if you need some excuse to hold me in contempt, I will admit to testing the limits of my promise not to talk about you on one occasion.”