Kathryn Smith by A Seductive Offer

sorry.”
    It did sound like bizarre reasoning when he put it that way. She glanced away. “It’s hurtful to a woman’s confidence to hear a man say he regrets kissing her.”
    Brave nodded. “Then I have to be honest with you, Rachel. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
    Rachel’s heart fell against her ribs.
    “But I’m not sorry for it at all.”
    Unable to totally suppress the urge to grin like an idiot in relief, Rachel smiled. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
    Oh, but the rest of him had been.
    He gave one of those half smiles of his. It was like his smile had been broken and he hadn’t been able to fix it. She wasn’t sure why it struck her that way, but it did. What had broken his smile? A woman, perhaps? The idea of any woman having the power to hurt him like that was something Rachel didn’t want to think about. It made her angry in ways she couldn’t explain.
    “Let’s just put it behind us,” she suggested.
    He raised a brow. “Say we were overcome by the moon and stars?”
    Her grin grew. “And the magic of the moment.”
    “Sounds good to me.” He held out his arm. “Shall we go back in?”
    Rachel shook her head. “I don’t think we should go back inside together. People might talk.” And Rachel didn’t want the gossips to link her with Brave. Everyone knew how shabbily Sir Henry treated her mother and herself. She didn’t want them thinking she was setting her cap at Brave and his fortune. And, she certainly didn’t want to hear them pitying her for being fool enough to do so.
    And more importantly, she didn’t want him to hear them pity her.
    He nodded in consent. “You’re right, of course. I’ll see you inside?”
    “Of course.” But the minute he was gone, Rachel turned and leaned her forehead against a tall, stone post in the balustrade.
    She’d just been thoroughly kissed by one of the most stunning examples of manly perfection she’d ever known, and now that she knew he wasn’t sorry for kissing her, she had to keep herself from making too much of it, or wondering why he’d done it.
    So much of her wanted to believe he was attracted to her. What normal woman wouldn’t? But Rachel knew too much about men to allow herself such a fantasy. Weren’t men the sex that frequented brothels and paid to bed women they didn’t even know, let alone love? Certainly if a man could do something like that, he was capable of kissing a woman he didn’t even like.
    David had claimed to love her, and that hadn’t stopped him from leaving.
    Not that Brave didn’t like her. He seemed to like her well enough, but Rachel wasn’t foolish or naive enough to believe he’d fallen in love with her. And she certainly wasn’t in love with him. Despite what the poets said, there was no such thing as falling instantly in love with a person. True that ever since the night Brave had rescued her Rachel had thought of little else but him, but wasn’t that normal? He was an attractive man, and he had saved her life. It was very easy, and only natural, to have romantic fantasies about him. It might even be natural to suspect that he would have fantasies abouther in return, but it wasn’t natural, blast it all, to dwell on it as though she didn’t have more important things to worry about!
    She should be ashamed of herself for daydreaming about a man when she should be concentrating on finding a way to keep Sir Henry from marrying her off to one of his cronies. In only a few months she would have her money, and if worse came to worst, she would do whatever was necessary to get her mother out of that house and away from the monster she’d married. It was the least Rachel could do after all her mother had done for her.
    With that thought firmly entrenched in her mind, Rachel squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and tried to ignore the faint throb still echoing low in her abdomen. As she moved toward the balcony door, she couldn’t help but wonder if women were as capable of sharing