Damn, and here he was certain she’d been enjoying this. He wasn’t the sort to press himself on an unwilling woman.
“Susanna?” He reached to capture her chin, tilt her face to his. Her gaze was wide and pleading in the dark, and his heart gave a strange kick. Within him, lust and honor warred. He wanted her, yes. But he wanted to protect her, too. He wondered briefly if that meant he was a hypocrite.
No, he decided. It just meant he was a man.
“I . . .” Her lips parted, as though she would speak. Which would mean he needed to listen. He struggled to quell the bloodlust coursing through his veins, so he could make out her words over the mad pounding of his heart.
“My father,” she breathed.
Her father.
His gut wrenched, and he released her at once. There it was, the instant cure for his lust. Somehow, for a solid, disastrous minute, he’d managed to forget Sir Lewis Finch entirely. His late father’s good friend. A national hero. The man who held Bram’s fate in his hands. How could he have possibly forgotten?
The answer was simple. Once he’d made the decision to kiss Susanna, really kiss her . . . He simply hadn’t possessed the space in his brain or his arms or his heart to hold anything but her.
That kiss had been all-consuming. And it could not, would not happen again.
“Oh my God,” she muttered, smoothing her upswept hair. “How did this happen?”
“I don’t know. But it won’t happen again.”
She threw him a look, sharp as cut sapphires. “Of course it won’t. It can’t.”
“You need to stay far clear of me. Keep your distance.”
“Goodness, yes.” Her words were a fevered rush. “Plenty of distance. I’ll stay far away from you. And you keep your men separate from my ladies, do you understand?”
“Perfectly. It’s a bargain, then.”
“Good.” Her trembling fingers worked to refasten her gloves.
“Can I help with that?”
“No,” she said sharply.
“Do you . . .” He cleared his throat. “Do you plan to tell your father?”
“About this?” She looked up at him, horrified. “Heavens, no. Are you mad? He must never hear of this.”
A wave of emotion pushed through him, gone before he could name it. Profound relief, he supposed. “It’s just, you mentioned him. Earlier.”
“I did?” She frowned. “I did. Don’t speak to my father, that’s what I meant to say. Not about today, not about anything. When he proposed this militia scheme, I thought it just a bit of show, but seeing all this . . .” Her gaze turned to the rows of weaponry. “Please don’t include him. He may want to be involved, but you mustn’t allow it. He’s aging, and his health isn’t what it once was. I’ve no right to demand anything of you, but I must ask this.”
He didn’t know how to refuse. “Very well. You have my word.”
“Then you have my thanks.”
And that was all he had of her. For with those few words, she turned and fled.
That evening, as was the case most evenings, Susanna dined alone.
After dinner, she dressed for bed. Knowing she’d never be able to sleep, she chose a book—a weighty, soporific medical text. She tried to read, and failed miserably. After staring blankly at the same page for more than an hour, she rose from bed and made her way downstairs.
“Papa? Are you still up working?”
She folded an arm about her middle, wrapping her dressing gown close, and peered at the hallway clock by the light of her single candle. Already past midnight.
“Papa?” She hovered in the entrance of her father’s workshop, situated on the ground floor of Summerfield. Until recent years, he’d used an outbuilding as his dabbling space, but she’d convinced him to move to the main house about the same time she’d convinced him to give up the field tests. She liked keeping him close. When he was working, he often remained secluded for hours, even days at a time. At least in the house, she knew whether he was eating.
And he wasn’t eating. Not tonight, at least. His untouched dinner tray sat on a table by the door.
“Papa. You know, you really must take some food. Genius cannot subsist on air.”
“Is that you, Susanna?” His silver-tufted head lifted, but he did not turn his gaze. The room was lined with worktables of different sorts. A woodworking table with planes and a lathe; a station for soldering lead. Tonight, he sat at his drafting table, amid rolls of paper and discarded stubs of charcoal.
“It’s me.”
He did not invite her in, and she knew better than to enter without an explicit invitation. It had always been this way, since she was a girl. When Papa was concentrating, he must not be disturbed. But if he was at work on a trifling matter, or frustrated to the point of throwing up his hands, he would invite her in and prop her on his knee. She would sit with him, marveling over his intricate drawings and calculations. They made as much sense to her as Greek. Less sense, truly, because she’d taught herself the Greek alphabet one rainy afternoon. But still, she’d loved sitting with him. Poring over the plans, feeling privy to arcane secrets and military history in the making.
“What do you need?” She recognized the absent quality in his voice. If she had something of importance to discuss, he would not turn her away. But neither did he wish to stop his work for trivialities.
“I don’t want to interrupt. But I saw Lord Rycliff today. In the village. We talked.” And then I followed him up to his castle, where my lips collided with his. Repeatedly.
God. She couldn’t stop thinking of it. His whiskered jaw, his strong lips, his hands on her body. His taste. Susanna learned something new every day, but today was the first time she’d ever learned another person’s taste. The secret of it was gnawing her from the inside, and there was no one she could tell. Not a soul. She was motherless, sisterless. The village was full of ladies, and she’d been on the listening end of their titillating confessions countless times. But if she confided in the wrong person and her moment of weakness became public knowledge . . . all those ladies would be called home. She would risk losing every friend she had.
She gave her head a slight knock against the doorframe. Stupid, stupid. “It seems Rycliff’s plans for the militia are already proceeding apace. I just thought you’d like to know.”
“Ah.” He ripped a sheet of paper in half and drew a fresh one from the waiting stack. “That is good to hear.”