A Dangerous Love. Brenda Joyce
you looked at me this afternoon—and this evening—left me with one inescapable conclusion.” He spoke so softly she could barely discern his words.
“You are wrong,” she tried, but he was right and they both knew it.
His expression hardened.
She hugged herself, flushing. “All right! I will admit that I was staring at you, but surely you are accustomed to ladies admiring you. I did not mean to be coy—I have never been coy in my life.” She felt herself blushing. She would never admit she had started thinking about his hard, male body when she had seen him dancing—and even earlier, during his confrontation with her father.
“That,” he said harshly, “I do not believe. I believe you know exactly how to use your blue eyes to inflame a man— and you did so with purpose.” His eyes flickered. “You inflamed me.”
She was already breathless. Her pulse surged wildly in response to his frank words. Too well, she recalled being in his arms, their mouths fused, their bodies on fire. She didn’t want to leave, not yet. In fact, a new and wanton part of her wished to explore what they had begun.
His laughter was harsh, as if he knew what she was thinking and feeling. “You need to go, before my baser nature defeats my sense of honor. It is getting light out. You have a reputation to maintain and I am not inclined to maintain it for you.”
The sky was beginning to gray, but she did not move. They couldn’t part company this way, especially when he was leaving Rose Hill shortly. “Why are you so angry? I am sorry—I have already said so, twice. Will you accept my apology?”
“Why should I? I do not like being played, Miss de Warenne.”
Her heart slammed. He was not going to accept an apology from her, even after she had explained her intentions.
He laughed harshly. “Am I the first man that will not do as you wish when you flutter your lashes at him?”
“I am not a flirt,” she said.
“Good night.” He nodded abruptly at the house, clearly wishing her to go.
Ariella took a deep breath, determined. “We have gotten off to a terrible start.” She smiled at him. “Obviously a third apology will not soothe you, so I won’t offer it. But can we start over again? We hardly know one another. I should like to further our acquaintance, if at all possible.”
His eyes widened and then narrowed, gleaming. “Really? How odd. Proper ladies—proper virgins—do not have Gypsy acquaintances. In fact, the ladies who wish for my acquaintance want one thing and one thing only—which you have clearly refused.”
“I will not believe that,” she whispered, aghast. Surely he was exaggerating!
He shrugged. “I do not care what you believe. Now that our ill-fated liaison is over, I do not care about you at all, Miss de Warenne.”
His words actually hurt. After what they had just shared, she could not believe he meant them. “I think you have decided to dislike me, although I cannot comprehend why. I think you decided to dislike me this afternoon, almost at first sight, even though I was trying to help you convince my father to let you stay the night here. Yet you liked me well enough a moment ago.”
He stared. Finally he said, every muscle in his face tensing, “Spoken with so much naiveté, I might actually believe you.”
“I am hardly naive,” Ariella said.
“I did not ask for this,” he continued roughly. “I did not ask for a beautiful fairy-tale princess to appear in my life, offering me a temptation I can barely refuse. You are a noblewoman, an heiress. You will clearly wed some English Prince Charming one day—and he will take your innocence in an ivory tower. Go home, Miss de Warenne, where you belong.” He turned to go.
She was finally angry and she seized his arm. She wasn’t strong enough to detain him, but he faced her, his eyes as cold and turbulent as a winter storm. “If I refuse to judge you, why do you insist on judging me? You know nothing about me. I am not like other women of my class and age, desperate for a proper husband and home, and while it might appear I am like those ladies who wish for your attentions, I am not like them, either. I did not seek you out for a love affair!”
“No, but you did seek me out.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Let us cut to the chase. What do you want from me, Miss de Warenne?”
She inhaled. Although she instantly recalled his torrid kisses and his shockingly sensual touch, she did not hesitate. “I want to be friends.”
He laughed. “Impossible.”
“Why? Why is it impossible? I know you are leaving tomorrow, but we can exchange letters. We could even meet a few times before you leave Derbyshire.”
He choked. “Exchange letters? Meet?” He looked at her as if she were mad.
“I am interested in getting to know you, and letters are the perfect way to further our acquaintance. As for meeting, why is that suggestion so shocking? Surely you like to converse.”
“You wish to meet and converse?”
“That is what friends do.” She smiled at him. She thought her plan a capital one.
“We are not friends,” he said harshly. “I have no friends— nor do I want any!”
She was in disbelief. “Everyone has friends.”
“You do not want friendship and we both know it.” He pointed at her. His hand shook. “You are a de Warenne heiress! Your friends are tony!”
“I have all kinds of eccentric friends in town!”
“When I demanded you cut to the chase, I was merely curious as to how you would respond—and with how much subterfuge. I know why you came to the camp tonight. You sought me out for passion, Miss de Warenne, not friendship. I caught your interest and you wished to be in my arms, although not my bed. You wish to exchange letters? You wish to converse? I think not. In fact, I don’t think you very different from my gadji lovers. The difference is you only want safe kisses.” His eyes blazed. “And the kind of pleasure I so recently gave you.”
Ariella stared, taken aback, but not by his candor. He was partly right—after what had just happened, how could she not yearn to be in his arms? But why didn’t he believe that she was interested in friendship, too? She was eager to know what he thought of the world!
“I have been a sexual object for the ladies of the ton, and now, I am an object of sexual fascination for a virgin princess.” He seemed disgusted.
Ariella wasn’t quite sure what his statement meant, precisely, but she would think about it later. “I can’t possibly forget our kiss,” she said slowly. “How could I? I had no idea a kiss could be so wonderful. But I do want to be friends, Emilian. I always say what I mean. I have many unusual friends in town. If you truly have no friends—and I pray you are dissembling—then I will be the first.”
“What the hell did you mean, that you had no idea a kiss could be so wonderful?” he demanded. “I do hope you are not going to tell me that was your first kiss.”
“Why would that distress you?”
His eyes widened impossibly. “No one has ever kissed you before?”
“No, no one ever has. You gave me my first kiss. And I have no regrets—not a single one,” she cried, flushing.
He snarled, “Then I have enough regrets for the two of us.”
She inhaled. “You don’t mean that!”
“Go home and wait for Prince Charming. And stay there—with your unusual friends.”
He was rejecting her offer of friendship. Ariella was in disbelief. “But you are leaving in the morning! We can’t part this way.”