AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Cat?” He tipped her chin toward him. Searched her face.
She gazed upon those chiseled granite features, the sharp angle of his jaw, the stubborn chin, the hooded eyes whose flinty gaze could penetrate with spearlike precision. Bracing herself, she blurted, “I shouldn’t . . . last night . . . it was wrong, but you were . . . and I—”
While he fumbled, “It’s not your fault . . . I never meant it to go so far . . . never blame you—”
They spoke over one another in a jumbled rush before coming to a ragged halt fraught with nervous laughter. She started to rise, but he caught her hand. Drew her back down so they met face to face and eye to eye. “I’m no saint, Cat. I’ve never pretended to be. And what you offered, I couldn’t resist. But—”
Of course, she should have expected the but. Should have known he’d be quick to extricate himself from a tricky situation. She struggled to rescue her hand.
“Hear me out,” he urged.
“Hear you tell me I’m not for someone like you? That it’s not for a belted earl to sully his family honor with a whore like me?” Her chest went achy and tight just saying the word. Then anger barreled in behind, spilling out of her in a torrent she couldn’t stop. Wrenching herself loose, she straightened with a look that spat fire. “You pulled me into your life with no thought to what it might cost me. Would Miss Osborne have stood with you against Lazarus? Or helped you translate a diary that left her retching into her slops jar for hours after? Does she even know you’re Other? I wager that’ll go down well with her high-in-the-instep philanthropic friends. She may be respectable, but she’s not half the woman I am. Admit it.”
“All right. I admit it.”
She sucked in a startled breath. “What?”
A self-satisfied gleam sparkled in his eyes. “I said I admit it. I was selfish to drag you into this mess, but you’ve taken everything thrown at you with soldier courage. You’re a marvel.”
“That’s not—”
An annoying smile played at the edges of his mouth. “What you expected? I know. I’m full of surprises.”
Rising to stand in front of her, he crushed her against him. Silenced her with a kiss. A spine-tingling blaze of heat turning every ironclad intention to a drippy puddle of desire.
It was only hours later that she realized he’d never finished his sentence. What had he been about to say? What “but” still lurked in her future?
The sconces had been doused, lamps turned down, leaving the staircase shrouded in shadows. The quiet, sharp-eyed servants had long since been sent to their attic bedchambers for the night to be replaced by the quieter, sharp-eyed mice who rustled the walls and wainscoting.
Cat paused at the bottom riser, a hand on the banister as she peered up into the long dark tunnel of the stairwell. Not out of fear. Terror of the dark had long since left her. Instead, her eye fell upon the masculine silhouette of the man towering behind her, one candlestick-laden arm raised high, his unruly hair standing around his head like a crown, his burly-broad shoulders and long muscled legs etched in black.
“Let me.” The voice rumbled through her like an echo as his arm reached around her to light the way.
She shook off fatigue and fancy. Glanced back with a nod of thanks as she lifted her skirts to climb. But a foot caught in the hem of her gown. Stumbling, she barked a shin on the hard edge of the step. Grabbed for the banister. Instead her hand fell on Aidan’s steadying arm, his body disturbingly close now that she knew the hard muscles that lay under that fabric. The glide of athletic assurance in a body trained for bolder actions than gentlemanly falderal.
Cat bit back the unladylike oath on the tip of her tongue as she rubbed at her leg. Tried to forget the man hovering solicitously beside her. As if that could ever happen now.
“Tipsy on Daz’s claret?” came Aidan’s wry comment. “I’d have thought a good brewer’s daughter like yourself would carry a stronger head for drink.”
“Correction. Brewer’s stepdaughter. Sailor’s daughter.”
“So it’s not a head for drink but a mouth for swearing. It all begins to make sense.”
She was glad he found it so. She was topsy-turvy and tumbled with emotions, feeling as tossed as a juggler’s ball. Looking up, she found herself caught in the bronze brown reaches of his laughing eyes. His teasing white smile.
Her heart squeezed with an ache she thought she’d put far behind her while heat burned a face already tired from hours spent reading. Should she? Shouldn’t she? Could she walk away when all was over? Would she have to? Could there be a future where no future ought to be?
“Aidan?” she whispered.
His brows quirked in look of half surprise, but then he sobered, his face growing serious. “Come with me, Catriona. I’ll not let you fall.”
An answer to her thought. A reassurance against the hes
itation plaguing her.
At the top of the stairs, he paused. And with a steadying breath and a heart full of doubt, yet fuller of hope, she followed him.
Aidan drew her into the room, closing the door behind them. Pulling her back against him. A hand at her waist. Another curving around to cup her breast. Brushing her nipple. Nuzzling her neck. Skimming the sensitive flesh just behind her ear. “Gods, Cat. I’ve been fantasizing about this all day.”
