The Highlander's Forbidden Mistress (The Lairds Most Likely 7)

"I’m sorry," he said in a quiet voice.

"Because I’m not free to throw myself into your unreliable arms?" Again that hint of anger.

"My arms are perfectly reliable." His marked black brows rose. "It’s my character that you can’t trust."

She released a huff of shocked laughter. "You’re honest at least."

"I can’t see the point of being anything else."

He sat beside her. He wasn’t close enough to crowd her, but his nearness sent desire prickling across her skin. "Did you love the late Mr. Martin?"

"Love seems an odd word on your lips."

He shrugged. "Humor me."

"Why?" Baffled, she spread her hands. "You must know your wiles are wasted on me."

Bruard leaned back and stretched his long legs toward the fire. He folded his arms over his chest and went back to looking like a sleepy panther. "You leave me to worry about my wiles, Mrs. Martin."

Selina stared down into her lap where her hands twisted together in an agitated dance. She waited for Bruard to pursue the question about Roderick, but he seemed content to remain silent. And because he was patient – a quality lacking in most of the men she knew – in the end, she answered.

"No, I didn’t love him." Her voice was low, and her hands clenched around each other.

When Lord Bruard didn’t respond, she found herself explaining. "My parents arranged the marriage. Roderick’s father was a well-to-do merchant in Lichfield. My father was a doctor in a village outside the town. He was much older than my mother and not well, so when he saw a chance to settle my future, he took it."

"How old were you?"

"Just seventeen. Papa died a month after the wedding. I’m sad that he never got to meet my son Gerald. They’re very alike." As always when she thought of her son, the weight in her heart eased, so her words emerged more smoothly. "But I’m glad Papa never knew that he’d given me to a man who was a faithless drunkard and a wastrel. I had nine years of unhappiness with Roderick."

"I’m sorry," Bruard said again.

She turned to study the earl. On paper, he was cut from the same cloth as Roderick. Except he wasn’t. Bruard possessed a strength and integrity that her husband had never come close to owning. Bruard was the kind of man Roderick had aspired to be, but instead her husband had never grown beyond being a spoiled child.

"So am I."

Bruard regarded her with grave eyes. "I’m particularly sorry that you’ve never known an ounce of joy."

Damn her for these maudlin confessions. Her pride revolted at the idea of Lord Bruard pitying her. "I was a happy child, if a little lonely. I had no brothers and sisters, because Mamma was delicate. It’s one of my great regrets that Gerald is also an only child."

"Unless you and Cecil have children."

She struggled to mask a grimace at the thought of the making of those children. "Yes."

Cecil wanted sons. He’d told her.

She could endure it. For Gerald’s sake, she could endure anything.

When she saw that she hadn’t managed to conceal her distaste, she rushed on. "And I love my son. There’s joy in that."

"I’m sure." Bruard’s discontented expression persisted. "But that’s the mother’s joy. What about the woman’s?"

Every drop of moisture dried from her mouth. She’d been frank with him, way beyond what their short acquaintance justified. Now she should tell him to mind his own business, but she found herself revealing the truth in an embarrassed mutter. "I’ve never known it."

Which wasn’t entirely true, she admitted in silent mortification. Although while the touch of her hand might ease her aching frustration, it never came close to joy.

"You’ll never know it with Canley-Smythe. And you’re the sort of woman who won’t take a lover, once you’ve pledged your faith to the blockhead."

"He’s not a blockhead," she said, cursing her hesitation. When Lord Bruard didn’t reply, she went on with a trace of desperation. "You seem to imagine you know me."