She cast him an amused glance. “I was thinking of the folly.”

The folly. Not even half a mile away from the house.

“Carey,” she addressed the maid, “what do you think of an outing to the folly?”

Carey, who was hovering in the background like a listless ghost, solidified. “I don’t know, milady.” The worry in her voice was palpable. “Perhaps the fountain would do just fine for now?”

The fountain. Two hundred yards from the house.

A sea voyage with an invalid into an only rudimentarily organized future was looking less and less like a master plan. Had it ever been a master plan? Or just the illusory idea that he could do both: keep her safe and escape Rochester’s marriage match?

What if he told her? Mother, your husband is using you as bait and you are not safe in your own home. She might expire on the spot. Already she was deflating before his eyes: too much talk and matchmaking excitement. She barely reacted when her lady’s maid placed the vase next to her bed.

“Carey read me your poetry,” she said when he had already taken his leave and was on his way to the door. “I am proud of you.”

Her meaningful undertone made his nape tickle. He turned back and found that her gaze had blurred, and that she might not see him well at all.

“And Rochester does not hate you,” she murmured. “He is afraid you could become like me.”

Mad like me, were the unspoken words. He stood rooted to the floor.

“What a curious thing to say, Mother.”

It had of course crossed his mind, many times, whether the moods ran in the family.

As though he had spoken out loud, she shook her head. “I have been a great disappointment to your father. To everyone, I daresay. His anger is part fear, Tristan. But you must never fear, my dear—you have all that was best of me, and none of the curse. At your age, I had long been afflicted. Unfortunately, Rochester is not one to recognize nuances; it is all the same to him.”

He took a step toward the bed. “You are hardly cursed. What is the purpose of telling me this?”

She was already drifting into sleep, or pretended to be, and eventually, he left with his instincts for trouble high on alert.

Rochester’s valet, Jarvis, stood lurking in the corridor, yards away from the chamber door. At least Rochester had not sent his spy right into the bedchamber with him.

“Milord.” The hushed female voice made him turn back. Carey, the lady’s maid, had slipped out the door after him. When she spotted Jarvis, she abruptly came to a halt, her dark eyes widening beneath her cap before she quickly dropped her gaze.

Instinctively, Tristan moved his body between the valet and the woman. “Yes, Carey?”

The tops of her ears were crimson. Any number of reasons could be the cause: addressing him without having been spoken to; looking at him; fearing the valet. She glanced up, her gaze not quite meeting his.

“Nothing, milord,” she whispered, mortified. “Congratulations on your engagement.” She hurried past him, her shoulders looking tense.

* * *

The time from Thursday morning to eleven o’clock Friday night had crawled by more slowly than the passing of a woman’s rights amendment. Lucie had had ample opportunity to doubt and revoke her decision to invite a rogue back into her bed, and she had dithered. She had languished in the unfamiliar purgatory of suspense over a man, and she disliked it. Her stomach had somersaulted every time she thought of Tristan stretched out lazily on the blankets in the drawing room again. By the time he did duck through her kitchen door, looking unfazed and smelling deliciously of himself and hints of wood smoke, she had developed a bit of a temper.

He knew after taking one look at her face, for his mouth curved into a wicked smile, and before she could utter a word, his right hand cupped the back of her head and pulled her in close for a kiss.

Her mind was still spinning when he hung his coat and hat on the servants’ rack next to the china cupboard.

“You are quiet,” he remarked as he walked to the sink to turn up the tap. “A little tense, even?” There was a teasing note in his voice.

She was about to be skin to skin with him again. She was already shamelessly wearing her robe, and her feet were bare. Of course she was tense.

“Not at all,” she said, her first lie in years.

“No? Well, good.” He was looking at her with a soft heat in his eyes while tugging off his gloves, slowly, one finger at the time. By the time the gloves lay side by side on the kitchen counter, warmth tingled in her cheeks and lips. She was familiar now with what he could do with his fingers.

