Page 76 of The Trouble with True Love

“What’s wrong?”

He shrugged his shoulder again, and gave an exaggerated grimace of pain. “Let’s stop,” he said. “I’m done in. I concede,” he added before Paul could reply. “I’m going to bathe and change for dinner.”

“Concede?” his cousin echoed as he walked off the court. “But you never concede.”

“I just did,” he called back, fearing it wasn’t just the tennis match he’d given up on.

He didn’t see her again until dinner. Fortunately, he was not seated anywhere near her at the table, but that wasn’t as much of a blessing as it might have been, for he could still see her plainly from where he sat. Paul, seated beside her, must have been in quite a mind to be witty and charming company, because every time Rex took a glance her way, she seemed to be laughing at something his cousin had said. Lisle had no gas jets in the dining room, and the candlelight gave her pale skin a luminous glow. Her hair was done up in that pretty chignon he’d complimented that night in her office, which only led him to remembering what had happened there, and he was heartily glad when dinner was over and the ladies had gone through to the drawing room.

After the port, when he and the other gentlemen joined the ladies, Rex kept his conversation with her to the politest possible minimum, but there were times when he couldn’t resist edging close enough to hear her voice. It was an exercise in self-torture, and one that soon paid him out in spades, when he heard her describing the beauty of her yellow bedroom to her sister-in-law, Lady Angela. There was one, and only one, bedroom at Lisle done up in yellow.

The moment he discovered the location of her room, he tried to put the knowledge out of his mind, but he feared it was rather like putting Pandora’s gifts back in the box, because lying in bed five hours later, the location of her room seemed to be the only thing he could think about.

Images of her there danced tantalizingly across his mind, of her hair tumbled down around her, of small, round breasts, pale, luminous skin, and long, slim legs.

He breathed deep, imagining the scent of orange blossoms and past the roar in his ears, he remembered her soft cries of climax as his own lust rolled in him like thunder, rising, thickening, until it was pain.

He slid his hand along his hip, thinking to relieve the agony with simple expediency, something he’d been doing quite often during the past two months, but then he sighed and let his hand fall to his side. What good would it do? Any relief would be temporary, for just one sight of her smile and he’d be reduced to this state again.

Shoving back the sheets, he got out of bed. Time for another midnight swim, he decided. After sliding on black trousers and his heavy indigo satin smoking jacket, he left his room. Barefoot, he went downstairs and slipped out into the moonlit summer night.

He walked across the cool turf, circling the house toward the north side, making for the millpond, though he feared that was nowhere near far enough to get clear of her now. Maybe he could go rent a cottage in Ireland, he thought in desperation, or go to his father’s hunting lodge in Scotland, but neither of those seemed far enough away. Hell, with how he felt right now, even Shanghai might not be far enough to keep her safe from him.

After stripping naked, he dove into the pond, and he counted thirty full laps before the ache in his loins eased, the driving need for her slid back into mere discomfort, and he began to think Shanghai might not be necessary. But on his way back, he saw a light in one of the windows, the only light still lit on this side of the house. He counted the windows twice just to be sure, but even as he did so, he knew quite well it wasn’t necessary.

This was fate. One of those things a man just couldn’t fight. His attempt to do so had been a worthy, perhaps even noble battle, but now he knew it had also been a pointless one because when he saw the light in the Yellow Room, he knew he’d just lost the war.

He began walking toward the house, his steps quickening as he crossed the grass, slowing to a soft and quiet tread once he reentered the house. He went up the south staircase because it didn’t creak, traversed a maze of corridors, tiptoed past the quietly snoring hall boy, and turned toward the suites of guest quarters. He paused at the start of that corridor, noting the light that shone from beneath the door of the Yellow Room, and he didn’t know whether to be glad or not.

He counted doors as he walked toward her room, verifying his earlier calculations. Outside her door, he paused. Taking a deep breath, he considered with great care what he was about to do, what it would mean, and the inevitable consequences it would bring. Then he put his hand on the doorknob. Turning it, he opened the door, stepped inside, and crossed the Rubicon.

Chapter 17

The click of the latch caused Clara to look up from her book, and as the door swung open, she gave a startled gasp and bolted out of bed, only to freeze, riveted, at the sight of Rex coming into her room.

Her bedroom.

He put a finger to his lips and stepped farther into her room, closing the door behind him. When he faced her again, she realized his hair was damp and he was only partially dressed, as if he’d just come from his bath, and she stared in shock at the vee of his bare chest, visible between the edges of his smoking jacket. She’d never seen a man’s bare chest before.

Heat unfurled in her belly.

He started toward her, and she took an involuntary step back, her legs hitting the bed behind her.

He stopped.

“Rex?” she whispered. “What are you doing here?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he looked down, and as his gaze slid over her body, Clara’s question was answered.

The heat inside her deepened and spread.

His roaming gaze stopped at her feet, and she curled her toes, tucking them under the hem of her nightgown. “Rex, you shouldn’t be here.”

“I know.”

At that soft admission, the heat inside her flared into a sudden, violent surge of anger. She strode across the room toward him. “You were barely civil to me when I arrived,” she reminded in a fierce whisper as she stopped in front of him.

He stirred. “It caught me off guard, seeing you here. I didn’t expect it. No one told me you were coming.”

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