Rebel Love (Heart's Temptation Book 2) Page 8

  Good heavens. Her face was flushed. She realized she was staring at him, having quite forgotten what it was he’d asked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Was it so unmemorable, then?” He sounded amused, pleased even.

  She loathed that he had her at a disadvantage. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re speaking of, Mr. Whitney.”

  “Your walk with the Duke of Dullness,” he clarified, wearing a smug grin.

  “He most certainly isn’t dull,” she informed him sharply, despite having had the very same thought upon at least one occasion.

  “Perhaps we’re speaking of a different duke?”

  “You’re being decidedly unkind,” Bella pointed out. She turned her attention back to the group of revelers. Lady Cosgrove had announced their entertainment was to be recitations of Shakespeare.

  “I never claimed to be kind.” His fingers traced the line of her arm from elbow to wrist. “I’m being quite charitable regarding the duke in question and you know it.”

  “He’s very well versed in a number of intriguing subjects,” she hissed. “Do be quiet. I’m trying to listen to our hostess’s announcement.”

  “A number of subjects?” He leaned closer, his lips grazing the shell of her ear. “Do tell.”

  Oh dear. He’d rather called her bluff, hadn’t he? “He knows an inordinate amount about birds,” she defended hotly, trying not to notice the delicious heat of his breath on her neck.

  “Birds,” he scoffed, straightening to put an appropriate distance between them once more. “Is he an expert authority on butterflies and flowers and the cut of a lady’s dress as well?”

  The nerve of the man. “I haven’t had the opportunity to enjoy further dialogue with him, but I daresay I shall soon.”

  “You don’t care for him,” Jesse growled, more statement than question.

  She turned to him again. “Why should you concern yourself with my romantic life when you’ve expressed such a vehement desire not to be a part of it?”

  He stared at her for a heated moment’s pause and she wanted him to say something wonderful, something life changing. Was it too much to ask for him to profess his undying love?

  “I’m merely concerned for your future, as would be any caring friend,” he said, banishing her tentative optimism.

  “I have friends enough, Mr. Whitney,” Bella told him pertly. “I don’t require your interference.”

  He shrugged as if he hadn’t a care. “As you wish it, my dear.”

  Of course it was how she wished it. Couldn’t the dratted man see that she wanted him to be her lover and not her friend? “It is most certainly how I wish it.” She was careful to keep her voice as icy as possible.

  “I won’t utter another word about His Dullness,” he assured her.

  “Thank you.” She broke her gaze from his and looked back to the gathering of guests. Her brother and the Countess of Scarbrough had inexplicably been paired together for a recitation from Love’s Labour’s Lost. She did her best to listen to their spirited scene, trying not to think of how her heart was breaking.

  “They make a lovely match, don’t you think?” Jesse asked, sounding thoughtful.

  “She is married to another.” Bella cast him a stern glance. “How can they make a match when she is not a free woman?”

  “It’s a good question, is it not?”

  She frowned, trying to discern the hidden meaning in his words. “Do you think he loves her?” She was nearly afraid to give voice to her misgivings. Her mother loved dramatics, but Bella thought this time the dowager was not wrong.

  “Love can be a terrible affliction,” he said instead of answering her.

  “How so?” Her interest was piqued. Mayhap there was a reason for his reticence.

  He shrugged. “A mere observation, Lady Bella.”

  She didn’t believe him. “Can it not be a boon as well?”

  “Ever the romantic heart,” he said with a faint trace of a smile. “I haven’t known it to be.”

  She disliked the bent of their dialogue. “You never answered me,” she changed the subject, “when I asked if you thought my brother harbors tender feelings for Lady Scarbrough.”

  “I would venture to say he does. Look at them.”

  Bella followed his gaze to her brother and the countess.

  “See how his gaze never wavers from hers? They stand very near to one another, but it looks natural rather than scandalous. Look at how he touches her elbow, so gentle and yet possessive.” As he finished his study, he drew closer to her again. His fingers tangled with hers, hidden in the voluminous drapery of her skirt.

