Page 6 of A Talent for Temptation
“My husband was in the army,” she said. “So yes. A few times.”
Right. He’d forgotten that Vyse had been an army lieutenant. “But that was long after the war was over. How did he get wounded?”
“Doing things he shouldn’t.”
She stuck him again, but by now the brandy had begun to take effect and he felt marginally less pain.
“Like what?” he asked, to keep his mind off it. “Dueling? Getting into fights? Stumbling about drunk and running into things?”
“More like throwing himself willy-nilly into anything that smacked of danger.” Her mouth formed a grim line as she tied off the thread. “Don’t get me wrong. He was a good man, my husband. But he would take on any mission, no matter how risky, just for the thrill of it. In the year we were married, I spent half my nights alone, terrified of what might happen to him.”
“I thought women liked daring men.” Men like Fulkham.
“I suppose some do.” She bit off the thread, then drew out a bandage to wrap around his arm. “Personally, I’d rather have a man with less appetite for adventure.”
Intriguing. “But youwerein love with your husband, I assume.”
Guilt flashed over her face. “Not exactly. I mean, Ilikedhim. He was a fine gentleman and we were good friends. Close friends, even.”
“Who shared a bed,” he said thickly.
“Yes.” She concentrated on winding the bandage about his arm, though her cheeks grew decidedly pink. “Weweremarried, after all. But he’s been dead awhile now. I’m ready to . . . to . . .”
“Marry again?” he prodded. When she didn’t answer, pain clogged his throat. “Just not to marryme.”
She sighed. “It isn’t that simple.”
Right. “I understand. You’ve set your sights higher.” On Fulkham, just as he’d feared. “You don’t want some lowly banker who deals with numbers all day, like a clerk—”
“A clerk?” She snorted as she tied off the bandage. “I doubt that any clerk makes as much money as the director of Raines Bank.”
Well, at least she’d noticed his financial state. “Still, I’m in trade. I’m not a titled lord.”
“Thank heaven.”
That response would have relieved him, except it made other possible reasons for her reluctance loom larger. “And I’m not the handsomest of men—”
“If you were any more handsome, you’d be the death of me,” she muttered, dropping her hand down to rest on his naked chest.
Turning to face her, he took in the sight of her alabaster hand against his swarthy skin, and his pulse thundered. “So my Spanish blood isn’t what bothers you.”
“Of course not. Why would it?”
“Because it reveals, more than anything else, that I’m not a typical Englishman.”
“You certainly aren’t—not in any way.” Her soft smile spiked need in the pit of his stomach. “And that’s precisely what appeals to me. You don’t look down on those beneath you; you reason through things rather than taking what the government says at face value; and you’re steady as an oak.”
“Yet you consistently avoid any talk of a marriage between us.” When she said nothing more, a curse escaped him. “I’m running out of reasons for that, Meriel. If it’s not what I do or who I am or how I look, then what is it? Unless . . .”
“Unless what?” She smoothed her other hand over his chest, and he lost his train of thought as his cock stirred in his trousers.
He stared into her lovely eyes, the exact hue of rain-drenched slate. She’d never touched him so intimately before. Why was she doing so now?
To distract him. To keep him from pressing this issue.
Well, he was done with her avoidance. “Unless . . . you’re in love with someone else.”
She gaped at him. “Who the devil would I be in love with?”
