“You went to see him. After Sodom.”
Not lies, then. The truth. The truth had upset her. A flicker of uncertainty curled in his chest that perhaps he had something to feel guilty about. A feeling he quickly squashed. He would not change his actions, so there was no sense regretting them. “Yes. I did,” he admitted.
She inhaled, lifting her breasts higher against her bodice. He tried not to stare. Staring only made him want her more, and she clearly wasn’t in the mood to have him. No, she looked as though she would rather have his head on a pike. “How could you do that?”
He frowned. “I was looking out for you—”
“You made him promise not to court me . . . not to ask to marry me.” She shook her head. “That left me with Buckston.”
“What does any of this matter now? You’re married to me.”
“It matters because you don’t trust me. I won’t have you control me . . . my own family never treated me like that. I was twenty-three and unwed because they trusted me to make my own choices. Something you—my own husband—can’t even do!”
Helplessness washed over him looking at her, listening to her. This was new. Listening to a female. Trying to understand the workings of her mind and how not to behave in a wholly selfish manner. He’d never come near to this intimacy with another female. He was gone before things ever became even close to this. Aurelia was the only woman he ever argued with . . . the only one who mattered.
A lump rose in his throat and he inwardly cursed. “Has it occurred to you that I did it for myself?”
She nodded fiercely, scooting to the edge of her seat in the heat of her indignation. “Well, you certainly weren’t thinking of me.”
He nodded back just as fiercely, leaning forward, feeling dangerous right then. As though he might admit anything. Do anything. “My own selfish reasons drove me.”
She sucked in a tiny breath and jerked back ever so slightly.
He closed in, moving closer. A few inches separated them. It would be so easy to grab her, touch her, kiss her.
Instead, he continued talking. “I went to Mackenzie’s because I couldn’t stand the thought of you with him. I probably would have put an end to you and Buckston, too, no matter that he was but a harmless fop . . .” He was breathing harshly now, his hands curling around the edges of the squabs. “Because the idea of you being with anyone but me makes me want to hit something.”
There was no sound save the rasp of their breaths and the creak of the rolling wheels on the street.
She blinked, her brown eyes owlishly big in her face.
“Don’t tell me I silenced you.” Such a thing he would have never thought possible.
She opened her mouth. Her lips worked, but no sound emerged except a strangled, “I—I—”
“It’s all right,” he growled. “You don’t have to say anything.” He reached out, curved a hand around the back of her neck and hauled her onto his lap.
Her sweet breath escaped in a puff against his mouth as they gazed into each other’s eyes in the dim interior. They were so close. Their mouths practically touching, but not. Not kissing. Not yet. Everything in him quivered from the restraint. Another one of those whimpery sounds escaped her lips.
He speared a hand through her hair, scattering the pins so that the dark mass tumbled loose. A small sound escaped her. God. He loved all those little sounds she made.
He pulled her head back, bringing his nose to the arch of her throat and inhaling. He missed her smell. He loved it. He caught whiffs of it throughout the house. Especially when he passed her door. He wanted to roll over in his bed and be able to breathe it in all the time.