  Her heart ached. “Why must you torture me?” she whispered, tightening her fingers over his.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” he said, sounding bemused.

  “You are correct in one aspect at least.” Bella kept her eyes trained ahead. “Love is a terrible affliction.”

  “I’m sorry for that.”

  “Would I could believe you.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. “True contrition is better expressed in deed rather than sentiment.”

  “Now you sound like the dowager, spouting tenets.”

  “Pray don’t attempt to make light of me,” she said lowly, “not in this.”

  “I truly am sorry,” he said again. “If you can love the duke, you should welcome his courtship. I have no right to counsel you otherwise.”

  “You are correct again.” She slanted him another look. “You do not have any rights at all when it comes to me.”

  “I want only your happiness, Bella.” He gave her fingers a lingering squeeze.

  Bella took a breath for fortitude before plunging forward. “Then you need but give it to me.”

  er words struck him with the force of a bullet. Then you need but give it to me. The idea that he was responsible for her happiness was more terrifying than facing a wall of enemy troops. Christ, if only it were that easy. If only he could give in to the madness of desire. If only he could be a suitable husband to her.

  But she knew so little of him. He bore scars far uglier than those he wore on his skin. How could he be a proper husband to such a gentle, sweet innocent? He didn’t think he could. Just the thought scared the hell out of him.

  “Would it were that simple,” he told her at last, releasing her fingers and putting a step’s distance between them for his own sanity. “You must know I would do anything for you.”

  “Not anything,” she denied with a hint of sadness.

  The gathered assemblage began tittering at what he presumed was a particularly witty Shakespeare line. He cast a glance over the glittering ladies. Though they were all turned out to perfection, none could even compare to the woman standing before him. The word “lovely” didn’t begin to do her justice. He wanted her badly.

  But he could not have her.

  “I only seek to protect you from yourself,” he murmured. “One day, you’ll thank me.”

  “So you have recently said,” Bella snapped. “I grow weary of hearing such piffle.”

  He was as frustrated as she sounded. As much as he told himself to stay the hell away from her, he couldn’t seem to resist. It had taken every speck of his conscience to keep from taking her innocence the night before. He had wanted to plunge inside her and lose himself, to make her his.

  Unbidden, images of her lush, naked body rose in his mind. Their sinful interlude had been the most meaningful he’d ever experienced in his life, even unfulfilled. He knew how she tasted, knew the delicious moist heat between her thighs, knew how to bring her to her climax.

  He stifled a groan. He could not continue like this, by God. He shifted his stance, praying his arousal wasn’t noticeable thanks to the cut of his trousers. Christ, he had to distract himself or he would go mad.

  Thornton saved him from making an ass of himself, approaching them with an affable smile.

  “Bella,” the marquis greeted. “Jesse. I trust you’re enjoying our hostes
s’s damnable parlor games?”

  “Pray excuse me,” Bella muttered, “but I fear I have a megrim. I should like to sit down.”

  Without waiting for their acknowledgment, she disappeared.

  “Damn women,” Thornton growled. “Why must they forever be having the megrims? A great lot of shite if you ask me, friend.”

  Friend. The sobriquet sent another wave of guilt crashing over him. If Thornton knew he’d been naked with his sister the night before, Jesse would be sporting a black eye and broken nose instead of a rigid cock.

  He cleared his throat. “The fairer sex is more delicate than ours.”

  “You’re being far too charitable, old boy.” Thornton grinned. “Fortunate man not to be plagued by the whims of women.”

  “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d reckon you are suffering the whim of one in particular,” he observed.

  “Am I that obvious?” Thornton shook his head. “I am, by Christ, and I know it. I know I should keep away from her, and yet I cannot seem to do so, even at the expense of my honor and reputation.”

