Page 44 of Courting Trouble
She wondered if he tasted like he used to.
Her mouth watered so violently her cheeks stung with it.
“Thank you for seeing to Mrs. St. John with such alacrity.” She lowered her chin, tilting her head as if she might catch his gaze.
It remained firmly upon her shoulder as he worked.
“It is my responsibility to look after my patient’s wellbeing. Your gratitude isn’t necessary.” He discarded the last of her stitches onto a tray and stood, stepping around to stand at her back, where he expertly went to work on the exit wound.
A rebellious ire welled within her breast, overflowing until she thought she might choke on it.
What had he to be so annoyed about? He’d the perfect chance to be rid of her, and he’d insisted she stay. She’d not embarrassed him in front of his paramour, which had been utterly well done of her, considering that she’d been tempted to scratch the woman’s eyes out. So, what had ignited his remarkably long fuse?
With each stitch he pulled free, that much more of her self-containment was likewise undone, until, when he set his instruments down on the tray with a clatter, she could contain herself no longer. “I’m enjoying your hostility today. It’s quite naked.”
His exhale contained the long-suffering of every man who’d ever been trapped alone in a room with a confounding woman. “I’m not hostile. I’m aghast. For the past decade, I’d accepted that I’d been thrown over so you could be the woman you were portrayed as in the society papers. The ideal aristocrat. Theton’strue beauty. Woodhaven was your cousin of some distance. Did you not realize what kind of man you were marrying? Did you understand what being a Viscountess would cost you?”
For reasons inexplicable, his questions enraged her.
“I didn’t marry William to be a Viscountess. I married him because—” She couldn’t say it. Even when they were angry with each other, she couldn’t lay the blame at his feet. Because it didn’t belong there. Not really.
She’d made the choice, even though she’d done it to save him from her father. She burned to tell him that. But what good would that cruelty do now?
“I married William because he was chosen for me. And we got on nominally well at first. He didn’t show me his true self until a year had passed, and by then it was too late. He was a small, bitter man. And so, yes, I resigned myself to my fate as his wife. I endured his tortures and his spite. I advanced his position in society as hostess. I covered up his indiscretions—”
“Not without committing indiscretions of your own,” he muttered.
Antagonism drove her to her feet, and she whirled to face him. “Howdareyou condemn me for that. You haven’t exactly been a monk, or have you already forgotten your time alone with the shapely widow, Mrs. Annabelle Rhodes, just last night?”
His frown deepened to a scowl, but he remained silent as he gathered the paper he’d placed her stitches on and folded it, presumably for the rubbish bin.
Her eyes narrowed. “I’ve known a few hypocrites in my day, but I’d never imagined you were one of them.”
He dropped the paper on the tray, shadows gathering on his features like ominous storm clouds. “I didn’t touch Annabelle last night. I ended it with her.”
Nora expelled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding since meeting the woman. But the information, welcome as it was, didn’t douse her ire. “Well, I haven’t touched a man for ages, and yet you’re still obviously upset.”
“Not about—that isn’t what I—” He broke off with a growl, wrapping his instruments in cloth and tossing them back in his bag. “I don’t condemn you for having…needs. But the Stags of St. James, Nora? You would payprostitutes?” He squared his shoulders to her, his chest heaving as his volume increased. “For Christ’s sake, you carried on an affair with the man who would become your sister’s fiancé—”
“Only because they looked like you!”
He froze.
She clapped her hand over her mouth. But it was too late.
The truth had already escaped.
“What…are you saying?” His broad shoulders were bunched, straining against his shirtsleeves, his skin white over clenched knuckles. He was assembled like a sleek and predatory cat, his muscles gathered as if he might lunge.
Or flee.
Nora’s own breath sawed in and out of her as if she’d run a league, but now that it had been said, the rest of it tumbled out of her like an avalanche of truth. “They were all tall, strong, and brutally handsome, with umber hair and…coarse hands. That’s what I looked for when I selected a lover. Square, capable hands like yours, rough from working. It didn’t matter what color his eyes were because I would… turn out the lights. Would make them be silent. Like we were the night we were together.”
“Nora.” Her name escaped him like a warning. Or a plea. His expression caught somewhere in between torment and relief. He shook his head, slowly, but she didn’t know what he meant by it.
And she couldn’t seem to stop herself now.
“You saidnothingthat night,” she marveled, much as she’d done so many times in the years since when she’d taken the memory of their first time together to cherish. “You asked no permissions and you offered no effusions. You just knew what I wanted, and you gave it to me. We just…existed. And it was perfect. So, every man I paid, any lover I took, any time I found completion beneath someone’s body, I—” She broke away, her jaw working to the side as she grappled with emotion too powerful to suppress any longer.
