don’t blame you.’ She sounded defiant, and he leaned back on his elbows to look at her.
‘Are you defending me?’
‘Yes. He treated you badly.’
‘I ought to be glad of it really. If he’d been clever enough to pretend then he could have had me and the money, but it probably never occurred to him that I might actually want him to care for me. I doubt he was capable of love. He only wanted a business arrangement.’ He winced at the irony. ‘I must get it from somewhere.’
Ianthe’s voice turned sombre. ‘If you really weren’t capable of love, then you wouldn’t have cared how he felt about you.’
‘Defending me again?’ He lifted an eyebrow sardonically. ‘Maybe it was just hurt pride.’
‘You loved your mother, didn’t you?’
‘I suppose so.’ He swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat. ‘But she wasn’t what you would call a warm-hearted woman. She tried her best, I think, but part of her always resented me for ruining her life. In her mind, if she hadn’t fallen pregnant then she’d never have lost her position, never been separated from my father.’ He clenched his jaw. ‘She loved him, you see. Worthless as he was, she loved him to the end.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because she told me. When she was dying, she looked up at me and said the words. It was the only time in her life she ever told me she loved me and she thought I was him.’ He twisted towards her, unable to keep the anguish out of his eyes. ‘She wasted her life on a man who forgot her a long time before. I told you, I’ve seen what love does to people. Love is for artists and fools.’
‘You might be right.’
He blinked, surprised by the bitterness in her voice. ‘I thought you were close to your parents?’
‘I was, but they were artists. They raised me to believe in love, to expect everyone else to believe in it, too... It’s not like that in the real world.’
He frowned. It was one thing for him to be cynical. When she said something similar, he felt a strange urge to contradict her. Never mind that the wistful note in her voice made it sound as if she were speaking from experience. Had she had love affairs in the past, then? The very idea made his chest constrict with jealousy.
‘What’s the matter?’ She gave him a quizzical look.
‘Nothing.’ He stretched himself out in the sand, throwing one arm casually behind his head. ‘It just seems we’ve more in common than we first thought.’
‘What are you doing?’ She sounded scandalised.
‘Lying down.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t. What will people say if they see you?’
‘They’ll say they always knew I wasn’t a gentleman.’
‘I’m serious!’
‘So am I. Lying on a beach in broad daylight next to my own wife. Tsk-tsk. It’s just the kind of reprehensible behaviour they would expect.’
‘I don’t understand you.’ She sounded exasperated.
‘What don’t you understand?’
He raised a hand, shielding his eyes from the sun to study her. She was shaking her head reprovingly, though the twinkle in her eyes gave her away.
‘I can’t decide if you really care about what people think of you or not.’
‘Sometimes I do. Other times I want to tell everyone to mind their own damned business.’
‘Then make up your mind.’ She laughed and lay down on the sand beside him, propping her head up on her hand. ‘You can’t be a respectable gentleman and a rebel, so which is it? What do you really want?’
He moved so fast he hardly knew what he intended to do until he did it. Only the answer to her question was so clearly, blindingly obvious that he wasn’t able to stop himself, seizing her lips with a fervour that took them both by surprise.
For a moment, he kept completely still, waiting for her to push him away, but she didn’t. Instead, she gave a low murmur, opening her mouth slightly so he could taste the sweet tang of her lips. Slowly, he smoothed a hand over her waist, gathering her towards him as she put a hand on his chest to steady herself. Then there was nothing else, no other sight or sound, just the feeling of her in his arms and the warm, silky smoothness of her mouth against his.