The Bad Luck Bride (The Brides of St. Ives #1)(32)

She settled on a large, deep sofa and curled her legs up beneath her while he threw himself on an oversized chair opposite; the same spots they had sat four years earlier.

“What would you like to know?” She drew her knees up and rested her chin on them, looking adorable and desirable. Henderson crossed his legs and winced.

“Tell me about your betrotheds. Is that a word? Can you make betrothed plural?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes, you can. Is that what you really want to know?”

“I suppose what I really want to know is why you didn’t write.”

Her eyes flew wide and she laughed. “I did. All the time. I just didn’t send the letters. I didn’t know where you were and I couldn’t send them to your grandparents. What if they read what I’d written?”

Something sharp hit his heart. “You wrote?”

“I did. I still have the letters.”

He was completely taken aback. “May I see them?”

“Never,” she said with an adamant shake of her head. “Never, ever. Once I realized I would never actually send them, they became a diary of sorts. Those letters helped me with what happened to Joseph.” She was silent for a few beats. “Why didn’t you write? You certainly knew how to reach me.”

Henderson looked toward the fire, which still held a few glowing embers. “I did,” he said softly. At her soft gasp, he shook his head. “I didn’t send my letters either. I burned them. Every time.”

“Why?”

Henderson shrugged, unwilling to tell her the real reason. They had been far too intimate. Far too honest. He had poured out his heart in those letters, about Joseph. About her. He thanked God every day for burning them. “They were silly, inconsequential things. I’m not much of a writer.”

Alice gave him a skeptical look but let it go. “All right then. I’ll tell you about all three of my betrotheds.” And she did. It wasn’t until the east was seeing the first glow of the sunrise that they stopped talking. It had been the most fun Henderson had had, well, since the last time he’d spent hours in the library with Alice. God, he’d missed her, more than he’d even realized.

When conversation lulled and the fire, which Henderson had stoked at some point in the evening, had again turned to coals, Alice stood and stretched. Her robe had opened, just enough so that when she arched her back, her lovely dusky nipples, hard from the cold, were clearly visible, and his mouth went dry. In that split second, the control that Henderson had kept well in check nearly cracked. Snapping his gaze down, he took a deep breath. And again.

“Henderson?” She stood in front on him, so damned innocent, her breasts clearly showing through the thin material.

“Cover yourself, Alice. For God’s sake.”



*



Alice felt her face burn and knew she had turned a brilliant red. Drawing the robe tightly around her, she said, “Sorry, I didn’t realize.”

Henderson let out a gusty sigh. “I know you think of me as a brother, Alice, but I am not. I’m a man and when a man has a half-dressed woman in front of him, well, it can be difficult.”

“Difficult?”

“Difficult for the man not to touch—” He snapped his mouth shut and Alice’s eyes grew wide. She couldn’t help it, she smiled.

“You think I’m pretty.” It was a statement.

“God, Alice, more than pretty. I can hardly keep my hands from you.”

She furrowed her brow. “Truly?”

“Yes, truly.” Henderson sounded angry, but Alice sensed it was directed more toward himself than at her. “It was that bloody kiss. It never should have happened. I never should have kissed you that way.”

“Oh.” Alice pulled in her lips, uncertain what to say, how to act. She’d always been so comfortable with Henderson and she didn’t much like this awful tension between them. Yes, she’d had a crush on him when she was a girl, but she was no longer a girl. And what she was feeling, that dense throbbing between her legs, was no crush. It was desire. Feeling a bit startled and more than a little frightened—of herself, not Henderson—she took a step back. “Yes, you are right. I…” Again she pulled in her lips, and Henderson’s gaze dropped from her eyes to her mouth. The terrible throbbing got worse.

“I think I’ll retire now, before I do something I’ll regret even more,” Henderson said gravely. “I don’t think it is a good idea for us to meet here anymore. We probably never should have in the first place, now that I think of it.”

Alice nodded. “You are right. But I shall miss our talks.”

“We can still talk, you goose,” Henderson said on a laugh. “But perhaps we should do so when the sun is shining and with people about.”

Alice frowned. “That won’t nearly be as much fun, will it?”

“Perhaps not. But we cannot get in trouble. You do realize that if anyone discovered us, it would be disastrous.”

Disastrous. Yes, it would. But Alice couldn’t stop the stab of disappointment that Henderson thought the idea of being compromised would have disastrous consequences. It somehow didn’t matter that she had vowed never to marry. “I suppose I never thought of that. Truly, Henderson, if my mother walked down right this minute, I don’t think she’d say a thing. She knows you are practically family.”