touch, to stroke. To feel.
To make her flush with something other than anger.
She must have seen some hint of his thoughts in his eyes; her chin rose, but there was defensiveness in the gesture. “In your case, my lord, no imagination was necessary. Your actions over the years speak clearly enough.”
He’d been right; for some mystical reason she held him in contempt, even though they’d never met, never set eyes on each other, let alone communicated in any way. “Which actions are those?”
His tone would have warned most men they were treading on extremely thin ice. He was quite sure she heard the warning, read it correctly, felt equally sure as her eyes flashed that she’d dismissed it out of hand.
“I can understand that while your father lived, there was no pressing need for you to live here, no reason for you to curtail your military service.”
“Especially given the country was at war.”
Her lips thinned, but she inclined her head, acknowledging the point, conceding that much. “However”—she turned and walked out of the tree’s shade toward the rectory, a low, rambling house partially screened by the high hedge bordering the other side of the field—“once your father died, you should have returned. An estate like the manor, a village like Avening, needs someone to manage the reins. But no, you preferred to be an absentee landlord and leave Griggs to shoulder the responsibilities that should have been yours. He’s done well, but he’s not young—the years have taken their toll on him.”
Pacing beside her, Jack frowned. “I was…with my regiment.” He’d been in France, alone, but he saw no reason to tell her that. “I couldn’t simply sell out—”
“Of course you could have. Many others did.” The glance she cast him was scornful. “In our circle, elder sons—those who will inherit—don’t usually serve, and while I understand your father died unexpectedly, once he had, your place was here, not”—she gestured dismissively—“playing the dashing officer in Tunbridge Wells or wherever you were stationed.”
In France. Alone. Jack bit his tongue. What had he done to deserve this lecture? Why had he invited it—and even more pertinently, why was he putting up with it?
Why wasn’t he simply annihilating her with a setdown, putting her firmly in her place, reminding her it was no place of hers to pass judgment on him?
He glanced at her. Head up, nose elevated to a superior, distinctly haughty angle, she paced fluidly, gracefully, beside him. She had a long-legged, swinging, confident stride; he didn’t have to adjust his by much to match it.
Annihilating Boadicea wouldn’t be easy, and for some unfathomable reason, he didn’t want to meet her on any battlefield.
He did want to meet her, but on another field entirely, one with silken sheets, and a soft mattress into which she would sink…. He blinked and looked ahead.
“Then came Toulouse, but you didn’t bother to return even then. No doubt you were too busy enjoying the Victory Celebrations to remember those who’d spent the years working here for you, supporting you.”
He’d spent the months of false victory in France. Alone. Mistrusting the too-easy peace as had Dalziel and certain others, it had been he who had kept a distant eye on Elba, he who’d sent the first word that Napoleon had returned and raised the eagles again. He kept his tongue clamped between his teeth; his jaw had set.
“Even worse,” she declaimed, condemnation in every syllable, the same emotion lighting her dark eyes as she glanced, fleetingly, at him, “when everything ended at Waterloo, you compounded your slights of the past and remained in London, no doubt catching up on all you’d missed in your months abroad.”
Years. Alone. Every last week, every last month for thirteen years, all alone except for that brief, supremely dangerous, reckless three days that for him had been Waterloo. And after that, once he’d sold out,