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Aurora rolled her eyes, exasperation rendering her oblivious to Courtney’s discomfort. “You blurted to the wrong person. While my brother is perhaps the most decent, responsible man on earth, he is also the most pragmatic and unemotional. He believes in nothing, least of all that which he cannot see.”
“You’re referring to the Huntley curse.”
This time Aurora’s brows did go up. “Slayde spoke of that?”
Much safer ground. “Yes. But actually, he didn’t need to. Papa has mentioned it, as have his crewmen. Your family—and the black diamond—are renowned at sea.”
“Renowned? You mean notorious.” Aurora folded her arms across her chest, her palms rubbing the fine muslin as if to warm away her trepidation. “I’m so relieved the stone is gone, together with all the ugliness it embodied. It’s destroyed our family, whether or not Slayde chooses to believe it.”
“Oh, he believes it. The only difference is, he believes the curse is not the diamond itself, but those who seek it.”
Aurora’s gaze grew speculative. “You’ve been at Pembourne for but a few days. Yet my brother has shared more with you than he has with anyone, including me.”
“Aurora, he hasn’t—”
Swiftly, Aurora waved away Courtney’s protest. “You don’t understand. I’m not upset. In fact, I’m elated that Slayde has allowed someone to venture past those bloody walls of his. Perhaps he’s finally recognizing that none of us can survive alone. If so, there just might be some hope for him after all, but only if he accepts the fact that needing others is not an affliction but a blessing.”
Slayde would not have welcomed Aurora’s proclamation.
A mile from Pembourne, he steered his phaeton into its fourth circular trip around the picturesque country road, berating himself yet again for departing from Pembourne at the absurd hour of six a.m.
Absurd because, even with the stops he intended to make, the ride to Morland—just six miles inland of the small town of Dawlish where Pembourne was situated—would take no more than an hour. Plus, the businessmen he meant to visit prior to descending upon the duke would hardly be at their establishments at the first light of dawn.
Which meant he could do naught but drive aimlessly for hours.
Nevertheless, he’d needed to get away.
The need itself was unsurprising. Most of his return trips to Pembourne were brief, characterized by a restless unease that took him away almost as soon as he arrived. He’d stay only long enough to ensure Aurora’s well-being, then depart on another business journey—abroad and as far from the past as possible.
Not this time.
This time, he’d been troubled not by restlessness or even unease, but by a myriad of conflicting emotions, the result of which was an unprecedented combination of tenderness, determination, and guilt. All of which pertained to Courtney—Courtney and whatever had transpired between them last night.
What had transpired was merely a kiss, he amended silently. What had happened was another story entirely.
He’d never forget the look on her face when he’d left her: not distress or guilt or even regret, but wonder. There had been wonder in her sea-green eyes, an exhilarated awe that both humbled and terrified him.
Because he’d felt it, too.
This whole situation was insane. He’d rescued the woman from death, taken her into his home. ’Twas only natural that she reach out to him for comfort, that he reach out to offer it.
Comfort, hell. That kiss had been deep, consuming, underscored by an unknown, but no less profound, emotion that shook him to his soul. Not to mention desire, desire as unfamiliar as it was intense, simmering beneath the surface like the first embers of a fire about to blaze out of control.
For a man who’d lived one and thirty years and who, despite his solitary existence, was no stranger to passion, it was sobering to feel more shaken by a kiss than he’d felt as a result of his most ardent sexual joining.
His behavior prior to that kiss was even more unsettling.
Never had he gone to a woman’s bed without the mutually agreed-upon decision to couple. Yet last night, long before their embrace was even a thought, much less an action, he’d stretched out alongside Courtney as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, held her without a shred of discomfort, talked with her—not as an overture to coupling, but as an entity unto itself.
And told her things he’d never told another.
Oh, his recountings could hardly be described as great revelations, not when half of England was privy to the details of the Huntley curse. Still, he’d never shared his thoughts, his feelings, with anyone. Like his life, they were his and his alone.
Until last night.
Moreover, it wasn’t only their talk that unnerved him, or even their kiss—although God help him, he couldn’t forget the taste of her mouth, the softness of her skin, the delicacy of her frame. It was the aftermath that shook him.
Never had he carried memories of a woman with him, much less wanted to slay her dragons the way he did Courtney’s. He was determined to find the pirate who’d killed her father—regardless of whether Morland was involved—and drive a sword through his heart, just to give her back a semblance of what she’d lost.
