Chapter 16

Astory lay behind the tight twist of Her Highness's mouth. But Nylander would never have that story if he pressed her head-on. There was a way of approaching a head wind when it stood between a ship and its destination. One had to angle the sails just so and use the wind to one's advantage, instead of fighting it.

"How did you come to be the viscountess?" he asked. If it was possible to see every muscle in another person's body tense, he was looking at it now.

"I've already told you?—"

"This viscountess. The Viscountess St. Alban."

"Debt." The word emerged simply, succinct. "Georgie was in a mountain of debt to my father, who had a habit of acquiring the debt of lords and landed gentry when he could manage it. Usually at a discount from gaming hells happy to recover even a fraction of their losses."

"An ambitious man, your father." Nylander was careful to keep his tone neutral.

She laughed without mirth. He didn't like that laugh. "It would be one way of putting it. Ruthless would be another. Absolutely nothing stands between my father and his goals."

"No love or affinity existed between you and the late viscount?" Nylander asked, even though he knew the answer. After all, she'd been a virgin.

"Love and affinity weren't necessary to the acquisition of a title for my family."

"You're saying that your father—" He hesitated, suddenly wishing he could go back in time and restart this conversation, convince it to proceed in a different direction. No longer did he want to get at the truth of this matter. It was too ugly a truth. Yet that word—acquisition—nipped at him. It spoke of transaction of the fiscal variety. He couldn't let it be. "Your father sold you."

She cleared her throat. "It's a free country. I made my choices."

Cold, distant, and tough were her words, as if they, or the motivations behind them, no longer affected her. But her eyes, raw and skittish, belied her bluff.

"You were married three years?"

She nodded.

"Enough time to start a family," he stated, again pushing her.

Children come of marriage.Those had been her exact words as they'd stood outside the schoolyard, watching the children play. To be blunt, it only took about two minutes to conceive a child, if that was the main goal.

And they hadn't managed it in three years?

It didn't make sense.

Her gaze skittered toward him, and her jaw clenched. He'd struck his mark. "Perhaps," she began, "but no number of years is enough time if—" She bit off the rest of the sentence.

Her cheeks had grown flushed, and emotion rioted behind her tough exterior. Nylander leaned forward and placed his palms flat on the oak desk. "Not long enough if…?" he prompted. She would finish the sentence she'd started.

Her gaze fixed on some indeterminate point on her lap. She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth before releasing it on a rough harrumph of her throat. She had the most unladylike habits. He rather liked them. They were honest.

"If he is unable to perform," she stated without even a hint of emotion.

He leaned forward and cocked his ear toward her, uncertain he'd heard her correctly. "If he is unable to?—"

"Perform." Bleak coal-black eyes stared out at him.

"Per—" He stopped.

Oh.

She shot to her feet, reached for the land survey at the center of the desk, and began rolling it up as if suddenly pressed for time. "Entirely my fault, it seems," she said, offhand, dismissive.

"I can't imagine that would've been the case," he said on a low grumble. Less than three feet of oak separated them, his words didn't need to carry far.

Her eyes flew up to meet his, still vulnerable, still raw, but he saw something new in their depths: fire. "Do not toy with me," she gritted out.

He moved not a muscle and didn't back down, as many must when this woman cast at them this particular glare. "I'm not the toying sort."

The moment elongated, and stillness filled the room, the only movement that of her eyes searching his, the air heavy with the unspoken… the unspeakable.

"I suppose you're not." She stacked papers into a neat pile and gave them an efficient tap-tap on the desktop for good measure. "Mayhap," she began, "you would like to take your drawing with you and make it more detailed."

He tamped down a groan of frustration. She was changing the subject. She didn't want to speak of her marriage, as was her right. He would follow her lead, as was the gentlemanly thing to do. "I'm no expert on such matters."

"Well, you're a natural at it," she continued. "Of course, I would pay you for your services."

"Pay me for my services?"

A thick tome slipped from her fingers and landed on the desk with a thud. "For your drawing."

She picked up her pile of books and strode toward the bookcase on the other side of the fireplace, which must have been recently stoked as it burned bright and hot. The stack, however, was too heavy for her to both hold and shelve. Without thought, he crossed the distance and silently held out his arms. Her profile to him, she closed her eyes and heaved a great sigh. Finally, she pivoted and faced him. Of necessity, they would have to close some distance to transfer the load.

She inched forward, hesitant, wary, calling to mind their awkward pas de deux in the cow house. It was her scent that reached him first. Fresh, citrus air. It reminded him of orange, lemon, and lime caught on the clean night breeze in a southern clime. It reminded him of the home he'd lost during his fifth year, his first home, his truest home. Unexpected that this perplexing English aristocratic woman reminded him of that time and place.

Only the rapid in and out of her breath sounded in the room. He slid his hands beneath the bottom book, skimming against smooth leather, alongside her bare forearm. She jumped, and her breath caught. Recognition spiked through him. He caught her eye just before it skittered away.

Separated by the width of a book, her gaze averted, light running along the fine hairs of her jawline, she muttered, "Do you have them?"

"Aye," he grunted.

She took the top book, slid it into place, and repeated the cycle, book after book, her gaze avoiding his as if her life depended on it.

How was it possible she'd been a man's wife for three years without consummating the marriage?

If he is unable to perform.

She was the most compelling woman he'd ever known. To be sure, she wasn't pretty in the conventional sense of the word, but convention had naught to do with attraction. And the woman was damned attractive.

