Page 14 of A Kiss Of Lies

The slender hands and fine, silky smooth skin suggested good bloodlines. Perhaps, unbeknown to her, she was the Duke of Hastings’s by-blow. The Duke was known to have a few illegitimate offspring. Perhaps that was why she had been raised by one of the Duke’s servants and educated with the Duke’s daughter.

“What was it like growing up in the Duke’s household?” The question was unexpected and took them both by surprise. Her soft gasp told him it was inappropriate, but he badly wanted to know more about her.

“It seems a lifetime ago now. A far happier time . . .” Then she clamped her mouth shut, as if she’d said too much.

Christian surveyed Sarah speculatively. So she’d been unhappy in her life. That confirmed the suspicions he had after her comment yesterday about not wishing to remarry: her marriage had not been pleasant. He was a bastard for being so presumptuous in his plans for her seduction. If he wooed her, took his time in seducing her, treated her like a princess—a process he’d been an expert at before his injuries—then maybe she’d overlook his scars.

Christian waited until the meal had been served before continuing. “You have recently been unhappy?”

As if a curtain were closing on a play, her face emptied of all emotion. “My husband is dead. So yes, I have been unhappy.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, how did he die?”

“I do mind, actually. It brings up bad memories.” She seemed to catch herself at his stunned silence. She turned to him with a false smile. “I’d rather hear engaging tales of your life as a Libertine Scholar, while you were studying at Oxford.” In a dream-filled voice she added, “It must have been a wonderful experience, all that learning.”

“And seduction,” he added, wanting to set her mind down the path he wished it to take.

She actually giggled. “Yes, I heard you cut quite a swath through the ladies.”

“Not so much now,” Christian stated in a tone curiously devoid of feeling.

“Rubbish. You’re a handsome gentleman in his prime.”

He sat in shocked silence for a second, thinking it was a cruel tease. He stared at her intently. To his surprise, Sarah really appeared to have meant what she said. “Not with this disfigurement, for my face repulses women.”

Sarah gave him a startled look. His face did not repulse her. Her chief feeling when she regarded the raw scars was regret—regret that something so aesthetically pleasing should have been marred so terribly. To her, Christian looked exactly as she remembered him, a strikingly beautiful, virile tower of masculinity.

Softly she uttered, “How can an injury received in honor, in defense of England, be repulsive? You are still a very handsome man.”

His eyes bored into her, making her rash compliment send heat flooding across her cheeks. She set her glass on the table, her hand shaking under his intense stare. She breathed a sigh of relief when he said simply, “Thank you.”

They ate in silence for a time before he spoke again, “How is it that you have heard of the Libertine Scholars?”

Again Sarah reminded herself that the secret to lying was to stick as close to the truth as possible. “I heard about it from Lady Serena, of course.”

His brows furrowed. “I don’t believe I was ever formally introduced to her.”

“Oh, you have never met her.”

His lips pressed into a thin line, and he attacked his food vigorously with his knife. “So she simply listened to gossip.”

“Partly, I would say. She used to watch you from afar. You were intimidating back then.”

He almost choked on his food. “Intimidating?”

“In uniform you could be, well, quite overwhelming. The first night she saw you, I thought she was going to faint.”

“Now you’re being ridiculous.” A blush covered his fine cheekbones.

Sarah laughed. “I’m not. She—we—were fifteen and we watched you from where we were hiding in the eaves at one of her father’s balls.” She gave an exaggerated sigh and fanned her face. “You looked very handsome in your brilliant red and white uniform.”

Laughter crept back into his eyes. “You have a better memory than I. I can’t remember the event.”

She teased him further. “Surely you can remember having to spend the night avoiding the Duke’s mistress, Lady Campbell. You went up in Serena’s estimation when you made it quite clear to her you were not interested.” Sarah shook her head, “The way Lady Campbell intimately touched you . . . I, that is, Serena, wanted to scratch her eyes out.”

Christian threw back his head and laughed. “Ah, now I do remember that night. She was like a mare in heat, after any stallion she could find to service her.”

“After Serena was introduced to society, she kept hoping to meet you at an event, but alas, it was never to be. She then followed your accomplishments on the battlefield and prayed every night that you’d return unhurt.”

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