Chapter 13
God, she had missed him this last week, so damned much. And she would miss him forever.
Amidst slivers of broken mirror, colored glass, and nautical treasures her cousin, Cassia, brought back to adorn Myrtle’s grotto, Andromena and Edgar stood at an impasse. His white gloves lay a symbolic divide between her and the only man she wanted to spend forever with.
Andromena’s throat closed up. She did not doubt his strength, nor his ability to defeat Satan himself if the fight came to his door, yet she would never put her selfish longing for him above his safety. She would have traded the stars, the sky, and her own breath to protect him.
Since reading that awful note on her pillow, she did as her blackmailer demanded—Andromena avoided Edgar at all costs.
Yet, when they crossed paths in the hall, her heart still yearned for him.
She lingered near the door during his interviews with the staff, captivated by his gentle questions.
Inevitably, he coaxed a nervous laugh from every single candidate.
She sighed with them, then remembered those interviews happened because of her thefts and scurried away in shame.
He narrowed his eyes.
“You dropped your gloves, Edgar.”
Her soft voice rippled across the grotto’s dark pool and hit the cavern walls.
“Better than throwing them at you,” he snapped. He pulled something from his jacket. “Here. After your tantrum, I returned and fetched them.”
He held her slippers out like, a pink, sparkling satin olive branch.
Wordlessly, on her damp stockinged feet, Andromena picked her way over the slick stones.
When she did not take them, he gave them a wag.
Andromena plucked them from his fingers, snatched them close, and retreated a step. “It wasn’t a tantrum.”
“I don’t care what it was.” His tone said otherwise.
Andromena drew her slippers against her chest. “What do you want, Edgar?”
“That didn’t sound like a thank you.”
“Is that truly your desire? Did you chase after me merely to receive my thanks?”
His nostrils flared. “You test me. I do not chase women. I don’t interrupt dances, and I certainly do not call on public spectacles.”
“Truly?” She lifted a brow. “How do you define your recent conduct with Lord Kilmartin?”
“I have noticed your absence from the cataloging. You have been derelict in your duties to the Earl of Abington.”
An ache settled in her breast.
That is what he cared about? This is why he’d publicly dispensed with Lord Kilmartin in the middle of London’s biggest event?
It was for the best. Indifferent was better, for both of them.
“I don’t answer to you, Edgar.”
His hard mouth mocked her lie.
He moved fast.
Andromena gasped.
Her slippers fell with a soft thwack to the stone earth. Edgar caught her to him. “You’ve been hiding from me, darling. I want to know why.”
The toes of Edgar’s heavy Wellington riding boots brushed her hems. He was the only nobleman in the kingdom who refused polite court shoes for gear meant for the saddle.
Hysteria bubbled in her throat.
His eyebrows dipped. “Do you find this funny?”
Tragic—Andromena found it tragic. When he first joined the McQuoid-Smith family Christmas and whispered that one kind promise, she had fallen. She could only have dreamed he’d feel this level of passion for her.
“Look at me, Andromena.”
His graveled command startled another breath from her.
“I need answers.”
Her heart stumbled. She’d never faced him like this.
Andromena pressed her palms hard against the rough rock and shells behind her, sharp edges biting into her flesh.
He knows.
She looked left, then right. No way out.
“A-Answers?”
What made you think Edgar wouldn’t find out that you’re stealing from the earl?
“Answers,” he hissed. “As in a reply, response to a question.”
“A demand is a forceful order that expects obedience; a question seeks an answer. You didn’t ask one. Ask nicely, and I might consider it.” She tipped her chin up. “If you say please…”
“The hell I will.”
Her pulse beat a frantic, jagged rhythm against her skin.
Why would he not relent? What must she do to get him to stay away?
Pride. All men had it. She used that weakness to her advantage.
Andromena favored him with a patronizing smile. “You are making a pest of yourself, Edgar.”
“A pest,” he purred.
With him, and only with him, could she hold an illusion of power. Maybe that’s why reckless, starving desperation clawed at her chest, whispering to push further, to test the absolute limit of his patience.
“Another word you’re unfamiliar with, my lord? It means plague, pestilence, a curse, the bane of my blasted existence.”
A metallic glint lit his eyes. “You are the first and only woman to not beg for me,” he sounded bemused, curious. A man who sought to crack the puzzle of the Pyramids.
She swallowed hard, the lump in her throat went down like glass.
All night, she’d been forced to watch women fighting for him.
She ground her teeth. “Maybe that is why you can’t stop chasing me.”
His shrug was noncommittal.
“You swell-head,” she snapped. “Since you have legions of admirers, why don’t you go find them?”
