She was waiting for him when he arrived in the dining room not half an hour later. The curtains were drawn and some rare morning sunshine spilled into the narrow room. He blinked as if his eyes were sensitive to light. She tried to school her features and not devour him with her gaze. The image of him naked, however, was burned into her eyes. She’d seen him without his shirt on, but he looked even better fully naked. Every inch of him exuded power and strength.
She straightened her spine, focusing on presenting a composed air in her chair. The only outward sign of her nervousness was her right hand. It twitched madly in her lap, safely out of sight, so she allowed herself the weakness.
He offered her a slight smile and inclined his golden dark head in a bare nod before turning to the sideboard a maid had laid out only moments before, the bounty of which made her feel rather guilty. The amount of food available could feed an entire household and not simply the two of them. She had seen such largesse in Town the last year but still had not grown accustomed to the sight of it all.
She took advantage of the moment to study his back, which even beneath his jacket was obviously strong, his shoulder blades shifting beneath the fabric. Unlike other ton gentlemen, his garments weren’t padded in the shoulders. He was lean and muscled. Her gaze caught on his broad wrist as he spooned eggs onto his plate. Her throat thickened and she fought to swallow.
Tearing her gaze from him, she lowered her spoon into her poached egg and continued to watch from beneath lowered lids as he sat down across from her, his plate piled high with eggs and kippers and various breads. Perhaps such largesse was appropriate, after all.
“Is that all you intend to eat?” He nodded toward her plate just as she took a bite of toast.
She chewed before answering. “Ever since I broke my leg I feel as though I have been pelted with food.”
“For a week you were out of your head with fever and did not eat at all. It was everything we could do to get water down you.”
Her spoon stilled and she looked up at him across the table, trying to picture him tending her alongside Mirela, although she knew he had been there. Mirela told her as much. Still . . . since she opened her eyes he had been maddeningly elusive.
“Even after you woke, your appetite was hardly recovered,” he said. “You should be eating now.”
“I’m well. Hardly wasting away. Fortunately, I could afford to lose a stone or two before.”
The sound of his knife on his plate stilled, the silence filling the space between them. She looked up, bewildered at what she had said.
His eyes pinned her, the dark blue penetrating.
She moistened her lips uncertainly.
“When are you going to admit you remember more about your past than you’re telling me?” Even his lips looked hard, pressed into a grim line.
Her pulse hammered at her neck. She suspected he had always thought as much—that she knew more, that she was lying—though he never demanded the truth from her. Until now.
“What are you saying?” she hedged, reaching for her tea, groping for time to recover, to decide what she needed to say other than the truth. Because she could not touch the truth. Not with him. Dread gnawed at her at the mere idea of telling him she was another man’s wife.
She believed him to be an honorable man, and honorable men did what they thought was right and just. They followed the law. Just as he had followed orders he might not have believed in or wanted to obey.
Returning a wife to her husband, a fellow peer of the realm, would surely seem the right thing to do. Or he could turn her over to the local constabulary, thinking they would do the right and just thing. She could not fault him if he chose such a course. But she had no doubt that Bloodsworth’s name and power would persuade the authorities to release her back into his care.
She couldn’t count on Jack to help her, either. His motivation had been clear from the start. She was to marry well. She had done that. She had given him a duke for a son-in-law.
An image of Bloodsworth rose up in her mind, and she couldn’t breathe. She could not go back to him. She could not risk anyone discovering her identity. Not even the man who had saved her life.
“You know my meaning, Anna. I’d like the truth.”
For some reason, she wanted to snap out that her name wasn’t Anna. She was Annalise. Annalise. Just once she would like to hear the sound of her real name on his lips.
Instead, she merely said, “I am sure I do not.”
“You’re lying.”
Her face warmed. She set her tea cup down with a soft click, one finger lightly tracing the delicate rim.
He pressed on, his deep voice cutting, “Why are you lying? I can help you if you tell me the truth.”
An ache pulled at her chest. It would be so easy to tell him, to confess everything. She wanted him to help her, to take care of everything, to save her and make her life easy. Only he couldn’t do that. No one could.
“What are you afraid of?”
Her gaze snapped back to his face. “I’m not afraid.”
It was as though he had said the magic word. It brought an almost a visceral reaction. No more being afraid. No more fear ever again. She had made that promise to herself and she would keep it.
A slow, wicked smile curved his mouth. “You’re lying again.”
She angled her head. Her hand in her lap clenched into a fist. “Stop saying that.” This time I’m not lying. I’m not afraid. I’m not.
