Page 14 of Courting Trouble
Titus appeared unaffected, bringing his nose level with her aggressor’s. “You put your hands where they didn’t belong first, remember. That deserved an answer.”
This time, it was Michael who took a step in retreat. “It isyouwho’ll answer for this, the both of you!” He smoothed down his mussed hair and pulled at the lapels of his jacket with anxious, jerky movements as he backed toward the door. “The engagement is off, you hear me? A complete and utter fantasy, thinking to marry so far beneath me. I’ll ruin you.” He jabbed a finger at Titus, who’d positioned himself in between the furious lord and Nora. “Andyou. You’ll be stricken from every decent household in the Empire. You’ll die of some god-awful lung disease in the factories. Or worse, the workhouse.”
“Marquess of Blandbury?” Clad in a footman’s livery, Titus lifted a white-gloved hand to tap his chin as if recalling a memory. “Isn’t it well understood that your father is dying of cancer?”
Michael’s complexion deepened from mottled to purple. “You don’t deserve to say his bloody name you—”
Titus’s head cocked to the side. “Is it cancer, though? Or syphilis? What would they think, the Tories, about a man who can’t abstain from syphilitic whores? What would the papers say?”
At that, Michael blanched, and Nora was again repelled by a man whose skin was so reactive to his every emotion. “How do you—where did you find out?”
“What matters is what I’ll do with the information. Which is nothing if you apologize to Miss Goode, go to the washroom to sort yourself out, and—after thanking the Baron and his wife for their hospitality—get the fuck out of this house. Because you’re right about one thing…” Titus prowled forward, his arm bent behind his back in the posture of a solicitous footman, which made his words land with all the more gravitas as they slid into the night. “There’s nohopeof a wedding, but I know they can arrange a funeral even without a body.”
Nora watched with queer, horrific fascination as Michael struggled to breathe. He just stood there, saying nothing until Titus feinted a threatening lunge forward.
“I’m sorry!” he cried. “I—I apologize. I shan’t touch you again.”
Nora didn’t forgive him, of course, but she nodded, if only to release him from their company so he could scamper down the hall.
Once he’d gone, she was seized by a bout of intense vertigo, feeling as if the floor beneath her had become a small sea craft tossed by waves. She collapsed onto a stone bench, not certain her legs could take her weight for much longer.
The repercussions of this would be dire. Her father was going to besoangry, and that frightened her a little, but not so much as the tongue just shoved down her throat.
Repulsed by the memory, Nora wiped at her mouth with the back of her glove. Only when it came away damp did she realize tears now streaked down her cheeks in hot rivulets.
A handkerchief was pressed into her fingers, and she looked up to see Titus staring down at her with that alarmingly indecipherable gaze.
“Thank you,” she managed.
Swallowing, she scooted over and gathered some of the ruffles of her dress to make space for him on the bench.
He took it, folding himself carefully next to her, making no move to touch her as she turned away to wipe her tears and dab at her nose.
“Did he hurt you?” The question was low. Dark. And it made her turn to look at him.
“No, not really. I’m not crying about that.”
He nodded before his gaze lowered. “If the violence frightened you, I—”
“No.” She put her hand on his arm to stop that thought from forming, and he became instantly rigid beneath her touch. “No, you were wonderful. I don’t know what I would have done. What I would have allowed him to do because I was too afraid or embarrassed to stop him.”
“Allowed him to do…” Titus didn’t finish the thought. He just stared at her hand on his arm as his brows drew together.
“How couldIhave stopped him without ruining everything?” she rushed to explain. “My father would have been furious with me. My reputation ruined. Any chances of a good marriage, to him or otherwise, completely dashed. My—my entire life would have been over. He knew he had put me in that position, I think. That I was truly helpless, because I’d gone with him into the dark. How could I have been sothoughtless?” She hit her own knee with the hand that clutched the handkerchief.
A frustrated mélange of emotions welled up inside of her. Resentment. Fear. Animosity. For Michael. For her parents. For the entire dastardly world.
For herself.
“That was—” Her breath hitched on a raw sob. She began to shake with the power of her reaction. “That was my first kiss.”
She buried her face into the handkerchief, thinking it felt warm and familiar as she allowed a few more tears to fall. She’d taught herself to cry quietly from early on, and to regain her composure in an instant, forcing it all down beneath a façade of serenity before anyone could ascertain a weakness with which to whip her.
And she might have composed herself now, if a large, gentle hand hadn’t splayed on her back and stayed there.
Titus didn’t babble meaningless words. Nor did he caress her or crush her to him. He asked no questions and gave no encouragements. He offered comfort merely by being there, by letting her be and allowing her to feel what she needed to feel without the fear of reproof.
It must have been why she curled toward him, tucking her head against his shoulder, breathing in the cedar-sweet smell of his collar and neck. She could think of no other reason to do what was so utterly out of character. Something about the silent strength of him—something she fancied she glimpsed in that alert, opaque gaze of his—drew her toward him like a viper mesmerized by an exotic flute.
