Page 12 of Obsession: The Unspoken Sin
“Forgive me, it is just…” He searched for words to explain how it felt being with her now.
“It feels different, doesn’t it? Uncomfortable, and yet foreign, and yet at the same time, nothing’s changed.” Alice aptly summed up everything he hadn’t been able to and couldn’t.
She turned the subject. “I take it these rooms will be yours?”
“I will be residing here as soon as they’re available and for the foreseeable future,” he said.
He’d stay as long as it took to get her out of here.
“I’d seen them once before, but the Earl of Wakefield informed me that new renovations were taking place, and I took it upon myself to visit and see what changes were in progress.”
“I didn’t know you would be here.” Yet another lie he gave her.
“Lord Wakefield will not be happy with you coming here without permission,” she murmured. “None of the proprietors will. They protect the people here.”
Denbigh stiffened.
“Not that I am saying I am at a risk, or that you pose any danger to me or any of the other women here,” she said on a rush. “Just that—”
He cut her off in quiet tones. “I am not worried about myself, or being discovered here, or the wrath of any of the proprietors here, Alice.” Denbigh looked her squarely in the eyes. He willed her to see the passion and full force of his emotions.
“I chafe and tense with outrage and dread for the peril you could find yourself in with other patrons here. The men who are not me. The ones who will see you and put you at risk.”
With every reality uttered, images paraded in his mind. Of men, unscrupulous ones; all the blackguards and bastards he’d never kept company with, stumbling upon Alice. With every horrifying possibility, fierce rage rose up inside him. All guilt at his purpose for being here melted into nothing as the fear of what faced her here dominated everything.
“Alice, surely you see that you are at risk being here. I understand you love to paint,” he said imploringly, “but you must understand—”
His words were stopped by the delicate touch of her fingertips against his lips. They were more calloused than he remembered, but still paint-stained. Never, however, had he felt those fingertips against his mouth. A shameful surge of lust bolted through him. A hungering to know her mouth in ways he shouldn’t and couldn’t.
“Laurence,” she said softly, gently. “I am happy. I am safe. Here, I am at peace.”
The primal thoughts and urges he had vanished in a flash. Rage rose up again.
“Safe?” he asked, emphasizing that word. “Safe,” he repeated. This time he forced out a harsh, ugly, mocking laugh. “Do you truly believe you are safe—?”
“I wanted to paint too!” A wilting child’s voice piped in. “You were supposed to be painting with me, M…” A little girl registered Denbigh’s presence. “Miss Killoran.”
With a feeling of being yanked mid-gallop from his horse and hurled to the ground, he whipped around and faced the intruder.
He stared blankly at the child.
A little over three feet tall and possessed of long, slightly tangled golden curls, the little girl bore a familiar look. A strange feeling settled inside him as, under Denbigh’s feet, the Earth’s axis shifted, leaving him struggling for balance. Those curls. He knew those eyes even better.
My God.
He had always possessed a way with words. They’d never eluded him. From his father, he’d inherited an ability to charm, disarm, and a way with and around words. But unlike his profligate father, Denbigh had never used them as a weapon againstinnocentladies. Words had never failed him. Until now.Fortunately, the impish, bright-eyed, dimple-cheeked, adorable little girl had words for all of them.
“Hello.”
Hello. It was just that one word, a greeting, and from it, she gave Denbigh a roadmap to follow.
“Hello,” he murmured.
At his side, Alice stood stiff, her face whitewashed, unbending and afraid.
She was afraid. And within him, with every breath he inhaled and every beat of his heart, he hated that she should be afraid in this instant.
My God, she has a daughter. There were a thousand—no, a million questions he had. There had been a man, one who had not done right by her. The rage at that and the desire to hunt down and kill the bastard, however, would wait for later. Right now, he need only be present in this moment with this pair.