  Jesse understood more than his friend knew. “I’m sure you aren’t the first or the last man to be so bedeviled by love.”

  “Spoken like a man who knows.” Thornton raised a brow.

  Jesse nearly swallowed his tongue. Christ, was he that obvious? He hoped like hell Thornton hadn’t noticed the inordinate amount of time he’d been spending in Bella’s company. He decided not to answer his friend. They watched the remainder of the recitations in an uneasy silence.

  Bella’s mood turned quite dour over the next few days. Jesse didn’t want her. Nothing she could do or say would alter his mind. No matter how she tried to throw kindling on the fires of his jealousy, she only wound up with a meager spark. He’d made it plain that he would prefer to marry her off to the Duke of Devonshire than to wed her.

  She decided to cut him from her life, which proved more difficult than learning how to make a proper curtsy had been. And Bella had never been particularly graceful or adept at curtsying. Indeed, it wasn’t long before her efforts were thwarted. He found her in the gardens, where she had taken to hiding in favor of the library for fear he’d discover her there again.

  The crunching of footsteps on the path alerted her to the arrival of an unwanted intruder. She didn’t even need to look up from her book to know it was him. His mere presence set her on edge. He stopped perilously near to her, so close his boots had come into her vision. She didn’t want to see him.

  “Lady Bella, you are precisely the woman I was looking for.”

  His pronouncement earned him a suspicious glance. Their gazes clashed as she looked up. Her breath faltered, her stomach suddenly nervous. She wished she hadn’t met his gaze. “You were seeking me out, Mr. Whitney?” It was far better, she thought, to maintain a polite wall between them. But a swift dart of hope entered her imprudent heart nonetheless.

  “I have something for you.” He reached into his coat and fished out a handsomely bound volume that had been wrapped with a ribbon. “It’s my way of crying truce.”

  Truce. Bella was quite certain she had no idea what truce meant from him. “Do you always dole out books by way of apology? If so, I suspect your library is quite empty.”

  He inclined his head. “Your barbs have the keenest knack for finding their mark.”

  She rose from the bench, weary of craning her neck to look up at him, and slipped the book she’d been reading into the hidden pocket on her gown. “I merely believe in honesty. There appears to be too little of it in this hard world of ours.”

  “I’ve tried my best to be honest with you,” he said, his voice a low, buttery drawl.

  Bella summoned a false smile. “I can only blame myself. Think nothing of it.”

  “That’s the problem, Bella. I do think of it.” His eyes held the same intensity as his voice. She couldn’t look away.

  How he confused her. She wanted him to kiss her. She didn’t want a truce, a book, or an admission. She wanted him to remove the boundaries he’d created. “Why?”

  “I’m not without a heart, Bella. I simply want what is best for you.” He paused as if he were about to say more but didn’t trust it. “Here you are.” He held out the book for her.

  She stared at the volume, at his strong hands so capable of being gentle, of bringing the most exquisite sensations to life within her. She almost didn’t want to accept the gift from him. “You needn’t have, Jesse.”

  “I know.”

  His frank concession had her glancing back up at him, startled. He grinned then, his devilish dimple once again in full show. “I wanted to, Bella. Please take it.”

  She would have preferred his heart, but she wisely kept that bit to herself. “I won’t accept a gift, generous though it may be of you.”

  “It’s not a selfless deed. I’ve missed your companionship and your eager wit. I find you have an unparalleled mind.”

  She couldn’t resist a jibe. “For a girl of my years?”

  “For a woman of your station and beauty. Many ladies are content to be a mere blossom in a vase, lovely to look upon and nothing more. But you are like the wild rose, growing up amongst the vines.”

  She tried in vain not to allow his compliment to start a warm glow seeping through her. “Thank you for your kind words, but I’m still afraid I cannot take the book.”

  “Of course you will.”

  He was certainly sure of himself. Bella was conflicted. She didn’t wish for them to remain at odds. Indeed, even if he didn’t return her feelings, she relished his company. “You’re a stubborn man.”

