Cocky Earl - Annabelle Anders Page 0,49
it up to him.
It was a wound that could never heal.
Rather than open another bottle, he poured out more of his grandfather’s favorite for both of them. His limbs felt heavy and relaxed. He wanted to forget what he’d just said, and imagining what Miss Charley Arabella Jackson’s lips tasted like would be the perfect antidote.
Just now, he was fairly certain, they would taste like scotch. But every woman had her own uniquely feminine flavor.
He envisioned running his tongue along the seam of her lips and slipping it past her teeth.
“How did he die?” Her voice wrapped around him like a coat that had been warmed by the hearth.
Jules lost himself in her emerald eyes. Ironically, if he was to be honest with himself, he’d judged her to be beneath him before he’d even met her because she was American. It had been an arrogant assumption to make and was not well done of him at all.
What would she think of him when she realized his character was nowhere nearly as strong as that old grandfather of hers?
“He died because I was a lazy fool.” Julian washed the stench of his words down with another swallow of scotch.
“Very well, but how did that bring about his death?”
Her question had him glaring at her but not forgetting that he wanted to kiss her. It bothered him that she was not flirting or smiling seductively or doing anything to invite his advances and yet his body was responding in a rather inconvenient manner.
How had he killed his father? If she wanted an answer, he’d give her an answer.
“It happened three years ago. My father, the man whose shoes I’m expected to fill, insisted on acting as my second in a duel.” Jules remembered the events that had led up to all of it. “I failed to present myself and the married gentleman, who’d challenged me for dishonoring his wife, plunged a sword through a few of my father’s organs.”
Those green eyes of hers had gone wide but he couldn’t make out her thoughts. Suddenly, his fingers itched to remove the pins holding her riotous mass of curls up so that he could take a handful—
“That’s unfortunate.” She reached out, as though to touch his hand, but then drew it back. She sipped at her drink. “I believe it’s your turn now.”
His mind required a moment to remember that they’d been asking questions of one another. Ah, yes, he was getting to know his intended.
Jules shook his head and did his best to dismiss his self-hatred for the moment. “Do you hate all men, or just British gentlemen in particular?” He flicked his gaze to where her fingers thrummed the surface of the table and then back up to try to read her eyes again.
“I don’t hate men. I don’t hate British gentlemen. I am not inclined to trust them. They have far too much power for their own good.” The thrumming stopped. “I trust you though.”
“Why?”
She placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her folded hands. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t? Aside from your inability to present yourself at early morning appointments. Did you sleep in, then? Or did you intentionally keep yourself absent?”
His brows shot up. He wasn’t certain anyone else would be so straightforward with him. Planting his elbows onto the table, he leaned in so that less than a foot of space separated their faces.
Jules had not slept in once since that morning. He’d never sleep in again. He’d drunk a fair amount the night before but not to the extent that he ought to have passed out. He’d not even intended on sleeping that night. Whenever he’d been a participant in a duel, he’d stayed awake the night before. Although he’d known he needed the rest, his body and mind had always refused to allow it.
“I slept while Lord Casterley’s blade plunged into my father’s gut.”
Her gaze searched his. “Did he live long after or did it kill him right away?”
“Are you always this morbid?” he countered.
She blinked innocently. “I’m not the one who’s tormenting myself for failing to wake up on time.”
“When I awoke.” He did not need to tell her he’d awoken in a brothel. “I went to the appointed place. He’d already been taken away and when I arrived home, he wasn’t dead.” His voice broke unexpectedly. “But he never woke up.”
“I don’t know what I would do without my father.” She frowned and then pursed her lips. “I’m sorry