Unclaimed (Turner #2)(69)

The intensity of his eyes called to mind that long-ago day when she’d arrived on his doorstep, wet to her underthings. She’d tried to seduce him. She’d told him she hated him. Jessica shivered and pulled her cloak around her.

“I know you are unhappy with me,” she said. “I know how much you hate attention. I knew you would despise me when I placed such intimate details of our conversation before all of London.” Her words left puffs of white in the rain. “I haven’t any defense.”

He reached out and touched her chin. “Really? Not one defense?”

She stepped away, turning her back to her open doorway. “I just did what I have always done. I did my best to survive. I won’t apologize for that, but I can’t ask you to forgive me, either.”

He took another step forward, and she instinctively retreated. The entry was small and cramped; her hands found the wall too soon. He stepped forward again, until he’d backed her against her wall. Slowly, deliberately, he set his hands on either side of her head. She was trapped. Closed in. There was no way to escape.

“Mark,” she begged. “I know you must resent me, but—”

“Resent you?” he asked. “Why, in the name of everything that I hold holy, do you think that I am angry at you?”

Her fear turned to crystal inside her. She shook her head, not knowing how to answer. Not knowing how to respond when he leaned in even closer.

He touched her cheek. His fingers were wet and cold but solid and real. He touched her gently, as if he expected her to disappear if he pushed too hard. “When you told me Weston had hired you, all I could think was that you’d been laughing at me the whole time. That you’d pretended everything. That you’d never cared. But it wasn’t a lie, was it?”

Her heart thumped. He couldn’t be excusing her. He couldn’t possibly think to forgive her. “I told you I was married.”

“But you were fourteen.” He brushed water from her forehead and then swept a thumb down her nose. “You were fourteen when you were seduced, and your father threw you out of the house.”

She couldn’t speak. She was choked by an emotion that she couldn’t name, something bigger than mere relief and more powerful than even hope.

“Since then, you’ve made your way on your own.”

She nodded.

He turned from her and shut the door. When it closed behind them, the scant light from the outside was cut off. She was left in darkness with a man she couldn’t see.

“It was true, what you said.” His voice floated out of that nothingness, close and yet so far away. “You hated me at first.”

“Yes. But it didn’t last long. It couldn’t.”

He let out a sigh at that, soft and warm. “That’s what I hoped. Jessica.” He paused, took a deep breath. “I must humbly beg your forgiveness.”

“My forgiveness?” Her breath seemed to belong to someone else; she had to fight for every lungful of air.

“I told you I would be your champion. I haven’t done very well by you.”

It would be foolish to cry at those words. In the dark, she could pretend it was just rainwater. She reached out, clumsily groping for his hand. He gripped her tight.

“You don’t need my forgiveness.”

“No?” His hand curled about hers. “Tell me, then, why I have been reliving that awful moment when I left you, again and again. Tell me why it hurts me here—” he pulled her hand against the wet wool that covered his chest and spread her fingers “—when I remember that I walked from you. Explain how I am to ever deserve your trust, if I can’t have your forgiveness first.”

“You don’t need my forgiveness. You’ve had it since the day you gave me your coat. I think I was already half in love with you then.”

His hand crept to the small of her back as she spoke, drawing her close. When she was silent, she could feel the steady beat of her pulse in her throat. That pounding could not fill the impossible silence. It sounded like the opening strains of a symphony, quiet and subdued, with the entire orchestra poised to join in. Her hand curled in his coat in prelude. She could feel his entire body shift, leaning in toward her.

And then he kissed her. That first taste of him overwhelmed her senses with a pleasure so sharp it could have cut. His clothing was wet against her; his lips cold at first. They warmed. She tasted the rain on him, and then the heat of his mouth. He jolted her to life with that kiss. There was no hiding from her wants, no pretending that she could simply survive any longer.

No. He’d become necessary to her, and this was more frightening than anything she’d experienced before. At any second, he could break her. He could break her more easily with kindness than a thousand cruel words. She almost cried out at the tenderness in his touch. Every brush of his lips felt like falling.

Maybe she was just waiting to hit the ground.

His hands slid to her hair, finding pins in the dark. He pulled them out one by one, until her hair tumbled down her back, a heavy mass, half wet, half dry. He caught it in his hands as it fell. Then he pulled from her and let out a little breath.

“Oh, Jessica.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “You should have told everyone what a hypocrite I was. I lectured you with a straight face about how profligacy hurt women, and then refused to see how it had hurt you. Don’t tell me I don’t need your forgiveness.”