Page 15 of Daring the Forbidden Earl
“Lord Sinclair,” she said curtly. For reasons he could not explain, he felt a pleasant shiver run through him as he heard her say his name.
He stood and bowed. “Johanna.”
Mercy! What did I say that for?
He had been thinking about her so much that he had forgotten that she was “Mrs. Carlton” to him.
“You should not call me that,” she muttered, crossing the room to take the armchair opposite.
“What would you prefer? Mrs. Carlton? Something else?” He sank back down into his own chair, praying she would not say “Aunt.” After the thoughts and dreams that he had been having about her, he never wanted to think of her in that capacity. She was just his uncle’s wife, of no relation to him whatsoever.
She shrugged. “Johanna is the more favorable option, now that I come to think about it.” Evidently, she was having some of the same quandaries as him, though he doubted she was thinking of him fondly… or sexually.
“Can we not argue today?” he said, surprising himself. “I am sorry for the way that I spoke to you at the ball. I was needlessly callous, and you did not deserve that.”
Johanna blinked. “Pardon?”
“I know it is unlike me to apologize, but I feel it is necessary.” He sighed, wondering if this was his true self speaking for once. “I ruined your evening, and I upset Nora and Liam. I hope you can forgive me.”
For several minutes that felt more like an eternity, a peculiar, stilted silence settled over the pair. Johanna’s ripe, bitten-red lips parted a few times, as though she meant to say something, only to close again and leave Mark in restless anticipation.
I think Ididcontemplate kissing her…
Upon closer observation of her shapely, full lips, he remembered the contents of that sordid letter. If she were to kiss him, would she press her lips against his in a slow, sensual rhythm? Would she coax his mouth open, as the mysterious writer had detailed, and slide her tongue inside? Would she run her fingers through his hair as their lips danced together?
“Is that why you asked me to call upon you?” Johanna finally broke the silence, and not a moment too soon. If Mark had dwelled upon that thought any longer, he might have been forced to cross his legs.
Mark nodded. “In part, yes.”
“Then… you have my forgiveness,” she said softly, her eyes meeting his. “I also spoke unkindly, behaved rudely, and said things that I am ashamed of. I hope you may forgive me, too?”
He squinted at her, wondering when the barbs might begin to fly. They had never sat in a room together for this long without sniping at one another. At least, not since he had discovered that she was to wed his wicked uncle.
“I do not want us to argue, either,” she continued. “I have never wanted that. It saddens me that it has taken us both this long to make an apology to one another, especially when we were once… much kinder to each other.”
The softness in her tone disarmed him, for it reminded him keenly of those long afternoon walks, and the evening discussions by the fireplace at his family’s manor. The moment he found out she was going to marry his uncle, she had transformed, in his eyes, into a wretched creature who deserved nothing but his disdain. But what if he had viewed her wrongly, all these years? What if she was still the same woman, and he had just chosen to make her into a monster?
He managed a smile. “Do you remember those days well?”
“I have thought of them fondly over the years,” she replied nervously, staring down into her lap. “You comforted me a great deal, back then, and I have always been grateful for that. I suppose I should have told you, but with the iciness between us, there was never an opportunity.”
He laughed tightly. “You comforted me, too.”
Perhaps, she is not so cold as I thought. Have I misunderstood her?
Right now, she seemed like an entirely different person to the one he had fought with at the ball. And yet, she also seemed entirely familiar, like friends who had fallen out, or lovers who had come back together, years later, to find the embers of a romance still smoldering.
“You mentioned a letter. Is there one, or did you conjure an excuse that would bring me here?” Johanna shuffled awkwardly in the armchair, making the leather squeak.
Mark picked up the incendiary note and paused with it in his hand. After such a pleasant conversation, he was almost loath to go into the true reason he had called her to his townhouse. She would undoubtedly think him a cretin if he told her that he had read her private correspondence, and it would be even worse when he revealedwhathe had read.
I must persevere, for her sake. She was a married woman, she knows nothing of the world of courtship, and how such a letter might bring her trouble.
He cast away the other reasons he did not like what he had read. Jealousy did not suit him, and he refused to sit here, picturing Johanna tumbling in the bedclothes with a bevy of strange and unworthy men. Hypocritical, perhaps, but the world treated men and their intimate behaviors far more leniently than they treated women.
“Firstly, you must believe me when I say that I did not intend to read the contents,” he lied. “I did not see the address nor the name. It was in my pile of correspondence, so I assumed it was destined for my eyes.”
Johanna frowned. “That sounds rather like an excuse.”
