“You took my virginity, didn’t you?”
“No,” he said in a righteous tone. “I would never have relations with a woman who was incapacitated by brandy. When I make love to you, Miss Featherstone, you will be sober and begging me to please you.”
“How dare you! I will never let you make love to me.”
He rose and pulled her up against his body. “You were begging me to pleasure you last night. And I have never been so tempted to take a drunken woman to my bed. But I did not.”
She blinked back tears. “Thank you for that, my lord.”
“Tell me something, would it have been all that awful if we had?”
“The worst, my lord. The worst.” She broke away and raced from the study.
“Far from it, Miss Featherstone. Far from it.”
Chapter 9
Tia ran to the relative safety of her bedchamber. After collapsing into the bed, she finally let her tears fall. He kissed her last night. And not just that punishing kiss on the dance floor. She remembered the sensation of his tongue swirling against hers. How it made her tingle from her breasts to her loins. He was right. She had tried to seduce him.
What had she been thinking?
Had the alcohol muddled her mind so thoroughly that she couldn’t remember right from wrong? Was it lust that had spurred her actions? Or perhaps frustration at her situation?
She closed her eyes and one final memory returned to her. “Dear God, I let him suckle my breasts,” she whispered. How could she have forgotten that most amazing sensation? It had made her moist and she had rubbed herself against him, trying to get some relief from the growing feelings in her body.
He must think her nothing better than a strumpet. She had promised herself that she wouldn’t give into temptation. She wanted marriage, not just a bastard child to raise on Middleton’s estate. The tenants didn’t care if she married or not, they only wanted her to have a child, a girl, to teach the healing ways. But she cared.
She had cared.
Now, after feeling those sensations, would she ever be able to resist him? She had to fight him. He wouldn’t give her what she wanted most—love. Middleton would be happy to bed her and forget her. Jonathon had told her more about his brother than she should know. How after their father died, Braden did what he had to in order to bring extra money into the house until their mother recovered from her grief. Tia knew he’d stolen from people. And had probably done worse than that.
After hearing Emily’s words, Tia had to wonder if Braden could have succumbed to murder to help his family, even if it was just he and Jonathon now. Could she be living under a killer’s roof?
Would a killer have stopped a drunken woman from seducing him? She didn’t think that he would. But being a gentleman and a murderer were two different things. Only last year, she’d read in the paper about an earl who had killed his own wife. Surely, most people would have thought him a gentleman until that night.
A shiver of fear raised gooseflesh on her skin.
She shouldn’t stay here any longer. She had to get out of this house. But she had nowhere to go and no money. If she asked, Emily would give her enough to get back to Middleton Hall, but she was no better there on his property.
Or you could just ask him if he killed his cousin.
She almost laughed aloud at her conscience’s attempt to redeem him. And if she left, she would never be able to help Jonathon. She wanted to hate Jonathon for making her believe he had an interest in her, but she couldn’t. He had far too many problems. It was probably best that she let the idea of loving him go. But she still wanted to help him. He needed to find a way of fighting the demons inside him.
With a sigh, she resigned herself to her fate. She had to reason with, or convince, Middleton to stay here a few more days so she could investigate the Red Door.
And as her mother always told her, there was no time like the present. Tia walked to the basin and washed her face. Looking up into the mirror, she pinched her pale cheeks for a little color and arranged her hair. She also pulled up the bodice of her dress to cover herself more. The last thing she wanted was to make him think she was a strumpet.
Determination swept over her. She could do this. No, she would do this. She walked out of the room and down the stairs. Finding Nelson in the salon speaking with a maid, Tia waited until he finished.
“Mr. Nelson, where is Lord Middleton? I need to speak with him.”
“In the library, miss.”
“Thank you.”
She strolled down the hall to the library and found him staring at a map of London. “Going somewhere?”
“Yes. Now what can I do for you, Miss Featherstone?”