Page 80 of His Scandal
“Stop this!” she cried. “Our encounters cannot always end thus. You don’t mean any of it!”
With a sob, she turned and ran from him, ignoring his call, not stopping until she slammed the door to her chamber and leaned against it, holding the stitch in her side.
And still the tears came. How had he done it? He was destroying all her defenses against him. She’d been wrong about love, wrong about everything she’d ever experienced with her poet. None of it compared to even one touch from Alex—a man too hurt by his own problems to commit to a woman.
Oh, she’d spent nights reminding herself of his past scandals, of the women he must have seduced. But some foolish part of her was convinced there was a different Alex hidden inside him, one who was hurting, who covered it all with scandal and flirting and wagering. Her feelings for him frightened her, because Alex was not the kind of man who fell in love. He pursued her for the adventure, for amusement.
Her plan to be content as the maiden aunt no longer seemed enough—and it was all Alex Thornton’s fault. Did he even understand what he did, how he made her feel like a desirable woman? Yet what would it get her but seduced, oreven left with a child and no husband? Had he truly only turned to her because she was more available than her sister?
Wiping away her tears, she gave a reluctant laugh. To think she had never thought to feel this torn by desire. She would have gone to her grave not knowing this painful pleasure, the wonder of being the only thing one man looked at.
But she hadn’t found it with a man who would marry her.
That night at the Rooster, Alex sat at a corner table and finished his fourth tankard of beer, ignoring the tumult of voices raised in a drunken song. But he couldn’t drink away the jealousy that ate at him, jealousy he’d never felt in his life over a woman. Why had he showed Emmeline his emotions? Now sheknewhe was jealous, and would think she had a hold over him. If he wasn’t careful, he was still going to have to leave London for a while—taking some future mistress, of course.
Because there would be a mistress, he thought, looking dejectedly at the tavern maids. He would not make a fool of himself over a noble maiden he couldn’t have; he’d done that enough while posing as Spencer. He still remembered when he’d first visited Lady Margaret, daughter of a duke, after his true identity had been discovered. They had danced and flirted and kissed for months, and she was the first person he was actually relieved to reveal himself to. But what he’d thought had been feminine interest on her part had been only a lusting for power and wealth. Her father expected a brilliant match, she told him coolly, and she expected no less for herself.
Women like Lady Margaret—and Emmeline—were for men with titles and power. Though Emmeline desired him, she had already learned long ago that desire didn’t matter. She would be a dutiful daughter and marry as her father told her to.