“Is that what you want me to do, darling?” he jeered. “Go find a buxom beauty worthy of my attention? There are dozens. More.”
She wanted to claw all their eyes out. She wanted to claw his out for even thinking about returning and choosing a woman he not only didn’t hate, but desired.
He smirked. “Something tells me that isn’t what you want.”
He was right.
“I don’t care what you do, Edgar,” she said. “If you will excuse me—”
“No.”
She turned to go.
“Is this about your drawing, Andromena?”
Blood rushed to her throat.
Edgar slid between her and the exit. Unable to meet his eyes, she stared at the brass buttons of his waistcoat.
He brandished the delicately folded page.
“Because I bloody forbid you to punish yourself.” The gentleness in his voice offset his command. “Andromena, you’re a bloody marvel with a pencil. I would trade my damned frigate to own it.”
He placed his lips beside her ear, the champagne on his breath as intoxicating as any glass consumed.
“Fortunately, I don’t have to, as you left it behind and I seized it as mine.
” Just as he’d claimed her heart. “You have my vow; no one will see it but me. I will not share, and I will savor it for the masterpiece it is.”
Her composure slipped. Why did he do this? Why did he exalt her and the things she did—things no one else ever bothered long enough to look at, or see in her at all?
“It’s not that,” Edgar. “A plea breeched her voice. She stepped around him into the shadows. This time, he let her go.”
She fell into his trap.
“You are hiding something, Andromena.”
His words cracked like a whip. Andromena stopped in her tracks. Her fingernails dug deep into her palms. The calming waterfall that fed into the grotto’s pool was her favorite place here. Even so, it failed to soothe her jagged spirit.
“Why are you avoiding me?” Edgar demanded.
She shut her eyes tight. Why was he being so difficult? He wasn’t supposed to have noticed her absence. He was supposed to be happily free of her.
“Edgar,” she said, her voice thick. “We have become too close—”
“No, we haven’t.” Edgar spoke with his usual bluntness.
A tired smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.
God help her, she’d tried. The truth was the only thing that would make him leave. “I am in love with—”
His eyes grew narrow. “Who?”
Surely, he was joking.
An eerie glow lit Edgar’s eyes. “Kilmartin?”
Edgar believed she and Kilmartin were romantically involved? This could be her answer and put his questions to an end.
Maybe. Possibly. Hopefully. She entertained the idea, a moment too long.
His eyes thinned to pinpricks at her continued silence.
A sharp curse from Edgar echoed deep inside the cave. “Impossible. You would never settle for someone as predictable as Kilmartin.”
No, she wouldn’t.
Instead, she said; “He is charming.”
“Not as charming as me.”
The grouse in his voice snatched a laugh from her.
His cold implacable features didn’t budge.
Andromena’s lips twitched. “He is a graceful dancer—”
“If one finds lurching bears graceful.”
“He is very handso—” Her words died on a gasp.
Edgar seized her shoulders, his grip tightening with a bruising intensity as his composure shattered. “You go too far, madam!” he hissed, his frame vibrating with unbridled fury. “I will not allow Kilmartin.”
Allow?
Welcome rage sizzled in her veins. “And I will not be ordered about by you or any man, you clod-pate.”
Kerr bared gleaming white teeth. “I bet you don’t call Kilmartin a clod-pate.”
“Kilmartin doesn’t give me any reason to!”
Her chest rose and fell wildly.
Kerr’s gaze dropped to her neckline, to the pink and clear crystals glittering above the swell of her breasts.
Andromena knew that fierce sound of his breathing. She had learned its meaning from him. It meant he wanted to pull her close, pin her against the wall, and take her mouth with his. And she would gladly let him.
His gaze snapped back to hers.
Andromena’s throat went dry as she stared at him. Something tightened around his mouth.
He brought his other arm around, his hold gentler. “You don’t hunger for him. Not the way you do me. I see how you look at me. How you respond to me whenever I am near. You, Andromena, respond with passion, no matter if you are boxing my ears or marveling at my praise of your art.”
What had she done? She had committed the greatest misstep. She had miscalculated his fierce pride. Edgar did not love her, but he would also never bow and let one of Tremaine’s men claim her.
Panic clawed at her throat. She darted a frantic look around the grotto. Edgar’s relentless questions had to stop and so did the deep bond he acted like he never shared.
Andromena melted into his embrace, her cheek resting over the heavy thrum of his heart. She squeezed her eyes shut. Please. Let me protect you.
Edgar must have seen something in her eyes.
“Tell me you love Kilmartin.”
“That would be easier,” she said, her chest struggling with each rise and fall.
“Easier than what?”
Loving you…