Determination, steely and sure, surged forward, the determination to strip the truth from her would no longer be denied. The time had come to have it out in the open. No longer would he be a lady's private shame.

He would be acknowledged. She would confess.

He held out the last book, and just as she reached for it he caught her wrist. She tried to snatch her hand back, to no avail. "What on earth can you possibly mean by this? Kindly unhand me, sir."

He held her fast. "You."

"Me?" she asked, her wide eyes snapping fire.

"You."

"You sound unhinged. Mayhap your fever has returned. Shall we send for the doctor?"

As impressive as her show of bravado was, she would have to do better to obtain her freedom. She would have to speak the truth. "That night at the inn," he began.

Face averted, attitude haughty, she asked, "Didn't we settle this earlier?"

"Bear with me."

He turned her wrist over, the warm, flickering light of the fire illuminating the blue veins that wound in delicate rivulets beneath her pale skin, disappearing beneath the tightly buttoned cuff of her sleeve. He worked one, then another, button free of its loop. When he reached the third and final button, she tried to twist away.

"Now back to that night"—the third button slipped free, and the sleeve fell open, revealing the hard blue beat of her pulse—"At first, I'd considered the possibility that it had been a dream. Can you imagine why?"

"Not at all." Her voice was composed of both solid ice and trembling heat.

"No?" He folded the linen fabric of her sleeve over on itself. "Something happened in that room that night, something that might be deemed too explicit for the delicate ears of a lady."

"You can keep the contents of your dreams to yourself. I don't care to hear the ravings of the fevered mind."

She was good. But not good enough.

He folded white linen on itself once again, baring the lower half of her forearm, which glowed translucent like the finest white marble. "There was one detail of the night that I recall with vivid certainty. The woman?—"

"Mayhap you've conflated reality with dreams," she interrupted, a fighter to the end.

"The very real woman had a mark the shape and color of a tiny heart"—his fingers inched up her arm, skin against skin, pushing the fabric up to her elbow. Again, she attempted to wrench away from him—"on her inner arm"—the fabric became more difficult to negotiate the farther up it went, possibly from the density of the linen, likely from the thin sheen of sweat—"on the soft patch of skin"—one final push of linen—"here."

Both sets of eyes shot toward the only place he could be speaking of. Against pale skin, indeed, lay a tiny heart, the size of a beauty mark, the red of a ripe cherry.

With a great heave, she snatched her arm back and tugged her sleeve down in jerky increments. "How dare you?"

"How dare I?" Such nerve. "It seems you're the daring one."

Her strangled cry sounded equal parts mortification and distress as it echoed through the room. With her next breath, she seemed to recover something of herself. "I shan't explain myself to you."

Her words, her haughty demeanor, slapped across him with the force of a north wind in the dead of winter, shooting ice into his veins. "Right," he said, hard, acrid. "Why would you deign to explain yourself to a lowly sailor like me?"

She went still as stone, her wide eyes searching his.

"I know your type."

Her brow lifted, curious, befuddled. "My type?"

"Lady of the manor looking for a man who can service you right."

He knew the instant his meaning hit her, for a blush flared up the elegant column of her neck and formed twin patches of scarlet on her cheeks. "Service me?" she asked on a halting whisper, clearly shocked to her core by his bluntness. She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth and released it.

"That night," she began on a croak and cleared her throat with her familiar, unladylike harrumph. "It was simply a night between a man—" She stopped. Abashment stole across her features. "I must say something about it. I thought, well, I thought you'd recovered."

"From my fever?"

She nodded. "I wouldn't have," she started and stopped. "It wouldn't have happened had I known you weren't actually recovered."

"So as not to take advantage of me?" he asked, incredulous. Well, this was a first.

Again, she nodded. "Because we both know it was nothing."

"Nothing?" He'd say it was a little more than nothing. If memory served, it had been quite something.

"Nothing more than an, uh, occurrence between a man like you"—she gestured up and down the length of him. He felt like a piece of meat on display at the market—"and a woman too unattractive to tempt her own husband."

"Too unattractive?"

Her fingers began worrying the fabric of her nightrail. The movement was small, but he caught it. Whatever she was about to say, she'd never said it aloud to anyone.

"It has been made abundantly clear to me all my life that I am too everything." She held up her hand, her fingers ticking items off a list. "Too tall. Too skinny. Too freckled. Hair too red, too frizzy. Too strong-willed." Her hands clenched into fists. "All the too-s add together to form the portrait of a too unattractive woman."

"People told you this all your life?"

"Some more plainly than others, but I've always understood the truth."

"The truth?"

"That they're right."

Her gaze held his, dared him to refute her words, and a sudden ache sprang to life inside him. He ached for her pain. He ached for her bravado. He ached to touch her, to make all her hurt and false bravery go away.

She laughed, the sound hollow and raw. "After all, you didn't remember me until just now."

A gut punch couldn't have floored him more effectively. "I've known."

"You've—" She stopped. "You've known? This entire time?"

"Aye." No use denying the truth.

She closed her eyes and inhaled a breath that shuddered and shook. "You bastard."

"Aye, that I am," he returned on a dry note. "But, Callie, here's what I don't understand."

"I haven't given you leave to call me?—"

"Callie? I think we're past that."

"What is it you don't understand?" she asked on a whisper barely spoke.

"How is it you think any man could ever forget you?"

Her mouth opened and shut.

"It was mutual," he said.

"What was?" The words hardly carried on the slim air between them.

"The wanting."

Her pupils flared nearly to the outer edges of her irises, her lips parted, and a breathless, "Oh," escaped her.

At last, his words had the intended effect.