The Matter of a Marquess - Jess Michaels Page 0,18

she feared it would roost in her heart and break her.

He swallowed. She followed the working of his Adam’s apple. How she wanted to touch him, press her lips there. She wanted to count the beat of his pulse and see if it matched the wild rhythm of her own.

“We—” he began. His voice cracked. He shook his head. “We obviously need to talk, Aurora. There is so much that needs to be said.”

Chapter 5

Aurora was shaking. She didn’t want to tremble, to reveal her weakness to this man whose intentions were unclear, but she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t do anything but look at him and wonder if this were just a dream.

If so, it was one she’d had many times during the time they were apart. Dreams of him walking into her home, her life, of him in her bed and her arms. Every dream in nine years, both waking and sleeping, had been of him. That had colored every aspect of her life and her marriage until this moment.

Only this moment was real.

“Yes,” she gasped out because it was clear he was waiting for a response to his statement. “Talk. You’re right, of course.”

He bent his head, and that broke the intense eye contact they’d been sharing since he entered the room. She was able to find breath again when he did and slow her racing heart. She was glad of both those things. A lack of control wouldn’t serve her in this situation. Not when Nicholas held himself like he had complete sovereignty over his faculties.

He cleared his throat. “I wanted to start by saying I’m…sorry, Aurora.”

She had pictured a dozen scenarios of what they would say to each other since he came down the drive toward her less than an hour before. Rows and accusations she had expected. This?

Well, this was entirely unforeseen, and she blinked up at him in shock. “For…for what?”

His lips pinched. “I’m sorry for my outburst on the drive. It was ungentlemanly to confront you like I did, but especially in front of others. The fact is that I didn’t expect to see you, certainly not here of all places. I wasn’t prepared for what that would…would do to me.”

“I wasn’t either,” she admitted, because his vulnerability stoked a tiny bit of her own.

She moved a step closer and watched his dark brown eyes dilate with desire. She recognized the desire now, in a way she hadn’t been capable of doing as a virginal young woman. Her hands shook from the recognition of it. If he wanted her, that meant he didn’t fully hate her. And that was something small she could cling to with all her might.

“You look beautiful,” he breathed, his gaze flitting over her from head to toe. More of that desire flowed from him, heat that pulsed over her and merged with her own.

“So do you,” she said with a smile.

She expected him to return the expression, but to her surprise, his gaze went flat and he turned away. “No, I don’t. I just look broken.”

Her breath caught and she moved to him without hesitation. “You’re speaking about your injuries?”

He nodded without looking at her. “I’m certainly not the same man I was when you last saw me.”

“You are better.” She didn’t dare say that in full voice. Even as a whisper, she was revealing too much of her heart. She did it anyway. “Your bravery was revered, as it should have been, and those acts have only made you stronger and more…”

She stopped herself because his gaze had swung back toward her. “You followed my actions, did you?”

“Of—of course,” she stammered. “When I heard you’d been injured in the war, I—” She caught herself. If she said too much now she might never stop. But she still needed to say something. “I was devastated. I’m so glad you lived, Nicholas. And that you will likely be rewarded for your bravery and selflessness.”

His gaze narrowed and flitted over her, like he was reading her. She couldn’t tell what decision he’d made about whatever he thought he knew now.

“The title isn’t guaranteed, Aurora,” he said, his tone suddenly tense. “Just as nothing in life is guaranteed.”

The sharpness in his voice was back now. The judgment of her and her actions. She found herself turning away from it and from him, unable to bear his harshness when she wanted something softer and sweeter that she’d never have again. If she’d been bewitched by a flash of longing,