The Swordmaster's Mistress: Dangerous Deceptions Book Two(57)
Damn it. ‘Do I?’ He had thought he had disciplined every possible tell out of his reactions.
‘Yes. It is something to do with your early life, isn’t it? You come from around here.’
‘How the devil did you know that?’ He sat up abruptly, all his prized control lost in a moment. He used the movement to stand, instinctively covering the reaction.
‘Very occasionally there is the faintest trace of Yorkshire in your voice. I hear it when you are speaking to Thomas or any of the staff here. You did not want to come up here, even though you had decided it was the best thing to do. You hid it deep, but I could tell.’
‘It appears I have become very easy to read.’ Which was a disaster when his entire livelihood depended on the exact opposite.
‘Not at all.’ Guinevere studied him, head to one side, her lower lip caught between her teeth for a second. ‘For some reason I seem able to sense your mood. Will you tell me what is wrong?’
Tell her? Tell her what he had never spoken of to a living soul, dig out the betrayal and the disillusion and the anger and reveal the vulnerable seventeen year old boy that he had been?
‘Yes,’ he said, startling himself. ‘I was born and lived the first seventeen years of my life between here and Whitby. I have an elder brother.’ William. ‘I loved and respected him and he betrayed me, lied about me and took my honour with that lie. My father believed him, not me, which I suppose is not surprising. He was the heir, the serious, sensible one.’ The cunning, scheming one, as it turned out. ‘I was wild, endlessly in trouble.’ And romantic and naive and in love with chivalry and swordplay, not with real life. ‘There was a… situation. Accusations were made that I denied. I left.’
‘The accusations were untrue.’ Guinevere made that a statement, trusting him without even knowing what he had been charged with. She gave a little nod, strangely decisive. ‘And you have never been back? Never contacted them?’
‘No. I suppose I should forgive them, it has been a long time.’ He did not hate any more and the betrayal had become a scar, not a wound, but the love had gone, the trust had gone. There was no respect and without those things, what was the point of family? Guinevere would not agree with that, he supposed, women usually valued reconciliation, whatever the provocation. Jared waited for the lecture.
‘Why should you?’ she demanded, startling him. ‘They betrayed you, the people who should have loved you. Did they look for you?’
But then Guinevere is not an ordinary woman… ‘I do not think so. My brother had everything to lose by admitting the truth, my father believed him. My mother had died the year before.’ It had been then, he had come to realise as he looked back, older and wiser, that things had begun to fall apart.
‘Would they know you now?’ Guinevere smiled and he found he was smiling back, even as he marvelled at the effect she had on him, the way she undermined every one of his defences. ‘I expect you have changed somewhat.’
‘I was a lanky, skinny boy with short hair,’ Jared said, looking back through the smudged mirror of time. ‘I probably had a vague expression – I was certainly always in trouble for day dreaming.’
‘You have changed. I do not think anyone could accuse you of being either skinny or dreamy. You seem to have the focus of a rat trap and the muscles of an athlete.’ She reached out and touched his upper arm fleetingly, one nail scratching the swell of his bicep. ‘But there is no reason to think we would encounter your family. I suppose your real name is not Hunt? No, I did not think it was.’
‘Jared is one of my names. As I told you, it is an old family tradition. My surname I adapted a trifle.’
‘And I suppose you will not tell me what your brother did?’
Jared shook his head, his hair falling to shield his face. No, that he found he could not do, even with Guinevere. The shock and the shame and the betrayal must have cut even deeper than he had realised. He could not speak of it, as though the dishonour had been his, not William’s. But then everyone but William and Bella thought it was and, apparently, a clear conscience was not much help under the circumstances.
‘It was a woman, I suppose,’ Guinevere said and this time he managed not to react. ‘I am not fishing, just guessing. What else would wound a romantic young man more than that? No, I do not expect an answer.’ She threw aside the sheet and slid from the bed, unashamedly naked, without a blush. ‘We have much to do. Look up the Willoughbys in the book, plan a surprise visit to the Quentens – I wonder what excuse I can come up with for just passing so much out of my way?’
‘Sightseeing,’ Jared suggested as he got off the bed and retrieved his boots. ‘It has been suggested to you as a way of taking your mind off your troubles. You have a desire to buy Whitby jet mourning jewellery, to see the abbey ruins, admire Robin Hood’s Bay. And suddenly it occurs to you to have a good look at a map and see how close you are to Lord Northam’s remaining family.’
Guinevere tied her garters, shimmied into her camisole and wrapped her stays around herself. ‘Please lace me up.’
Yes, she had most definitely been trained by the Inquisition. First she interrogated him, forcing him to confront feelings and memories he had firmly buried and now she was half-naked in front of him, the warm aroma of well-satisfied woman filling his senses, the enticing curves of her buttocks inches from his groin as she presented her back and the laces to him. Jared fought back the urge to toss her onto the bed and make love to her all over again, and whipped the laces through their holes, then tugged.