Chapter 8 #2
“Well, if you do not wish to incite my anger, do not do things that require admonishment,” he shot back, well aware his argument was as flimsy as a straw house.
She had done nothing wrong, they both knew it, and she stared at him for a moment with her uncanny gaze that made him feel she was reading his mind.
“Why should it matter to you if he calls me Beatrice?” She asked quietly.
Giovanni knew better than to be fooled by her gentle tone. When Beatrice was quiet, she was at her most deadly. He put down the papers, well aware he would need his wits for this part of the discussion.
“Because it is improper,” he said curtly.
“Is it? Or is it because you feel only you should be allowed to call me so?”
She spoke the truth so quietly, so defiantly, that Giovanni couldn’t speak for a moment.
She took another step forward, and he couldn’t help himself this time.
He stepped towards her, hating himself for not standing firmer, but she had such a compelling effect on him that sometimes he felt like he had been put under a spell.
He needed to make her believe he wasn’t so besotted.
“No,” he said quietly, trying to sound firm and aloof, but in standing closer to her he was overwhelmed with the scent of her.
He couldn’t stop his heart from racing. He swallowed hard, watching her eyes dart to his throat, and cursed her perceptiveness.
His body’s reactions were giving him away.
He would have to make up for it with harsh words.
“You could not be more wrong,” he said coldly. “I care not what I call you. All I care about is this family’s reputation. If you fall in line and behave how a well-bred lady is supposed to behave, then we shall have no problems. My only concern is that the… illusion is maintained.”
It was a low blow and they both knew it.
Bringing up the fact that she was not a lady born, that she was not brought up for society, that at one point she had been as low down and desperate as any other poor lass on the street, was something they never did.
Yet despite the brief flicker of surprise in her eyes, Beatrice seemed undeterred.
She squared her shoulders, as she always did in a fight when she thought she had the winning blow.
“Is this about the kiss in the carriage?” She asked without preamble.
Giovanni felt like she had punched him in the face.
She remembered. He felt a coldness descend as if ice was running through his veins, but at the same time, sweat rose on the back of his neck.
He didn’t have time to consider whether she had only just remembered or if perhaps she had remembered all along and had only been testing him.
All he knew was that he had to stop the conversation. Stop it. Now.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, picking the papers back up and shuffling through them. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do?—”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Beatrice’s voice was lined with disdain. “You really try to pretend otherwise?”
“I am only speaking the truth,” Giovanni refused to look at her. He didn’t want to see the disgust in her eyes as he lied to her. “I have no memory of such a situation.”
“Well, I do,” Beatrice said. She moved closer to him, resting her hand on the desk beside his papers.
He stared down at the slender fingers, the perfect pink nails.
God, he wanted to kiss her hands so badly.
“And I have to think that your outburst in the garden and your rudeness here have something to do with it.”
“You are mistaken, both in your memories and your assessment,” he said, shaking his head, trying to stop himself from imagining what Beatrice’s fingers would taste like.
“It seems I am very mistaken,” Beatrice’s voice was snide now, full of pent-up rage. “But not in what I remember—rather in my assessment of your character. I thought you more courageous than this.”
Giovanni felt a shock of white-hot rage at the insult.
His hands stilled on the papers on the desk.
He stared so hard at them, determined not to look at her, that he thought he could have set them on fire with the intensity of his gaze.
He did not take kindly to his honor being questioned.
Beatrice knew that. She was baiting him, and he would not rise to it.
“I am sorry to disappoint you,” he said, unable to stop the angry tremble in his voice. “But I might remind you that only one of us was foxed that night, and it was not me.”
“You beast!” Beatrice grabbed his wrist, forcing him to look up at her.
She was standing very close to him, so close he could feel the warmth of her body heat and smell the delicate summer scent of her perfume. So close he could see the shining edges of tears clustering in her dark eyelashes and the questions in her stormy eyes.
Giovanni hated himself for hurting her, but it was better than the alternative. He was not good enough for her, he knew this. She could not desire him. She must not. He pulled Beatrice’s hand off his, startled by the warmth and softness of her touch.
“You should not be so close,” he muttered, unable to stop his voice from becoming low and gravelly with desire.
“Why?” Beatrice raised her dark eyebrows and defiantly refused to move. “Does it remind you of that night? When we kissed? When I sat astride you?”
She stumbled slightly on her last words and Giovanni gripped the edge of the desk tightly, fighting the wave of desire that threatened to overwhelm him.
Jesus, Mary, and all the saints, when she speaks like that, I cannot control myself. -
“No, it does not,” he said, firmly fixing his eyes on the bookcase—anything rather than looking at her flushed neck, her sparkling eyes, her plump red lips. “I only think of propriety. What would your brother say if he saw you so close to me, locked in a room privately?”
“I do not care what he would say,” Beatrice’s voice was low, tremulous with rage. “Besides, he is with his wife on the other side of the house. But it is telling that you think of his happiness before you think of mine.”
On the other side of the house. Silas was on the other side of the house. Silas would not hear anything, or come and see anything. They were alone in a locked room. Giovanni could have Beatrice right then, and no one would ever know.
He stood, leaning against the desk, both hands gripping the edge as he stared at her, barely a foot away from him, looking so teasingly beautiful and flustered with anger.
He was as still as a hunted hare, and with good reason.
He was frightened to look at her, frightened to move even a finger because he felt sure that any move he made would be to touch her.
If he didn’t touch her, he felt like he would die. But he must not.
“I wonder what you would do if you were locked alone in a room with one of those ladies you flirted so easily with at the ball,” Beatrice taunted, crossing her arms and staring at him.
“I wonder why you are so perfectly beastly to me, when you are evidently more than capable of being utterly charming.”
“You compare yourself with women who are far beneath you,” Giovanni snapped, thinking of how little he cared for those women and their flirtatious glances. He noticed that Beatrice’s eyes had lit up at his words. She thought he was praising her, admitting he cared for her more.
“You are like a sister to me, Beatrice,” he added, trying to deter her, but Beatrice shook her head.
“I don’t think I am,” she whispered. She lifted her hand to brush her fingers against his hairline with slow, deliberate movements.
Giovanni couldn’t help his sharp intake of breath.
“I don’t think a sister would make your breath catch that way.
I don’t think a sister would make your heart race this way. ”
Her finger moved and lingered underneath his chin against his throat, where he could feel his pulse jumping violently. She was so close he could see the flecks of blue inside the dark black and grey of her irises.
I promised not to touch her again. I must not touch her again. He swallowed hard.
“You are mistaken,” he said shakily, clenching the desk so firmly he worried his fingers would leave a dent in the hard wooden surface.
“No, I am not.”
Beatrice dropped her hands. Her eyes were filled with a mixture of disappointment and rage. He knew somehow that she was not finished. She had something worse to say, the way she always did when they fought. She always had to have the last word.
“You are a coward.”
Giovanni saw red. Without thinking, he caught her hands in his. He squeezed them tightly, his heart pounding with rage. The words had been chosen to infuriate him, he knew it, but he couldn’t stop himself from reeling out of control.
You are a coward. You are a coward.
Enough.
He could no longer hold back the brunt of his passion. He could no longer pretend. He was many things, but a coward he was not. She might think she had the last word, but he knew there was one thing he could do to prove her wrong.
“I am not a coward,” he growled, pulling her lips towards his.