“It’s not just for sport that you want me to teach you how to protect yourself. You know what happened to you . . . you know who hurt you.”
She swallowed past the ever-thickening lump in her throat. In her mind, she could only see Bloodsworth, hear his voice. Nasty bit of rubbish.
“You’re wrong. I can’t remember.”
“Liar.” His lips formed around the word slowly, like he was savoring it. The word was just a breath, a whisper that enraged her, as he knew it would. Because, of course, there was a loathsome kernel of truth to it.
And if she were being completely honest with herself, she knew he wasn’t entirely the target of her ire. It was Bloodsworth. His image in her mind. His voice in her head. The nightmare of what he did to her. It was forever there, nipping at her every action, every thought. It would be the memory by which everything else in her world centered. And she hated him for that.
With a choked sob, she lurched up from her chair and flung her napkin across the table at Owen. The fabric fell short, landing in his plate of food.
She was halfway to the dining room doors before he caught up with her, seizing her arm and whirling her around to face him.
“What are you running from?” His face was so close to hers, those eyes of his probing, searching. She sucked in a breath, feeling stripped, bared and vulnerable. She felt the wild, desperate urge to look away, escape. No one had ever looked at her—into her—as he was at that moment. “N-Nothing.”
She could see the darker rim of blue circling his eyes. He shook his head once, the movement hard, decisive. “No. You’re afraid right now.”
“I’m not—”
“I can see it in your face. Those beautiful eyes . . . they’re full of fear.”
Perhaps. But not in the way he thought. His eyes on her, the sensation of his body against hers, the hardness . . . it brought back the wanting, the deep pull at her core she had felt only with him. God. He made her vulnerable, weak from wanting him.
Her desperation to break contact, to end this dangerous conversation, spiked a chord deep inside her.
“You have a habit of manhandling me, my lord.” She feigned a wince and glanced down to his fingers wrapped around her arm. “You’re hurting me now,” she lied.
He frowned, and his grip on her arm softened. She took advantage and pulled her arm free, moving quickly from the invading breadth of his chest.
But not quickly enough.
She was both thankful and regretful for the lack of servants present when he caught her up in his arms and pressed her against one of the dining room’s double doors. Her feet dangled, her toes barely grazing the carpet as his body aligned flush with hers.
Her breath escaped her lips in a small swoosh, and she tried not to look down, to observe the way she felt her breasts swelling in her gown, pushed tightly against his broad chest. Her cheeks burned as she felt the tips harden and pebble within her corset.
“That was clever,” he remarked. “But how will you get out of this?” One of his eyebrows winged high. “Any ideas?”
She studied him carefully, trying to focus as languid warmth slid through her veins. “Is this the start of our lesson, then?”
He shrugged one shoulder as if to say, Why not? “You’re overpowered. Trapped. What now?”
She bit her lip, considering, and then shoved at his chest with both palms. Nothing. He was one giant wall. Impossible to budge.
“You’re going to have to do better than that.” His smile was almost smug. “You’re not capable of overpowering most men, so you’re going to have to be smarter. You’re intelligent. Use that mind of yours.”
He thought her intelligent? She tried to not let the compliment distract her.
His face was so close she could slap him, and maybe that’s what she should do. If she were desperate to escape someone hurting her, she would do anything. That seemed logical, even as a part of her rebelled against hitting him.
It was almost as though he read her thoughts. His jaw locked, a muscle feathering the flesh of his cheek as if he were bracing himself for her to strike him in the face.
She stilled her hand. No. He expected it. It would get her nowhere.
In this scenario, trapped as she was, she needed a weapon. She glanced around, hoping she could find something to grab and use. Nothing was within reach. That men were stronger struck her as terribly unfair. That she would forever be at their mercy ate at her like a hungry poison.
Her gaze locked on him again. “Aren’t you supposed to be teaching me what to do in a predicament like this?”
“I am.”
“Use my head,” she snapped. “That’s your advice?”
He angled his head, a hint of a smile on his lips.
Frustration welled up inside her as she gazed at that smile, at that mouth. Far too beautiful for any man. Warm and soft looking in contrast to the rest of him, which felt so hard and unrelenting. It looked inviting. Her body hummed with awareness.
Familiar heat crept up her cheeks. She couldn’t believe she was contemplating his mouth when she was supposed to be devising a way to break free of him.
But perhaps that was it.
Perhaps she had her weapon. It was her.