A Rakes Guide to Pleasure (Somerhart 2)

It hadn't been Matthew on the street, Emma told herself as she swept off her cloak and handed it to Bess. And she found her fear was easy to forget as Hart followed her into the parlor, his presence a warm shadow at her back. She could not have thought of anything else if she'd tried.

They were silent, studying each other until the tea tray ar­rived. Hart felt uncertain as he took in her pinkened cheeks and wind-mussed hair. A few strands had escaped her chignon and they curved toward her mouth, drawing his eye. He hadn't seen her in weeks and had resented every moment he'd spent thinking of ways to run across her.

She'd shocked him with her casual dismissal of children and motherhood. She had seemed cruel and selfish, but he should not have been surprised. His own mother had had similar feelings. After three children she had declared her­self quite done with the whole wretched business and had never bothered herself with her children if she could help it.

Perhaps that was why he'd reacted so strongly. He had dis­liked his mother in self-defense of her distaste for him. But he'd had time to think over the past three weeks. Emma's few words about her childhood had eventually filtered past her shocking statements.

Emma broke the silence. "I thought you had finally re­solved to be done with me."

"So had I."

"And yet you are here." She offered him a cup of tea and dropped a sugar into her own.

"And yet I am here."

Her eyes rose to meet his. "Why?"

God, she was beautiful. He didn't know why. She shouldn't be. But the sight of her hazel eyes staring him down . . . He felt himself r

elax even as something inside him tightened.

"My father was a cruel man as well," he finally said.

She blinked and the certainty vanished from her gaze. "Pardon me?"

"What you said about your father, his treatment of your family . . . It is no wonder that you do not want children."

She set her tea down and creased her napkin. "It is not so dramatic as all that, I'm sure."

"But it is. There is nothing worse than being betrayed by someone who is supposed to love you."

Her eyelids fluttered. She pressed her hands flat to her thighs. "As you were?" she murmured.

His jaw tightened, but he had known that she must say something like this. He had invited it. So he nodded. "As we all have been."

"Yes, well. . ."

"You were trying to drive me away, Emma. I let you. But time heals all wounds, even those of pride and outrage."

"Not all. You have never healed, not completely."

He inclined his head in acknowledgment. "Some-times there are scars."

"Will you tell me the story?"

"I am sure you've heard it all."

"I have no idea what is true or false."

"It's simple, Emma. I fell in love with the wrong woman."

"But that is not the whole of it. She betrayed you, made a fool of you. I don't know how . . . I don't know why she would do that."

Her eyelids rose, and Hart saw true distress there. Even past the familiar rage he felt at the topic, he could see that her interest was not prurient, her concern bordered on pain.

And he had missed this illogical connection between them. He wanted to talk with her. So he sighed and gave in. Slightly. "Perhaps she was a bad person. Perhaps she was simply bored and I was her entertainment. I have no idea. I did not think much about it afterward."

That was the truth, at any rate. Because her betrayal had hardly been the worst of it. Her betrayal had been only the beginning.