A waiter arrived and placed an assortment of new cakes on the table, murmuring that they were a gift of the house.
“Pure guilt,” Ward said. “Sweeney permitted that disaster to happen, just as if he’d waved good-bye as our boat capsized.”
Eugenia took in a sharp breath. She wasn’t going to think about Andrew.
Not about boats capsizing.
Not today.
“What have I said?” Ward asked. “Bloody hell, you wrote me that your husband died in a boating accident, didn’t you?”
His eyes were an intense blue. “I’m truly sorry. Here, have a bite of cake.” He forked up a large bite and extended it toward Eugenia’s lips. She oughtn’t to. She’d eaten too much. “And describe how it tastes,” he added.
“Chocolate is everything a woman wants,” Eugenia said. She took the bite. “This is sweet, bitter, decadent, unbearably delicious . . . pure pleasure.”
She smiled at his stunned expression and ran the tip of her tongue over her lips.
“Go on.” His voice was hoarse as he extended the fork again.
Eugenia closed her eyes and allowed herself to savor the taste. “Chocolate tastes like all the good things in life swirled together.” She opened her eyes. “It’s like happiness.”
“You are the most sensual woman I’ve ever met,” he growled.
Eugenia blinked and jolted back to herself. “Me?” Her voice came out in a surprised squeak. “Not at all! I’m a very sedate person. I simply like chocolate. Everyone does.”
“Not the way you do.”
“Did you give Miss Carrington chocolates when you were betrothed?”
He shook his head. “Do you suppose she would have refused the opportunity to become a duchess if I had?”
“It’s possible,” she said, grinning at him.
“I didn’t bed her,” he said abruptly.
“I suspected as much.” Eugenia silently congratulated herself on not betraying shock at this rapid shift into a topic that she had never discussed with a man.
“I’m amazed that you have given my cursed betrothal any thought.”
His heavy-lidded eyes sent a bolt of pure sensation down Eugenia’s body. It was terrifying—exciting. It raced straight to her head.
“You wouldn’t have allowed Miss Carrington to leave you if she had truly been yours,” she said. “I spend a good deal of my time analyzing young boys, you know. Grown boys aren’t so different.”
“Indeed.”
“Men in general are remarkably primitive,” she said, pouring him a cup of tea and taking one herself.
“Would you have expected me to beat my chest in a display of possessiveness upon my return from that regrettable incarceration? Remember, I came back to discover my fiancée happily married.”
“Had the two of you been intimate, Miss Carrington would have been waiting for you.”
A rueful look crossed his face. “I can’t say that I’m happy with the notion that the only way I might have kept my fiancée was if I’d ruined her.”
Eugenia laughed. “There is ruination, Mr. Reeve. And then there is . . .” She stopped, as a small voice in the back of her head was insisting that she had abandoned all principles. She decided to ignore it. “And then there is chocolate.”
His eyes blazed and he reached across the table and laced his fingers into hers. She had noticed his body. But it had never seemed as brawny as when he sat across a small, elegant table designed for whispering secrets.
“We’re back where we began,” he said huskily. His thumb rubbed a circle in her palm that made her want to squirm, but she didn’t pull it away. “I should have plied my fiancée with chocolate.”
“Only,” she dared, “if you were certain that the chocolate was of the very best quality.”
Ward brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed the back, swiftly, just a touch of his lips. He turned it over and pressed a kiss on her palm that sent sweet heat up her arm. “Please tell me how one determines the very best chocolate.”
“It has the qualities of the very best ices,” she said, drawing her hand away. The tearoom had gradually filled since they had first entered, and probably clients of hers were seated on the other side of the fern.
“You know so much more about delicacies than I do,” he said, his voice dark and unbearably sensual.
“The very best ices are sweet, so cold that they feel hot in the mouth. So sweet they taste bitter. So smooth that they slide down your throat.”
“And stiff,” he said. “Don’t forget stiff.”
“Mmmm, yes,” she said. “So stiff as to be . . . ravishing.”