in his, his thumb stroking across the fleshy pad of hers. Her eyes grew wide and dark. Silence quivered between them. They were a moment away from mystery.
Abruptly, she pulled her hand back and straightened in her chair. “Yes, it was just like that. You made the world spin about me and nothing was the same afterwards. That is why it was all your fault.”
He blinked. His own mind was spinning both with the effort to separate from that moment of fantasy and with trying to keep up with her thoughts.
He spoke with care. “I agree that the evening was magic, there was a spell in the air the like of which I have never felt, but I still do not understand how that makes your imagined pregnancy my mistake.”
He could see he had misspoken before the words were even finished. She had been straight before, now she was rigid. “I did not say it was your mistake, merely your fault. And I do not like the term imagined. It was not imagined, it simply was not real.”
Again her thought process had left him behind. For a moment he considered coming around the desk and kissing her until she melted. Her mind entertained him, but his own mind was rapidly losing to other parts of his body. Her breasts almost spilled from her bodice when she pulled herself so tight. Her stiffness should have made her unapproachable, but instead it only made him wish to soften her.
He stood, combing his fingers through his hair. She glanced strangely at his gesture. Maybe movement could distract his body from other desires. He began to pace, pretending he was not drawing nearer to her with each pass. “Are you ever going to explain exactly why you thought I am at fault?”
“Because I wanted it again.” The words seemed dragged from her. “I wanted to feel so alive. Once I knew it was possible I could not turn my back on it again. I would sit and watch my mother eat her endless tea cakes and remember. I could not escape the memory. I stood trapped in a house that smelled of yesterday’s sweets and my mother’s perfume and there was no air left to breath. With one caress you left me unable to live in my world. And so, I sought a way out.” She, too, stood and stepped towards him.
“The night of Clark’s soiree I was seeking that way out, seeking the chance to feel the excitement, to feel so in touch with life that my whole body quivered. That is why I went into the garden, I wanted to feel the magic again. Was that so wrong?” She let the question hang.
She took one more step towards him, paused, reached out and took his hand in hers, let her thumb stroke across his palm. Her silent lips beseeched him in their parting.
He took the half step towards her, ran a single finger across her cheek. She was here before him, ready. There could be no doubt what she offered, no doubt that every particle of his body longed to accept her offer.
Only, quiet understanding had found him. He understood all she wanted to tell him. It was all his fault. He had unwittingly trapped her, lured her innocence as surely as a flower’s sweet scent drew the bee.
She was not here because she wanted to be, she was here because he had left her no choice. There were many types of bonds.
He let his hands drop to his sides. “I have, after all, forgotten I had promised to meet a friend at my club. Please forgive me.” He turned and left, refusing to see the sudden pain behind her eyes. He wondered if she knew all he asked forgiveness for.
Chapter Eleven
Well, that had been a miserable failure. Marguerite listened to the stillness of the house. She knew that footmen still walked and maids still clattered, but all she could hear was silence. Tristan had left again. She had stayed up half the night deciding how to approach him, hoping that they could find away to muddle along together.
She glanced at the paper placed upon the desk. One corner was marked with the splatters of her solitary attempt to make a list the day before. She considered trying again.
She knew what she wanted now. She wanted the magic. She wanted to feel alive, to feel that all things were possible. But was that just a fantasy? No. Her sister Rose lived that