Page 65 of Sir Hugo Seeks a Wife
He shook his head, as the urge sharpened to flay her odious lover.“It’s not wicked.It’s wonderful.A man wants a woman who welcomes his touch.Coldness in bed makes for a cold marriage.”
Her eyes darkened with what he could only call fear, and her hands made fists in her lap.“We’re not talking about marriage.”
“Not yet,” he said with his own hint of grimness.“Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
“I was born into a well-to-do family in Yorkshire.”Her usually musical alto was toneless.
“Yorkshire?”he said in genuine surprise and pleasure.“If you’d told me that, I’d have whisked you away and married you the day I met you.”
Glassy eyes fixed on him.His attempt to lighten the atmosphere fell flat.“Why do you think I didn’t tell you?”
To his regret, he knew why.“You didn’t want to reinforce the bonds between us.That didn’t work too well.”
One pale hand made a defeated gesture.“No, it was a miserable failure.Because of course I understand your world.For pity’s sake, I come from your world.If I’d toed the line at home, I’m sure at some stage, we would have met.You almost certainly know my father or my uncles or my brother.”
“Maybe.”He’d had the same thoughts.He’d always known that she was as wellborn as he was.“I wish to Hades I got to you before George did.”
Anguish twisted her features, and he caught the shimmer of tears in her lovely eyes.“So do I.”
It was a huge concession.One Hugo would think about later.Right now, he wanted to hear how everything went wrong.“Were you already out in society when you met him?”
Her gaze turned bleak as she clawed back some control.“No, not yet.Papa wanted to keep me chained to home and under his thumb as long as he could.At some stage, I’d have to spend a season in London to find a husband, but he wasn’t in any hurry.My father was always a bad-tempered martinet, but he got worse after Mamma died when I was ten.”
He touched her arm in sympathy.“I’m sorry you lost your mother.”
“So am I.”Athene’s voice softened.“She was wonderful.I still miss her.”
Hugo suspected that had her mother lived, Athene’s life wouldn’t have taken its disastrous turn.She stared sightlessly at the fire and when she resumed speaking, her voice resumed its brittle tone.
“Papa was an army man, and he ran the whole family like a troop of unpromising recruits.While he and Mamma indulged me too much when I was a child, once I started growing up, he came down hard on me.He granted my older brother a little more freedom, but because I was a weak-minded female, I was caged on the family estate like a pet canary.”
Hugo huffed in disbelief.“You’re not weak-minded.”
“Am I not?”Her hands dug into her lap.“I’d say my actions proved him right.”
“No wonder you kicked over the traces.You’re a vital, curious woman.”
Self-disgust firmed her lips.“I was curious about boys, that’s for sure.”
His grunt was dismissive.“Of course you were.You were seventeen years old and bored out of your brain.And I suspect of a romantic bent.You were desperate for kisses.”
“I was a trial to my family, even before I ran off with George.You’re being far too kind to me.”
“No, I’m not.Stands to reason.I’d give half my fortune to knock some sense into your father’s thick skull.”
His vehement defense of her caught her attention.When she frowned down at her hands, he understood that she weighed what he said.He could tell that she’d always believed she was wholly at fault.Something told him that despite her denials, she now started to look at her past from a different viewpoint.“He was terrifically strict,” she said with a hint of uncertainty.
“Well?”Hugo didn’t pursue the subject further, but at least he’d planted a seed of doubt about her interpretation of events.
She directed a curious stare at him.“How do you know I was a romantic?”
“You’re still a romantic, Athene.”He couldn’t help smiling at her, as if she were a star fallen to earth purely to light up his life.“Otherwise you wouldn’t have to fight so hard to keep the world out.”
“You’re frightening me.”She regarded him wide-eyed, and she didn’t sound like she was joking.
“Because I see too much?”
“Yes.”
