A Rakes Guide to Pleasure (Somerhart 2)

"She had been deceiving you the whole time?"

"She had. She and her lover. Those rumors were true. He was a voyeur, it seemed. And I was the young, debauched nobleman they chose to involve in their game. The other rumors were not true. I did not know he was watching. He stayed hidden." Hart shrugged the stiffness from his shoul­ders. "Not that I was morally opposed to much. Regardless, all I could see were her and her considerable charms."

"But she let you fall in love with her."

"Oh, yes. She encouraged it. It gave them ample fodder for amusement."

"The letters."

"The letters." Hart waited for the faint, familiar buzzing in his ears to stop. "But I am no longer so vulnerable. And I never write love letters to women."

Emma offered a faint smile, but it quickly fell back to a serious line. Her brow furrowed and she clasped her hands together. One thumb rubbed over the other. "You became a different person. Harder."

"Yes. You understand that."

She nodded, but didn't look up from her hands. "I do."

"Emma, I have no intention of hurting you."

"Unlike your experience, Hart, there is rarely bad inten­tion. People just happen to get hurt." She finally met his gaze. "And I am already too changed."

"Your father."

Her frown wavered for just a moment, but she smoothed it out before Hart could even think that she might cry. "Yes," she said, and left it at that.

A little horror darted through his mind, a shadow of a thought, but he refused to chase it. He did not need to know her past to know that he liked her, that he'd missed her tur­bulent presence in his structured life. Perhaps, in time, she would change her mind about their relationship. In fact, he was counting on it. She was far too sensual to live with an empty bed.

So he only leaned back in his chair and crossed his booted foot over his knee. "I have heard disturbing rumors about you, Lady Denmore. I came here today to chastise you for your dangerous behavior."

She relaxed at his change of topic. "Rumors are rarely true, as you know. What have you heard?"

"Betting on the change of weather. Horse races in the park. Games of brag that go on until dawn. Less than respectable soirees put on by questionable hosts."

"Mm. I never bet on horses, Your Grace."

His loud laughter startled both of them. She pressed a hand to her chest before her surprise turned to a grin. "What?"

"You deny nothing else?" he chuckled, thoroughly de­lighted at the familiar frustration she inspired.

She said simply, "I have been winning," as if that were answer enough. And he supposed it was, because her shin­ing hazel eyes crinkled with her smile and her cheeks glowed a soft and kissable pink.

"Promise me something," he said in an attempt to keep from pouncing on her in the parlor. "That day at Mather­ton's, on the pond, do not put yourself in that kind of danger again."

She shook her head. "That pond was—"

When Hart held up a hand, amazingly, she stopped speak­ing. "I have resigned myself. You will be scandalous and naughty at every turn, and I will stand by and look exasper­ated enough to entertain the ton. But if I think you will put yourself in true danger, I will likely go mad. So please, promise just this one thing."

She'd ceased to smile. Her eyes were wider now, but her cheeks just as pink. Her mouth looked pinker still, and soft and lonely. "Hart. . ."

His name was little more than a sigh, gentler than any word he'd ever heard her utter. Hart felt something painful blossom inside his chest, a slow explosion, dull and aching.

"I promise," she whispered. "But you mustn't say any­thing like that ever again."

He couldn't think past the disturbing pain. "Like what?"

"You mustn't be kind and . . . and . . ." She shook her head. "Promise me that. No kindness or. . ."

Hart looked into her desperate eyes just before he pushed to his feet. He'd crossed some line that neither had expected him to cross, but he hadn't done it on purpose. He'd simply looked around and here he was.