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More than the kiss, even, it was the hungry way he’d stared at her while she drank the wine. The way he’d jumped down from the carriage and claimed the privilege of handing her down.
The look in his eyes when he’d praised her bravery. Grinding her grand resolutions to powder.
He cares.No, he doesn’t care. They had a shared goal, that was all.
She cared.No, she would never be so foolish as to fall for a man who stood in opposition to all of her dreams. She would never lose her heart so easily.
She’d been carried away by the contrast—the overwhelming fear and then the sudden relief and comfort of Drew’s strong arms. His intoxicating kiss.
Mixing up the desire for adventure with desire for him. A dangerously narrow distinction.
She was courting danger... she was courting him.
She wanted him, desperately. She was inexperienced but she was willing to learn.
She wanted everything he could teach her. Everything had seemed so clear cut and now everything was blurred.
Chapter19
“Good evening, Wilhelmina.”
Mina nearly jumped out of her skin. Uncle Malcolm was waiting for her in the doorway of the front parlor when the duke’s carriage dropped her back home.
“You startled me, Uncle,” she said.
“Come in here.”
He knows everything. He’d had her followed. He knew what she’d been doing.
Don’t confess to anything.
At least she’d been kissing the man he wanted her to marry.
He entered the parlor and indicated that she should sit in a chair near the fire. He took the seat across from her.
Something was very wrong. His face was shuttered, his eyes hard.
Sir Malcolm shook his head slightly. “You look... like your mother tonight.”
“Do I really look like her?”
“Too much.”
For the first time she wondered about her uncle’s relationship with her mother. Had he admired her? There was something about the way he’d said those words.
“I wish... I wish she could see you tonight,” he said.
Now she knew something was very wrong. Her uncle never talked like this, he never gave her compliments.
“I know it wasn’t easy for you to come and live with me. I hope I didn’t do wrong by you.”
“You gave me a safe upbringing,” she said carefully.
“I know you want to be here in London, that you view going back to Sutton Hall as an imprisonment, but something’s changed. You can’t stay here any longer.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re returning to Sutton Hall with me. Tonight. There will always be another Season.”
