Begrudgingly, Meg led their guest along the path toward the park that overlooked Stredwick Lodge. It was a cool night, the moon hanging overhead like a sugar-dusted biscuit that had been cut perfectly in half. The other half had likely been discarded and left forgotten for two years, she thought peevishly as Lucien kept pace beside her.
If it weren’t for him, she would be enjoying this lovely stroll. The air was sweetly scented with dew and damp earth and filled with the chirruping songs of frogs and crickets as they approached the creek.
This used to be her favorite spot, sitting on the walking bridge and feeling the cool, silken caress of stone-tumbled water over her toes. But he’d ruined that for her, too.
When she’d returned from her holiday, her heart shattered anew each time she saw the dark rocks flecked with gold that reminded her of his eyes. And now he was here, threatening to destroy the life she’d tried so hard to create after she’d been broken and had carefully put herself back together.
Irritated once more, she sent him a withering glare. “Whatever you intend to accomplish by this charade of yours—this charming facade you’ve adopted for the evening—I tell you there is nothing to gain. I do not have your book. And you are only leading my aunt to believe there could be something between us.”
“At one point, I thought there could have been,” he said with that disapproving frown of his, as if he were in earnest, and that just vexed her all the more.
She huffed and held up two fingers. “Says the man who made no attempt to contact me in two years.”
“Says the woman who disappeared without a trace.”
“I. Left. You. A. Note!”
“So you claim, but when I returned to my room, there was no note. And no book.”
She growled. It was so futile trying to prove her point, like beating her head against a—“Wait a minute. What do you mean when you returned?”
“I had to leave that night,” he said on a heavy breath, his gaze distant as he looked toward the dark tree line on the horizon. “Morgan had taken ill. The doctors weren’t certain she would live.”
Meg covered her mouth with her fingertips. “Oh, no. I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“It was a month before she was well enough to travel, and I am thankful that her health is greatly improved. But the episode only cemented the fact that my family’s welfare and legacy rests on my shoulders.” He turned to her, his gaze searching. “Meg, my half sister, is nearly the only family I have left, and I almost lost her. I have a great-aunt in Cheshire who is ninety-seven years old, and I suspect the only reason she is still alive is to write to me with constant reminders to produce an heir. And every time I visit or read her letters, I am forced to come to the conclusion that Pell will likely marry before I do, and he has vowed to wait until he is a septuagenarian.”
He shook his head and raked a hand through his hair. “The point I am attempting to make, however, is that I cannot even consider the possibility of a different pursuit until the book is returned to me. Not only do I have experiments yet to prove, but it is my duty to preserve the Merleton legacy. Can you not understand that?”
His speech was so adamant, so vulnerable. So unlike the logical and calculated man she’d come to know that she suddenly saw his quest in a new light.
It wasn’t simply an obsession. There was deep sentiment and heartfelt need behind his driven nature. And that knowledge tugged at her heart, whether she wanted it to or not.
“Lucien, I promise you that I do not have, or know who might have, your book. I want you to find it. I want you to have whatever brings you fulfillment.” She stepped toward him and almost took his hand in hers. Almost.
Thankfully, her sense returned, and she thought of Guinevere.
Crossing her arms to ward off the chill, she added, “But you’ll not find it here. And I need you to go before my aunt suspects that you and I are much better acquainted than she knows.”
He studied her carefully for a moment, an erudite gleam in his eyes as his brows arched. “It seems the bold Lady Avalon has a weakness, after all.”
She stiffened at the thinly veiled threat and pointed her finger at him. “This is not a coy game. I’m no longer on holiday, pretending to be someone I’m not. Don’t you see? You were only supposed to be my one grand flirtation, and instead—”
“We became lovers,” he said in a voice so low that it spiraled directly into the pit of her stomach.
Then he took her off guard when he reached out and grasped her wrist. He towed her toward him. On a squeak of surprise, she lost her firm footing, staggering forward, and he caught her against him in a shock of breathless sensations and, before she knew it, she felt the tug. The giddiness. All the things that had kept drawing her to him again and again from the moment they’d met.
Much to her dismay, she couldn’t seem to stop touching him. Her hands were on his broad chest, fingers fanned out and tingling with the memory of the crisp, dark furring that she knew was beneath his waistcoat and shirt. The warmth of him. The feel of his heart beating against her own.
It was happening all over again.
“We did,” she admitted on a rasp, making a feeble attempt to put space between them. “And if my family realizes what we were, they would force us to marry.”
She meant it as a threat to scare him off. To compel him to release her like a hot coal.
Instead, he pulled her closer. Her betraying body softened against him as if she belonged there. And oh, it felt so good. Too good.
He leaned closer, his cheek against hers as he breathed her in. “As my wife, you would be in my bed every night, neck arched, body flushed with desire, my name on your lips.” His heated whisper brushed the sensitive inner whorls of her ear, sending shivers spiraling inside her. “You’re already thinking about it.”
“I’m not,” she lied and realized that doing so still made her nose itch. Ignoring the sensation, she flexed her fingers on his shoulders.
He arched a dubious brow. “Your eyes tell a different tale. The pupils are full-blown with desire.”
She hiked her chin, which—she happened to notice—brought their mouths closer. If she were to rise on her toes . . .
But no, she didn’t want to think about that. Or acknowledge that he still smelled just as good as she remembered. Better. “It is nighttime. Pupils naturally expand in dark places in order to let in more light.”
“Your lips are plump and your cheeks are flushed. Proof of increased blood flow toward the surface of your skin.”
“I have a similar reaction to eating too many strawberries before my skin begins to itch,” she said, grasping at straws, her pulse thudding.
“You can lie to yourself. But I’ll be damned if I’ll let you lie to me again.” His fingers gripped her hips, drawing her flush. “Your nostrils flare as if to catch my scent, and your breaths are shallow and quick.”
“So are yours,” she accused as she felt herself molding against him, her body cradling that enticing hardness and clenching on emptiness. “Drat, you horrible man! I hate you for doing these things to me.”
“Not as much as I hate you, ma petite louve,” he said as he curled his hand around the nape of her neck.
Meg felt her spine bow toward him, head tilting. Blast it all! She couldn’t seem to stop herself.
Was she actually going to let him kiss her?
Kissing him went against every vow she’d made to herself in the past few hours.
But a few hours ago, she had been a different woman. Her willpower was her friend—an angry, bitter friend that would rather have seen him drawn and quartered than here in the moonlight.
Now that same willpower friend was fanning herself, lounging on a chaise and hoping to be thoroughly ravished.
Lucien lowered his head, an errant ray of moonlight creating shadows beneath his spectacles, his eyes smoky with promise—
Then a cry broke through the night air, shattering the spell at once.
Meg shoved out of his embrace. She stepped apart, her hands trembling as she smoothed them over her skirts.
With as cold a voice as she could manage, she said, “I must go. I trust you will find your own way to Stredwick Lodge.”
* * *
Lucien watched her flee the garden, a puzzled frown furrowing his brow.
He hadn’t intended for that to happen. But once again, he’d been suddenly overwhelmed by a primitive need for her. As if she belonged to him, with him, over him, under . . .
He let out a heavy breath, confounded by his own behavior, staggered by this need that left him shaken.
It made no logical sense. But with Meg, it never did.
He’d had trouble thinking straight when it came to her before. He couldn’t allow that to happen again.
He didn’t know what game they were playing this time around. But he didn’t like this feeling. His hands felt empty. His body coiled tight. He passed the side of his closed fist over the surface of his lips to ease the peculiar ache. Then he pressed it to the center of his chest where his heart thudded flatly as if it had been dropped from a great height.
No, he did not like this feeling at all.