salon as if she were his queen and he her loyal vassal. He ought to go. Mayhap he would…
The appearance of an angel on the threshold of the room brought his nettled pacing to a halt.
“My Lord Sidmouth,” greeted the angel, dipping into a graceful curtsy that belied his warring opinions of her.
Her voice was every bit as sultry as he recalled. A husky contralto. Her Lord Sidmouth, she had said, and for a brief, ludicrous moment, he thought he would have given his soul to be hers. The smile curving her lips touched a place inside him he had previously thought withered and dead, like winter’s desiccated gardens. It had not been the magic of the moonlit night at play. And nor had it been the whisky he had quaffed.
Without the shadows and the silvery darkness, she was lovelier than he had imagined. Full, pouty lips. Blue eyes. A stubborn chin. High cheekbones. Golden hair pulled into a coil, putting all her unique features on display. He had never seen a woman like her. There was only one word which could do her justice, and even that was pale and inadequate.
Exquisite.
She was poetry. To the devil with every mournful elegy he had written of late. For her, he could write sonnets. Odes.
Her golden brows arched, her expression laden with expectation. And there he stood, gaping at her like an utter dolt.
Tom remembered himself and bowed. “Lady Southwick.”
“Hyacinth will do,” she said, crossing the chamber with a sensual grace he could not help but to admire. “Lady Southwick is nothing more than a harbinger of bad memories.”
Noted. Her marriage must have been a bad one. Nothing out of the ordinary in the Upper Ten Thousand. Still, Tom wondered what could have caused such bitterness.
“Hyacinth,” he allowed, telling himself he would prod further later. “And please, do call me Tom as you did last evening.”
She stopped just short of him, bringing with her that same luscious scent. Tuberose and seduction. He fought the urge to inhale deeply. Truly, he ought to have learned his lesson. And yet, try as he may, he could not steel himself against her allure. The exotic flower in the garden, the one which must not be picked, the one whose sap was poison, would ever be the most treasured prize.
All those years chasing after a woman who would never return his love, and he was falling in lust with another. A woman who had been the bane of his pitiful existence ever since her arrival in Town.
Her gaze assessed him now. “I am not certain I should be so familiar with a man who warned me we could not be friends by the light of day.”
So he had.
Because she got beneath his skin, this woman.
Because he wanted to take her back into his arms. Wanted her lips beneath his once more. And all those desires were unwise for a man who was newly jilted, his heart bruised and battered.
“I may be willing to make an exception,” he said, like the idiot he was.
“But will I?” she asked softly.
Excellent question. She had him at sixes and sevens as no woman ever had. Not even Nell. With Nell, he had known what to expect. With Hyacinth, uncertainty was an aphrodisiac.
“Only you can answer that, my dear,” he said with a calm he did not feel, their gazes melding, searing. Burning.
He wanted to touch her. It was a physical ache within. A deep-seated urge in his chest. But to his surprise, she was the first to move, lifting her hand to his face. She traced his jaw with the ghost of a touch. Just her fingertip, nothing more. The graze was tender with a hint of pain. But lust quickly chased the discomfort.
“You are a wounded man,” she observed, catching her lower lip between her teeth and nibbling upon it as she continued to study him with a frankness that stole his breath.
Hell yes, he was a wounded man. In every sense. How did she see so much?
He swallowed, reminding himself she was speaking of his appearance. “Your rosebushes, madam.”
Her fingertips moved, gliding over the place beneath his eye where an unforgiving thorn had done a bit of damage whilst he freed her pup. There was a flash of something on her expressive countenance. Regret? Pity? Concern? He could not say for certain.
“Did you try the unguent I sent you this morning?” Her fingers continued their exploration of his face. “I made it myself, with herbs I harvested from