The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance by Candice Hern, Bárbara Metzger, Emma Wildes, Sharon Page, Delilah Marvelle, Anna Campbell, Lorraine Heath, Elizabeth Boyle, Deborah Raleigh, Margo Maguire, Michèle Ann Young, Sara Bennett, Anthea Lawson, Trisha Telep, Robyn DeHart, Carolyn Jewel, Amanda Grange, Vanessa Kelly, Patricia Rice, Christie Kelley, Leah Ball, Caroline Linden, Shirley Kennedy, Julia Templeton

up and glare at him but the effort was beyond her. Instead she tilted her head back against the chair. She closed her eyes, partly from weariness, partly because she didn’t want to read messages that couldn’t possibly be true in his dark, dark stare.
    “He wasn’t worthy of you, you know, Alicia.” Kinvarra’s soft voice echoed in her heart, as did his use of her Christian name. He hadn’t called her Alicia since the early days of their marriage when they’d both still hoped they might make something good from their union. “Why in God’s name choose him of all men?”
    Shock held her unmoving as she felt Kinvarra’s bare hand slide over hers where it rested on the arm of the chair. His palm was warm and slightly calloused. Harold’s hand had been softer than a woman’s. She cursed herself for making the comparison.
    She opened her eyes and stared into her husband’s saturnine face. Into the black eyes that for once appeared sincere and kind.
    And she chanced an honest answer.
    “I chose him because he was everything you are not, My Lord.”
    Even more shocking than the touch of his hand, she watched him whiten under his tan. She hadn’t realized she had the power to hurt him. It seemed she was mistaken about that too.
    He drew back on his heels, removing his hand from hers. She tried not to miss that casual, comforting touch. The distance between them felt like a gaping chasm of ice.
    “I … see.” His voice was harder when he went on. “At least I’d never leave a woman alone to face down an angry husband with a snowstorm about to descend upon her.”
    Shamed heat stung her cheeks. She’d felt so brave and free and self-righteous when she’d arranged to go away with a lover. After ten barren years of fidelity to a man who hardly cared she was alive.
    But in retrospect, her behaviour seemed shabby. Ill-advised. Bravado had kept her to her course until she’d reached York and that journey across the moors with no company but Harold and her screaming conscience. She hadn’t wanted to feel guilty, but she had. And with every mile they’d covered, she’d become more convinced she’d made a horrific mistake in succumbing to Harold’s blandishments.
    “You wouldn’t hurt me,” she said with complete certainty.
    “No, but Harold didn’t know that.”
    She noted that he was upset enough to use Harold’s correct name. She tried to make light of the subject but her voice emerged as brittle and too high. “Anyway, no harm was done. I’m still the impossibly virtuous Countess of Kinvarra who doesn’t even lie with her husband. You can sleep easy in your bed, My Lord, knowing your wife’s reputation remains unblemished.”
    An emotion too complex for mere anger crossed his face, but his voice remained steady. “Why now, Alicia? What changed?”
    “I was lonely.” Her face still prickled with heat and she knew from his expression that her shrug didn’t convince. “I thought I needed to do something to mark that I was a free woman. It was, in a way, our ten year anniversary.”
    A muscle flickered in his cheek. “And you wanted to punish me.”
    Did she? Even after all this time, turbulent emotion swirled beneath their interactions. She spoke with difficulty. “It’s been over ten years since I had a man in my bed. I’m twenty-eight years old. I thought … I thought it was time I tested the waters again.”
    “With that cream puff?” He released a huff of contemptuous laughter and made a slashing, contemptuous gesture with one hand. “If you’re going to kick over the traces, my girl, at least choose a man with blood in his veins.”
    “I’ve had a man with blood in his veins,” she said in a low voice. “I didn’t like it.”
    That couldn’t be regret in his face, could it? One thing she remembered about Kinvarra was that he never accepted he was in the wrong. But when he spoke, he confounded her expectations.
    “No, that’s not true. You had a selfish, impulsive boy in your