Trial by Desire

“I take it back,” Kate said, catching her breath. “He may rule all the goats.”

When Ned had swung her over, she’d twisted to face away from the pasture. Her husband had landed catlike next to her, and as Champion came close, he stepped nearer, his body pressing her against the fence rail. He didn’t seem angry; he merely smiled at her.

“I suppose you think I’m very foolish.” She spoke softly; Champion was just behind her.

“What? Because you challenged a creature twice as strong as you and five times as fast?”

Kate flushed.

“Not foolish in the least,” he said, peering into her eyes.

“No?”

“You weren’t in any danger. I was there. I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you.”

Kate froze, unable to breathe. He stood so close to her, scarcely six inches away. Every breath she took narrowed that distance between them by a finger’s breadth. His gaze dropped to her bodice, to the high neck of her ivory walking dress. She felt as if he could see through the lace collar, as if she were the one wearing translucent fabric.

Help. A wolf.

He was impossibly close. To him, she’d always been a wife. And she’d learned all too well what it meant to be a wife. She was to engage in delicate charity and complex embroidery. She was a figure to be trussed up in a corset and petticoats, to be protected when necessary and indulged when not. A lady did not get her hands dirty. Kate had learned that all too well from her parents.

She wondered what Ned would say if she told him she’d arranged Louisa’s escape. If he would even believe her capable of that much, or if he imagined that she was as frivolous—as superfluous—as Harcroft had said.

She could hear the animal’s breath behind her. She had never realized that a solitary horse could breathe so loudly.

“Why isn’t he going?” She pitched her voice low, but even she could hear the desperation in her words.

Ned did not move his eyes from her. “I don’t know. I think he can smell the peppermints in my pocket. Here.”

He moved his hand slowly, slowly to his waistcoat pocket; then, just as agonizingly slowly, he pulled it away. His hand was close enough to brush her cheek.

He tossed another candy, throwing it far off into the grass.

She could not see the horse. She heard only its breathing. No tentative footfalls signaling its departure. Nothing. She could imagine Champion, warily scenting the wind, considering whether to put its back to its enemies.

Ned winked at Kate, and her toes curled.

“I don’t dare move,” she confessed.

“Really?” He gave her a naughty smile. “I can think of a dozen ways in which I might use that to my benefit.”

Kate swallowed. If she’d been reluctant to move before, his words rooted her in place now. Her half boots seemed to be made of thick iron. Her arms were bound at her side. Her mind filled with all the wicked things he might do to her. He might kiss her. He might run his hand down her side. He might undo those mother-of-pearl buttons at her neck and peel back the lace at her bodice.

He looked in her eyes. That old, heady desire swirled through her. A breeze eddied between their bodies, and she felt its caress as if it were his. His eyes narrowed, oh so subtly. He leaned forward.

Maybe this was why she had come here, danger or no danger, plan or no plan. She needed to assure herself that on some basic, primeval level, Edward Carhart still thought of her as his wife. To see if he would treat her as carefully, as gentlemanly, as before.

Champion moved away. Kate felt an elusive brush of wind against the nape of her neck, a wisp of air turning to nothing. Then, the clop of hooves.

“There,” Ned said. He had not dropped his gaze. Her lips tingled; her skin seemed too tight. He was going to kiss her. And foolishly, after three years of absence, she still wanted him to try. She wanted to believe he would attempt to revitalize their phantom marriage. She wanted to put her hands on the rough, wet fabric of his shirt, to feel the skin beneath. She wanted a taste of his carefree casualness, some indication that he thought of her as more than a delicate duke’s daughter. She wanted to believe he felt something for her, even if it was an emotion as evanescent and fleeting as desire. She bit her lip in an agony, waiting for him to move forward.

Instead he pulled away. “There,” he declared again. “Now you’re free to leave.”

Leave. She could leave? She stared at his profile in disbelief. After he’d practically pinned her to a fence post and joked he could use her twelve ways—after all that, he thought she could leave before he tried even one of them?

She bit her lip, hard. She could taste copper salt on her tongue. She could finally breathe now—and her breath seemed heated to fury.

“I can leave?“

He didn’t look back at her. His hands were balled at his sides.

“I can leave? And here I thought that was what you were best at.”

He flinched and looked back at her. “I was trying to be a gentleman.”

“I think,” Kate said, “you are the most obtuse man in all of Christendom.”

“Possible, but unlikely.” He gave her an apologetic shrug. “There are a great many Christians, and a good number of them are idiots. If there were not, Britain would never have gotten into a war with China over the importation of opium.”

She kicked at his boot—not hard, but enough to vent her frustration in physical form. “If I want to speak in hyperbole, I am going to do it. And don’t believe you can stop me with irrelevant political analysis. It’s neither sporting nor gentlemanly.”

“Trust me,” he said wryly, “right now, all I can think about is being a gentleman. It taxes my brain to think of anything except my gentlemanly duties.”

He swallowed and glanced down her neck. It was almost as if he’d never left, as if they were three months into their marriage. As if she were the one yearning forward, while he held himself back in polite denial.

“I retract my statement.” Her voice shook. “You are not the most obtuse man in all of Christendom.”

“No, no. You were perfectly right. The lady of the pasture always retains the right to hyperbole. Use it with my blessing.”

“There’s no need,” Kate said. “I’ve realized that I am the most obtuse woman.”

That finally brought his gaze flying from her bodice to her eyes.

She’d come out here to see if there was any substance to this marriage of theirs, to ascertain if he could accept a wife who took on unladylike pursuits. But she was still susceptible to him after all these years. And despite his informal attire, he still treated her as if he were the consummate gentleman.

“Here I am,” she continued, her voice still shaking, “practically begging you to kiss me. That you haven’t done so … well. I’m not so innocent that I miss the import of that. Men are creatures of lust, and if you haven’t given in to yours, you probably haven’t got any. At least not for me.”

His mouth dropped open.

“Just say so.” She looked up into his eyes. “Make this simple for both of us, if you will. Tell me you have no interest in me. Tell me, so I can stop standing in the middle of a field, believing you might kiss me. It’s been three years, Ned, and I am sick to death of waiting for you.”

He turned to her; his eyebrows drew down. He stared at her for a few seconds, and then he shook his head.

“Speak already.” She felt on the edge of desperation. “Tell me. What have you to fear? I can’t hurt you. And you can’t possibly hurt me more than you already have.”

“Women are the most curious creatures.” He reached out and caught a strand of her hair against her cheek.

That bare contact froze her. “Oh?”