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‘Isobel, I am not a sixteen-year-old boy needing reassurance.’ Giles turned away, but she kept her grip on his sleeve.
‘No, you are a—what?—twenty-nine-year-old man in need of just that! Physical imperfections are no great matter, especially not when they have been earned in such a way. You will look so much more dashing and rakish that your problems with amorous ladies will become even worse.’
‘Then why did you look at me as you did this morning? Why did you flee from my room?’ he demanded.
‘Because it was my fault, of course! You had been hurt, you must have been in such pain, and it was all because of me. I know you felt you had to defend your friend’s sister, but if I had not told you my story you would never have known. I was angry with myself, so I shouted at you.’
‘Of all the idiotic—’
‘I am not being idiotic,’ she snapped, goaded. ‘You could have been killed, or lost an eye.’
‘Isobel, I could not let them do that to you and not try to defend you. How could I not fight?’ Giles turned fully and caught her hands in his. The chill had gone from his expression, now there was heat and an intensity that made her forget her anger. But with it, her vehemence ebbed away.
‘You hardly know me. We have been friends for such a short time,’ Isobel stammered.
‘Friends? Is that really what you think we are?’ She could see the pulse beat in his temple, hard, just as her heart was beating. ‘I saved your life—that makes you mine. I want to be so much more than friends with you, Isobel, did you not realise?’
‘You do? But—’
‘But it is quite impossible, of course,’ he said with a harsh edge beneath the reasonable tone. ‘You might be mine, but I can never have you. You do not have to say it. I am who I am—you are what you are. You must forgive me for speaking at all,’ he added with a smile that did not reach his eyes. ‘I have embarrassed you now.’
‘No. No, you have not.’ What did he really mean? What did he want, feel? She did not know, dared not ask. This was not some smooth attempt at seduction, this was bitter and heartfelt—the words seemed dragged from him against his will.
‘I want you as more than a friend. I had hoped that I had hidden it. I knew I should not feel it. But I cannot help it,’ she added despairingly.
‘I should never have kissed you.’
‘Two kisses are not what makes me feel like this.’ She put her hand to her breast, instinctively laying it across the heart that ached for him.
‘You fought very hard against what you feel?’ he asked. His hands had come up to her shoulders. He was holding her so close that her skirts brushed his boots and she had to tip her head back a little to look into his face. The taut lines had relaxed into a wary watchfulness.
‘Not as hard as I should have,’ Isobel admitted. ‘But I was afraid you would think me like the women you have to avoid, the ones who pursue you.’
‘I doubt any of them would stand here, this close, with me looking like this,’ Giles said with a return to the bitterness.
‘I have seen better shaves,’ Isobel admitted, seeing what humour might do. No good was going to come of this, she knew that. How could it? He was, as he said, who he was. But that was for tomorrow. Today she knew only that she was desired by this man. ‘And I could wish your mouth was not so bruised.’
‘Just my mouth?’ He raised an eyebrow and winced.
‘I would like to kiss you,’ Isobel admitted, beyond shame at saying it. ‘But I do not want to hurt you.’
‘Kiss it better,’ he suggested, pulling her closer and bending his head so his words whispered against her lips.
She slid her hands up to the nape of his neck to steady herself and trembled at the unexpected, vulnerable softness of the skin beneath her fingertips. With infinite care she met his lips with her own: the slightest pressure, the gentlest brush. He sighed and she opened to him and let him control the kiss.
This was so much more than that passionate exchange in the library, that foolish tumble in the shrubbery. So much more intimate, so much more trusting. Giles made a sound deep in his throat, a rumble of masculine satisfaction, and she met the thrust of his tongue with her own, learning the taste of him, the scent of his skin, the rhythm of his pulse. Their lips hardly moved as the silent mutual exploration went on, but Giles’s hands
travelled down her back until he held her by the waist, drew her tighter against his body.
He was lean and long and fit and Isobel pressed against him out of need and yearning and felt the heat and the hardness of his need for her. She wanted to get closer, to wrap herself around him, but she stopped herself in time, recalling his ribs.
‘What is it?’ Giles lifted his head.
‘Your ribs. Lord James said you had been kicked.’
‘If you can be thinking about my ribs while I am kissing you, it does not say much for my lovemaking.’ Giles bent and brushed his uninjured cheek against hers, his mouth nuzzling at the warm angle of her neck and shoulder.
‘You want to make love to me?’ How brazen she was to ask such a thing. How wonderfully liberating it felt to do so.
