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She almost put her hands to her ears to stop the ravings of her inner self and her mana. She would not give in to a force that made her less than who she was. And what did the voice mean? His magic? Was it speaking metaphorically?
He saw her home in silence. As he helped her down from his phaeton, she could not, would not look at him. Without a word, she turned and rushed
up the steps, leaving him staring after her.
Oh, but she had to escape him and the voice—she had to.
She made it to her room unobstructed, but a moment later a knock sounded, and she called out to find it was Molly, come for a lesson.
Thankfully she opened her door, and for the next hour put the Marquis of Dartmour’s face out of her mind!
* * *
The marquis drove his pair back to the Delleson residence, where he meant to collect Percy. He had to think.
Sassy had brought him to the brink of something he did not want to face. He lusted for her, ah bloody hell, he did, but not in the usual fashion. She was becoming an obsession. He needed to look into her eyes, those speaking eyes. He wanted to watch the flitting expressions move across her face. He wanted, no, needed to make her smile.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Since Sassy Winthrop had entered his world, he had scarcely been able to think of anything else.
He had always enjoyed playing the seducer with the experienced women he took to bed. He enjoyed being the conqueror, and they enjoyed being conquered. But this, this was so damn different in every way.
He had no idea why he had allowed her to think he was offering to protect her as his mistress—and it was clear that was what she thought. He had not meant it. He damn well didn’t have a clue what he meant. He only knew he had to hold her, kiss her …
It was as though something dark inside him, something he had always repressed, had urged him to move in fast and hard, to take her. The word mate was being shouted in his brain by a voice that was oddly enough his own.
He had made a royal mess. He had hurt her, and that was the furthest thing from his mind. How he had allowed a mild flirtation to go that far?
He thought back to the time when he was a second son with an expectation of a moderate though respectable income. He had been, he thought, in love with the neighbor’s daughter, a country lady with higher expectations than a second son. She had been four years older than he, but he hadn’t cared. He had thought she was a goddess to be won and treasured.
However, she wasn’t interested in anything but climbing the social ladder. In the end, his first love’s hand had gone to a local but wealthy squire who had neither the wit nor the heart to keep her.
A year later his father, who had been arguing with Justin’s mother, had driven off in a rage and was killed in a carriage accident. Not all the potions, prayers, or other unusual remedies he had desperately tried on him had been able to save him. His father’s lungs had been punctured, and he hadn’t lasted the day.
In that same year, his brother had found himself in an illegal duel over a woman. Being the man he was, too kind, too just, he had refused to use his blood-right skills, his powerful magic that was a blend of Dark and Light. He thought it should be a fair fight, so what must his dear, adored brother do but delope. His opponent had shot him through the heart and, instead of winning the woman in question, ended up in prison.
Justin had watched his beloved mother dive into hell and came home one day to find that she had shot herself with her small gun.
Justin began to see the emotion of ‘love’ as something to be avoided at all cost.
Now, here he was drawn to this beauty whose magic was white and yet undeniably strong. He might have doubted earlier, but he knew after he kissed her that she was filled with bright, powerful magic. It felt untouched by Dark. He knew one thing else for certain: Sassy Winthrop touched something deep inside him, something dangerously tinged with Dark mana, something that fed on itself, something he had long ago denied.
She had brought all of it to the surface.
He had been fighting it all his life, refusing to be what his father and brother before him were, and now—would he bury it again, or would he revel in it as his ancestors had?
~ Twelve ~
THEY TOOK THEIR leave of the Dellesons and climbed into the marquis’s phaeton. He and Percy both were inattentive to one another, as they were deep within their own thoughts.
It was Percy who broke the silence with an expletive. “Bloody damn hell!”
Justin gazed at him inquisitively. “Things not going well with Sophy?”
“That puppy is asking for a facer, Justin. Mark me, on this, he needs a set-down.”
“On that, I am heartily in agreement,” the marquis returned with feeling.
