A Study In Seduction(20)

“Oh, you had a choice, Lord Northwood. We always have a choice.”

“No. Given the current difficulties with Russia, my family’s ties to the country are increasingly maligned. What choice do I have in that?”

“You’ve a choice in how you respond to such intolerance.”

Alexander turned his head to look at her, struck again by the sense that Lydia Kellaway’s composure was something both durable and imperfect, like a solid Greek amphora marked with cracks and flaws.

“What was your choice?” he asked.

For an instant, she didn’t speak, though some fleeting, raw emotion passed across her features.

“Not one I care to elucidate.” She took another sip of tea and stood, smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt. “I do apologize for intruding upon you yet again. It was reckless and very imprudent.”

“I think you ought to be reckless and imprudent more often, Miss Kellaway.”

“Then your thoughts are extremely mistaken.”

“Are they?”

“Yes.” Her jaw tightened with irritation, her chin lifting. “I’m no longer a young woman, my lord. My days of recklessness are long past.”

“In all honesty, I find it difficult to imagine you ever had days of recklessness.”

“Good.” She started toward the door.

“Tell me what you want, Miss Kellaway.”

She stopped. Her back stiffened, her shoulders drawing back. “I will not have this discussion.”

“Tell me what you want and you can have the locket back.”

She spun around, her skin reddening with anger. “How dare you manipulate me!”

“It’s a fair trade.”

“It is not. No trade is fair when the winner also loses.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you haven’t a care for either of the things being exchanged,” Lydia said. “The locket means nothing to you and everything to me. My wishes mean nothing to you and everything to me. So I tell you what you want to hear and win the locket back, but I’ve still lost, haven’t I? You’ve still gotten what you want.”

“Forget the locket, then. Just tell me.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because I refuse to believe the answer is nothing.”

“You want to know what I want? What I can never have?” She stalked toward him, her body rigid. “Fine. I’ll tell you what I want. Then you’ll realize what an unproductive act of futility it is for a woman like me to want anything beyond what she has.”

Alexander didn’t move. “Tell me.”

Her eyes flashed. “I want my mother’s locket back. I want my mother back. I want her to be whole and well and never to have suffered the horrors of her own mind. I want my father to have had the career he deserved. I want my sister to live the ordinary, happy life I never did. Is that enough? No? There’s more. I want my grandmother to stop trying to set Jane’s future. I want to prove Legendre’s prime number theorem. I want to do something. I—”

Alexander stepped forward and captured her face in his hands. He stared at her—the fire of pain and anger blazing in her eyes, the flush of her skin. An ache of want speared through him again, powerful enough to break his own vow. Before she could draw another breath, he lowered his head and kissed her.

She trembled beneath his hands, a hard, edgy tremble of anger. But she did not pull away. Alexander pressed harder, heat spreading through his chest as he sought to invade her mouth. Soft, soft, soft. Her mouth was so full, so pliable, such a contrast to the rigidity of her body. He flicked his tongue out to lick the corner of her mouth. She shuddered in response, and though her shoulders remained stiff, her lips began to slacken, to open.

The taste of tea and sugar, of Lydia, swept through Alexander’s blood. His hands tightened on her shoulders, pulling her closer so the curves of her breasts brushed against his chest. She gasped, a choked, throaty sound that made him ache to know what kind of noises she’d make if she were splayed naked and willing beneath him.

The image burned in his brain. He pressed himself against her. He lowered his hands to her tight waist, his fingers digging into an impossibly stiff corset. He wanted to strip it from her body, to feel her bare skin against his, to cup her breasts in his hands and hear her moan with pleasure.

Hot. Christ, she was hot. He could almost feel her skin burning through the material of her gown. She kissed him back, her delicious tongue sliding across his teeth, her hands fisting in the front of his shirt. It was neither a gentle kiss nor one of seduction. Her kiss was angry, frustrated, her lips fierce against his.