She watched him spread the creamy lather of soap over his hands, watched as a lock of his hair fell over his forehead, and how the gaslight cast his terrifyingly beautiful profile into stark relief, and the sudden force of her desire for him frightened her. A good lover can addle your brain, Annabelle had warned her. He can make you feel things you neither expected nor wish to feel. . . .

He was drying his hands when a growl sounded in the tense silence.

He raised an apologetic brow.

“Are you hungry?” she asked quickly. “Have you not eaten?”

He shook his head. “I came directly from the office in London. Come here.”

She danced closer like a nervous colt. “You should eat,” she told him.

The corner of his mouth tipped up in a small smile. “I shall,” he said. “In a moment. Turn around.” His index finger made a slow twirling motion.

She hesitated, but his smile became a challenge, and so she turned her back to him.

He brushed her hair forward over one shoulder.

“What—” She moaned in surprise when his thumbs expertly pressed into her shoulders.

His lips were warm against the bared side of her neck.

“Lovely,” he whispered. “Do that again.”

“You . . .” she murmured, and her voice faded, because he continued the delicate massage, skillfully manipulating his way to the sensitive hollow of her nape, then down again. He kneaded gently on either side of the pearls of her spine, until her head fell back against his chest. Her eyes were closed; she did not want him to see how much she wished for him to kiss her. How her body was already heavy with longing and needed his hands to slide forward over her breasts. . . .

His fingers fanned over her jaw and tilted her face up. She felt his lips against her own and then the heat of his mouth. She moaned, her thoughts dissolving. His other hand skimmed over her breasts, her belly, between her legs, where his fingertips pressed down. Darkness exploded behind her eyes; for a beat, all that held her upright were his hands. And they were bent on destroying her, one clever touch at the time.

His arousal was hard against her backside. At least the madness was affecting him, too. She arched, and he groaned, his grip on her tightening. She was turned in his arms and walked backward, kissing and grasping, and the edge of the kitchen table bumped against the back of her thighs.

He lifted her onto the surface and stepped between her legs.

Her gaze was heavy-lidded. “On the table?” she murmured.

He brushed his index finger over her damp bottom lip and dragged it down over her throat.

“I believe you told me to eat,” he said, and sank to his knees.

A whimpering noise; it must have come from her. She was familiar with the things he could do with his mouth now, too. His hands slipped up her thighs, parting the robe wide, and his fingertips dug into her hips as he pulled her closer to the edge. Her eyes were shut again, but she felt him. He rubbed his face against the downy inside of her thigh, abrading her skin with the grain of his cheek, then the velvet of his lips, back and forth, rough and soft sliding into each other, until her shaking fingers tangled in his hair to try and pull his head to where she needed him.

A low laugh shook his shoulders. He looked up. “Tell me,” he said, his eyes black with lust. “How much do you detest me now?”

She gasped. “This is not fair.”

“Of course not,” he said gently, “love and war, was it not?” He kissed her inches from where she ached. “Say it,” he demanded, his mouth hot against her skin.

“I detest you,” she whispered. “Very much.”

But then he pulled her thigh over his shoulder, and she felt the liquid softness of his tongue, and the deluge of emotion flooding her was markedly far from the war side of things.

Chapter 26

When she woke the next morning in the drawing room, she thought of the kitchen table, and that she would never be able to look at it without blushing ever again. Could she have breakfast there now without her mind wandering back to last night? Leave it to Tristan to despoil a perfectly innocent piece of furniture.

He had again stayed, after he had carried her limp form from the kitchen to have his way with her before the fireplace.

He was awake now, up on his elbow, his chin in his hand, studying her with an expression of lazy satisfaction. His eyes were suspiciously free of guile.

Her own feelings were ambiguous. This was her last morning of waking up with a man. Last times had a touch of nostalgia to them even as they were still ongoing.

Tristan appeared oblivious; his free hand was playing with her hair, looping it between his fingers. “When I was here the first time,” he said, “you said you had read lascivious accounts about lovemaking.”