The Gentleman Who Loved Me (Heart of Enquiry Book 6)(40)

Instinct had brought her here tonight; Andrew’s gruff admission that he’d been protecting her from afar confirmed that her decision had been the right one. The fact that he’d done all of that for her—she could scarcely fathom it. She owed him too much, and now she’d asked one more favor of him.

She trusted him to take care of her problem. And, given his worldly experience, he had to be the one man in London who wouldn’t be shocked by her request. Judging from his dumbfounded expression, however, her assumption might have been wrong.

“Pardon?” he said.

“Please don’t make me say it again.” Embarrassment scalded her cheeks. “You heard me.”

He stared at her, his dark brown eyes inscrutable. He stood abruptly. “I need a drink.”

As he went to the decanter, she said, “I’d like one too, please.”

“I’m afraid I don’t stock ratafia or sherry in here.”

“Whatever you’re having is fine.”

“I’m drinking whiskey.” He swigged it like water.

Although she’d never had whiskey, the occasion might call for it. “I don’t mind.”

Wordlessly, he refilled his own glass and brought one over for her. As he handed her the drink, their fingers touched. Awareness shot through her, tingling at her nerve endings.

His hand jerked back, and he prowled to the mantel like a restless lion. “Perhaps you’d care to explain your… request.”

She took a sip of the amber liquid; it went down like fire. “Daltry’s family wants proof that my marriage was consummated.”

“In Gretna, you told me that it had been.”

Discomfited by the intensity of his stare, she said, “What I said was that I’m the Countess of Daltry. Which I am. I have the marriage papers to prove it.” She blew out a breath. “And I did, um, share a bed with Daltry.”

“Did he tup you?”

“There’s no need to be crude—”

“You’re asking me to relieve you of your virginity. Given the topic, I think we’ll call a spade a spade,” he said flatly. “Did Daltry tup you?”

“Um… perhaps?”

“Bloody hell,” he growled, “stop playing games. There is no perhaps about it. Either Daltry put his cock in you or he didn’t.”

Shivering at the lethal expression on Andrew’s face—not to mention his carnal vocabulary—she said defensively, “I’m not playing games. I’m just not certain what happened. I’d had several glasses of wine, you see, and it was dark. Daltry came to bed, and he started to, um, touch me. You know… down there.”

“What else did he do?” Andrew set his glass on the mantel, his knuckles white.

She strove to maintain an impervious fa?ade. To preserve the veneer of her composure.

“He got on top of me. He was heavy, suffocating,”—panic fissured, too close to the surface, and she fought to keep her voice from cracking—“and I couldn’t really tell what was happening. He fumbled about, and for an instant, I felt stretching… down there. But I don’t know if it was his fingers… or his, um, you-know-what. But then he started cursing, saying this had never happened to him before, and it was all my fault—”

To her horror, her voice broke, her vision fracturing into liquid fragments.

An instant later, the glass was removed from her grasp. Male strength engulfed her, and she buried her head into the comfort. Into the sanctuary that was Andrew.

“It’s all right. You don’t have to say any more.”

“I haven’t told this to anyone—I’m so ashamed,” she whispered into his waistcoat. “I don’t know why I thought I could talk about it with you.”

“Because you can, sunshine. You can tell me anything.”

“Do you… hate me?”

“No, love. Never.”

Soothed by the immediacy of his reply and his spicy, familiar scent, she sniffled. “I’ve made such a fool of myself. When you didn’t want me, I got so angry that I went after Daltry.”

“It was never a question of wanting. You know that now, don’t you?”

“So the times you refused me,” she said haltingly, “you truly did it to protect me?”

“Yes.” His eyes told her this was the truth. “You want respectability; I can’t give you that.”

His honesty gave her the courage to make her own confession.

“I don’t deserve respectability. The only reason men have shown any interest in me is because I’m pretty on the outside. But inside,” she said in a small voice, “I’m frivolous and scheming. Wicked through and through.”

A sound rumbled beneath her ear. He was… laughing at her? When she’d just confessed her greatest flaw?

Wounded, she struggled to get away. “It’s not amusing.”

He kept her caged against him with one arm. Tipped her chin up with his other hand. “It is, actually. Imagine a little thing like you calling yourself wicked.”

“I am wicked,” she insisted. “I’m a flirt, and I eloped with a man I didn’t even like.”

“Why did you? Elope with Daltry, I mean.”

“Because I’m shallow and flighty,” she said hollowly. “I wanted to be the Countess of Daltry.”