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‘Well, I’m sorry if you think I’m prying, but I simply cannot understand how it is your wife went with someone else. If you kissed her the way you just kissed me...’ She blushed, suddenly realising that this was one of those topics properly brought up girls didn’t mention.
‘I told you—my wife hated intimacy of any sort. With me, that is. I never managed more than a peck on the cheek.’
Good grief. The woman must have been a complete imbecile. If only she’d let him kiss her, thoroughly, he would have made her feel gloriously wonderful. Although he’d only been a stripling when he’d been married. Perhaps he hadn’t yet learned how to kiss like that.
How had he learned to kiss like that?
‘You kissed other women, then, didn’t you?’ she blurted, after turning over the thought for a while. ‘I mean, you have been a widower for a very long time. I suppose you’ve had a few...er...liaisons?’
He froze in his tracks. Turned and glanced over his shoulder at her. ‘I’ve had more than a few “liaisons”, Prudence, and you may as well hear about them now. But understand this.’ He turned and looked her straight in the eye. ‘I was angry. Bitter. I’d stayed true to my marriage vows while she...’ His mouth twisted. ‘Can you imagine how it felt to know I’d been faithful to a faithless wife?’ He seized her hand. ‘Just think how you felt the moment you knew that your aunt and uncle—the people you relied on to guard your welfare—had conspired to rob and humiliate you.’
‘Yes, I think I see.’
‘Do you? Then you will understand my burning need to make up for lost time. Why I bedded as many women as I could. Why I never risked feeling anything approaching affection for any of them. Why I made sure they knew exactly what their purpose was. Which was why I never kissed them the way I just kissed you. I may have kissed their hands in flirtation, or used my mouth or my tongue on sensitive parts of their bodies to arouse and inflame them...or—’ He broke off, looking exasperated. ‘Good God, Prudence, how do you manage to get me to tell you things like this?’
‘I only asked you about kissing,’ she pointed out. ‘I didn’t force you to tell me anything about your...liaisons.’ Even though what he’d said had helped her understand him better. ‘You could have just told me to mind my own business.’
‘For some reason I don’t seem to be able to tell you any such thing,’ he growled, before turning his back on her and stalking off through the undergrowth.
She had to break into a trot to keep up with him. But neither the fact that he was walking so quickly nor the grumpy way he’d spoken to her could cast her down very much. For one thing, the confidence with which he was striding through the undergrowth proved that he was very familiar with the layout of the grounds. Which laid to rest her fear that they might be trespassing. For another, she couldn’t help being pleased that he couldn’t keep things from her. Last night’s confidences might have been due to some after-effect of the drug. But there was no trace of it left in either of them today. If he couldn’t keep anything from her, then it was because somehow she’d got under his guard.
She smiled. He was the kind of man who wasn’t used to sharing confidences with anyone, but he couldn’t hold back from her—not with his thoughts, or his kisses. After only knowing her for just over a day. Which made her feel very powerful, in a uniquely feminine way.
She was still smiling when they emerged, blinking, onto a massive swathe of lawn on which sheep were grazing. On its far side sat a very neat little box of a house, in the Palladian style, two storeys high. Or perhaps not so little. She counted seven windows across the top floor.
She turned to look at Gregory, who’d come to a complete standstill. He caught her enquiring look and glowered at her.
‘This is it,’ he said. ‘God help me.’
‘Whatever do you mean? Gregory, what is the matter?’
A muscle in his jaw clenched, as though he was biting back some unpalatable truth. Whatever could there be inside that house which had the power to make him look so reluctant to enter it? The dragon of an aunt? Surely she couldn’t have too much influence over him, since he claimed to own the house? Unless he’d fallen on hard times and the woman held some financial power over him? Well, that wouldn’t matter once they were married—unless she was the kind of old harpy who would make him feel bad about marrying an heiress.
‘You’ll soon find out,’ he said grimly. Then seized her hand in his and set off for the house once more.
