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And yet. . .
Still difficult to credit, but Antonia hadn’t been a virgin when Ranelaw took her. At least one lover lurked in her past. Disbelief warred with the impossible suspicion that Antonia’s previous lover must be this lugubriou
s weasel.
How many women had eyes that particular shade of blue, which, curse Benton, he could picture immediately? Eyes of that unusual blue and hair like moonlight? Benton couldn’t have described her more accurately if Antonia had stood before them in all her splendor.
No, it was absurd. She preyed on his mind and inspired him to ridiculous fancy.
But he couldn’t leave it alone. If he added up the years Benton mentioned, she was the right age. Fear of a scandal might explain why she bundled herself in those god-awful rags, hid behind tinted spectacles, and played a humble companion when anyone with eyes could tell blue blood ran in her veins.
Then there was her anomalous treatment from the Demarests. Her bedroom was suitable for an aristocratic lady. However fond Cassie was of her companion, this seemed generous provision for someone little above a servant.
Antonia, Benton’s lover? Ranelaw couldn’t believe it. He refused to believe it. She was a thousand times too good for the worm.
Benton sucked in a shuddering breath, then to Ranelaw’s absolute disgust, lowered his head to the table and burst into theatrical sobs. The maid rushed to his side, bleating comfort, but Benton was beyond consolation.
Ranelaw scowled at the rogue’s heaving shoulders while his brain worked busily at what he’d learned. Could Antonia be Benton’s lost love?
Surely not. After all, Benton mentioned a brother and Antonia had no family. There must be other women in England who could carve a rift in a man’s heart so deep that it never knitted. Other women who were tall and blond and had eyes the color of the sky.
Striving to rein in his rioting imagination, he shifted his gaze from the overwrought Benton to the congealing remains of his meal. His gut insisted that Antonia was Benton’s mysterious beloved. His brain insisted she couldn’t be.
The Antonia he knew wouldn’t have a bar of this man’s overweening vanity. She was too shrewd, too suspicious, and she had a jaded view of humanity, or at least the male half.
What if that jaded view resulted from her affair with Benton?
Because Ranelaw couldn’t mistake the source of Benton’s guilt. Ten years ago, Benton had been breathtakingly handsome. Antonia at seventeen would have seen considerably less of the world than she’d seen since. She wouldn’t be the first female to fall for a pretty face with no character behind it.
Had this bastard ruined her?
Ranelaw clenched his hands on the table. The yen for violence was a rusty taste in his mouth. He burned to beat the slug to a bloody pulp.
Steady, man, you don’t even know he’s talking about Antonia. You leap to conclusions faster than a hungry trout leaps after a fly.
Nonetheless his gut assured him he was right. His gut was never wrong.
The mongrel deserved to roast in the lowest circle of hell. What right had he to place his hands on Antonia?
Ranelaw closed his eyes as fury surged, bathing him in stinging acid. Benton had known Antonia. Benton had heard those husky moans she made in the throes of climax. Benton had felt her passage tighten around him.
Ranelaw couldn’t contain his anger when he pictured her in Benton’s arms. Innocent, unprotected, and brought down by this man’s selfish passion.
Benton needed to die slowly and in excruciating pain. And Ranelaw wanted the pleasure of killing the spineless son of a whore.
But as he glowered at the sobbing craven, he couldn’t summon the stomach to challenge him.
Ranelaw needed to know for sure yet he couldn’t bandy Antonia’s name around a common tavern. And who could say the name would be familiar? Long ago he’d decided Smith was an alias.
“Oh, my love, my darling,” Benton was moaning into his folded arms.
Ranelaw closed his ears to more of the same while he tried to calm the chaos of questions bubbling in his head. Antonia as Benton’s paramour? Imagination, surely.
“Sweet, sweet Antonia . . .”
Antonia?
What the blazes? Surely he’d misheard.
