Lady Wild by Máire Claremont Page B

heat. “I am entirely lovely, then, am I?”
    He laughed. The tones boomed off the oak walls, coming back to him, making him curl his fingers tightly about the snifter lest he play a darker tune to make her dance. “You’ve a whip-lash of a tongue. Not lovely at all.”
    “I am relieved to hear I am not a saint.”
    “Do not be so sure. Before Millais and Rossetti are through with you, you shall have graced the canon.” The painters adored religious themes. Quite ironic, given that they had largely eschewed the dictates of a very strict society. “Agnes, Mary, Joan, all the martyrs.”
    “I am not a martyr,” she bit out.
    He frowned. He’d hit some sort of raw feeling. Such a thing had not been his intent. “Perhaps not, but how glorious you’d look, hair down as I first saw you, eyes upcast to your God, penitent for your tiny sins.”
    “You are strange.”
    “You aren’t drinking.” He knew all too well the shock she suffered. Traveling with a dying woman who needed laudanum to cope with pain must have been exhausting. Perhaps frightening, too. The heat of the brandy would ease her nerves, even only a few sips.
    She narrowed her gaze then took a surprisingly deep drink. Her lids fluttered shut, and some of the haunted look disappeared from her.
    Good. That was what he wanted. Ophelia deserved to be on fire. To be totally alive, not drowned in her sorrow. And deep down in his soul, he knew that he was using her. Using her to get to the sort of feelings he had long ago denied, condemned, and forsaken so that he would never have to think of all those who had left him completely adrift in this world.
    He would not see his fate befall such a creature. And that, that was why she was here. Certainly not for love, nor lust, though he certainly felt the latter. He would not let her turn into an empty shell of a human.
    “You’re doing it again.”
    He blinked, focusing on her pale face. “Pardon?”
    That pale face was now flushed, her cinnamon brows drawn together in consternation. “You are looking most peculiarly.”
    He couldn’t let her venture into his soul. He was all too afraid that if he gave her purchase there, she would find a crack, pry it open and let out all the pain that he had managed to shore up. Best to keep her far away and focused on the externals of his being. “Perhaps I am thinking how best to consume you.”
    Her lips parted for a stunned second, before she snipped, “That is an alarming word choice.”
    He cocked his head, letting his hunger for her heat his gaze. “Is it?”
    “To be consumed, my lord? By you?” She lifted her chin, contemplating him. Her breasts lifted up and down with a sharp breath. “Yes. Alarming is the word. For once consumed, would I not be lost?”
    “Could you ever be lost, my lady?” he countered, the devil in him unable to resist playing with her. Just a little. “Are you so weak?”
    She flinched. “My mettle has yet to be tested in the forge of trial.”
    Astonished, he pulled back. Did she doubt herself so entirely? The Ophelia he’d come upon at the river had been so sure, so determined, even in her sorrow. “That is not true.”
    Her rigidness softened for a moment. “I wish I could be so sure.”
    God, she had walked a troubled road. Could she not see that she was the strongest woman he’d ever known? Certainly, she was stronger than he. For she had withstood grief while he had laid down before it. “You have already withstood your father’s passing and all that accompanied it.”
    She focused on her glass, her spirit dimming, and she took another drink. Apparently, to fortify herself. For she met his gaze and said flatly, “You know the sordid tale, I’m sure.”
    He did know. He’d had reports delivered to him the moment he’d returned to London. It had been all he could do not to call out the Earl of Darlington for the craven blackguard that he was. For no reason but his own jealousy over the love his father had felt for his