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until she shivered. “To see if I might thaw my bride’s icy demeanor and discover her real reason for wedding me.”
Kate held very, very still.
“And she melted like caramel,” he went on in his dark whisper. “Hot and sweet enough to make me crave more, no matter how much I tasted. I gorged myself on her, not stopping to wonder why she had resisted such a decadent pleasure at the beginning.”
“I thought I wouldn’t please you,” she said, her voice strained. “I hoped we could become . . . affectionate companions first . . . before you grew disappointed with me . . .”
“Damn Howe. Your mother should be whipped for marrying you to him.”
She shivered. “I told myself it would be all right if you didn’t love me, so long as you liked me—I wanted to please you—”
“Damn your mother.” He sighed. “Surely you recognized just how much you pleased me.”
Every inch of her body blushed. “Well—yes—you did appear satisfied—”
“Appear?” He raised his head. “I appeared satisfied? Oh, darling, no wonder you left me. What a terrible husband I’ve been if you remain uncertain on that score.”
“And I hoped that might lead to other, finer feelings,” she finished in desperation.
For a moment he was quiet. Kate wished she could see his face, and then was glad she couldn’t. “No,” he said at last. “It didn’t, although I don’t wish to minimize the exceedingly fine feelings it did arouse. If that had been your only charm, though, it wouldn’t have led to any deeper feelings. No, I believe it was the first morning we lay in bed and laughed together that I fell in love with you.”
She flinched. “You didn’t.”
“Hush.” He squeezed her. “You claimed to fall in love while riding through the rain twelve years ago. At least I was in a warm, comfortable bed with a beautiful woman when I lost my heart.”
Kate wrenched out of his arm. “Don’t say that—there’s no need to be cruel.”
“How dare you insult my taste,” he said, as she began to walk away. Her flowers had scattered from the basket and lay wilting on the path, but she stepped on them blindly. “You’re not walking out on me a second time,” he warned her. She picked up her skirts and ran, and a moment later she heard his footsteps pounding after her.
She jumped off the step at the end of the path and took off down the hill, across the lawn toward the maze. Her mother kept saying she would raze the unfashionable curiosity, but it couldn’t be seen from the house, so it still stood. Kate ran into the entrance and whisked around the first turn, vaguely remembering a shortcut to the center of the maze. She needed just a little space, a few minutes alone. Her heart had twisted so hard when Gerard called her beautiful, she’d almost fainted. How could he say that, when she knew very well it wasn’t true—when he had admitted it himself on their wedding day? He was offended that she had left him and was just trying to charm her back before people started to talk. But that he would lie to her about it . . . She couldn’t bear it.
He crashed into the maze just as she made the second turn. “Kate,” he called. “I wasn’t being cruel.” He slowed to a walk down the entrance path. Kate crept quietly along her own path, wishing she could believe him.
“Kate,” he called again, quieter this time, “I was an idiot, but I’m not a liar.” She could hear his steps, then a flash of blue caught her eye through the branches of the hedge. He was on the path parallel to hers. She froze in her tracks and waited even though he would have to go all the way to the end and make the second left before he could get to her. “I’ve never told a woman I loved her,” he said. “It took me too damned long to admit it, and now I have to bare my heart to a shrub. Can you even hear me?” Perversely Kate held her tongue. What would he do?
After a moment he sighed. “Very well,” he muttered, and his voice boomed out, so loudly she jumped. “Katherine de Lacey, before God as my witness, I love you more than any man should ever love a woman.” A clutch of birds burst out of the hedges and flew away in a chorus of squawks. “I love