than most of the others who met your attacker can say. Why then should I have cause to pity?”
His expression closed down, giving her nothing of what he might be feeling. “Right, then,” he said. “Enough about me. Have you come to do the pretty?”
“Do the pretty?” she repeated, aghast.
Win ignored the warning in her tone and smiled at her blandly. “Apologize? Grovel?” His smile grew, but it did not reach his eyes. No, they were full of anger. “Whatever you want to call it makes no difference to me. As long as you do what needs to be done.”
That bloody, smug… Her blood began to boil as she glared at him. “If, for one moment, you believe that I am going to grovel, then you—”
“Belong in Bedlam?” he offered with a sharp bite in his voice.
Damn it, but the man always had a knack for finishing her sentences, and it was bloody annoying.
Cold humor was reflected in his expression, as if he knew he’d irritated her. “Believe me, sweeting, there are days when I wish it were that simple. But madness would be the easy way out, would it not?”
When she simply glared, he launched off the railing and stood before her. “And what is it that you wish for, Poppy? Deep down in that hidden heart of yours?”
He tapped the space between her breasts with one long finger. The gesture was so easily done, borne of years of constant physical contact, that she knew it had been an unplanned act. And yet she felt the touch with the whole of her body. Like a match strike, a flame flared to life within her, and she held her breath. Win felt it too, for he stilled, his gaze catching hers. She could see the shock there, that he hadn’t meant to touch her, that he too felt that spark between them, as strong as it had always been. The moment pulled taut before anger filled his blue eyes once more. “Well? What do you wish, Poppy?”
What did she wish? The concept of thinking solely of herself was so utterly foreign that she couldn’t begin to formulate a reply.
When Win spoke again, his voice was soft, almost benign, but his anger rang bone-deep. “Do you know what I suspect?”
“I am certain you will tell me, Inspector.” Her mouth was too dry, the imprint of his fingertip still burning its way deeper into her flesh.
An ugly smile rose in the wake of her snappish retort. He bent forward, crowding her with his body and his words. “I think you wish I’d simply come home like a good lad and ignore the fact that my entire marriage was based on deception.”
Pressure built behind her breastbone like a tide pushing against a dam. It was her turn to poke him, rather like provoking a sleeping bear, by the rumble building in his chest. She did so anyway. “What gives you the temerity to assume that I’d want you after the way you have treated me?”
Of all the looks Win had given her over the years, the one he employed now was something she’d never seen, as if he hated her just then. “You’re not sorry you lied, are you? You’re only sorry you were caught in the lie.”
“Of course I am!” Like most deep truths, it was painful to say. But in the cruel hours she’d sat next to him while Archer put him back together, Poppy had vowed never to keep anything from Win again. No matter what the cost.
He was a fool. An arrogant one at that. Temerity indeed. Winston almost laughed. Of course Poppy hadn’t come to beg for his return. Why do that onboard a ship headed to London? It was absurd, but he hadn’t been thinking past the anger. Humiliation rode high on the list now, and he had to wonder, had he been waiting for her to find him this whole time? How disappointing to realize that she’d no intention of apologizing for anything. He looked away, squinting into the hazy sky. Any view was preferable to the sight of his wife just then.
They stood in awkward silence. He wanted to leave but was damned if he would do so now, like a dog with his tail between his legs.
A small tinge of hesitation softened Poppy’s tone when she spoke. “You do not want to ask me why I am here?”
Apparently, I was not even close to getting that right, sweeting. He dragged in a breath, past