  “More stubborn than you know, my dear.”

  His grin dissipated. There was a hidden meaning to his words, she had no doubt. But she could no sooner make him say what she longed to hear than take flight. She was convinced in that moment that he surely felt something for her. She accepted the book from him, her fingers brushing his.

  “Men and Women,” she read aloud from the spine.

  She glanced back up at him to find his familiar grin back in place, façade restored. “I thought it seemed appropriate, somehow,” he said easily.

  Bella did not particularly appreciate his wit. The subject was a bitter one for her.

  “Robert Browning poems.” She studied the volume, wondering at the meaning behind his gift.

  “I enjoy Love Among the Ruins in particular,” he told her. “I suppose it reminds me of the war in a sense. Have you read it before?”

  “I haven’t,” she admitted. “It seems you have finally bested me in my literary pursuits.”

  A hesitant smile reappeared on his lips. “I’ve read it often over the past few days. It’s long been a favorite of mine, but something made me seek it out again.”

  He was exceptionally handsome this morning. Her heart hurt just looking at him. Perhaps she was foolish to think his cryptic words possessed a hidden lining like the book pockets she’d sewn into her dresses. Had she learned nothing from his repeated rejections of her?

  It would seem she had not for she couldn’t keep herself from asking him the question gnawing at her. “What has renewed your interest?”

  He startled her again by reaching up to touch a curled tendril of hair that had intentionally been left out of her coiffure. “You,” he said simply.

  Bella inhaled on an unsteady breath. The heavy weight of the unspoken emotions between them was already enough to topple her. But the stark longing she saw in his eyes would surely make her lose her composure altogether.

  She turned and pressed a kiss to his fingers, the gesture as ardent as it was reverent. “I’m honored to have been in your thoughts.”

  He caressed her cheek. “There has been little else.”

  The admission shook her. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and forget the world, the house party, propriety, everything. It was incredibly unfair of him to be hot as a scalding teakettle one moment and cold as Wenham Lake ice the next. “Why must you torture me?”
/>
  “If it gives you any comfort, know that I torture myself as surely as I do you,” he whispered. He bowed his head, his lips so near to hers she felt the warmth of his breath fanning over her mouth.

  She gripped the book so tightly its edges cut into her hands. “Do you care for me, Jesse?”

  He stilled. “You are the sister of my oldest friend. Of course I care for you.”

  “Not as Thornton’s sister,” she persisted. “Pray stop using him as a wall to be built between us.”

  Stiffening, he stepped away from her, dashing her hopes of another stolen kiss. “Answering your question will not do either of us a service.”

  “Forgive me if I disagree with you,” she told him, her tone rife with pent-up emotion. “I should very much like to know where I stand.”

  His expression went carefully blank. “There can’t be more than friendship for us, Bella.”

  Friend. Sister. Innocent. Bella wearied of the roles he would have her play. Sadness warred with anger within her. “Then why must you insist upon seeking me out? Why follow me into the gardens when I’ve been doing my best to stay away from you?”

  “Because I can’t stay away from you, goddamn it,” he burst out, his polished veneer cracking to reveal the emotions he battled to hide.

  Bella gaped at him. He sounded furious. She’d never seen him lose his self-possession so completely other than the night she’d gone to his chamber.

  He raked a hand through his hair, leaving it askew. “I can’t stay away,” he said again. “I don’t know why. You’re too damn young and innocent for the likes of me.”

  “Surely not so innocent any longer,” she reminded him. Their heated interlude in his chamber had been haunting her for days. She knew she’d never be the same girl she’d once been. She had tasted passion and she wanted more.

  He sighed and passed a hand over his face. “You are as innocent as you need to be to go to your future husband without shame. That is all that matters.”

  Bella longed to grab him by his coat and shake him. How dare he be so obstinate? “Do you know what truly matters, Jesse?”