Mina cast her mind back and flushed. “I don’t remember!” she prevaricated.
A smile curved his lips. “Little liar,” he contradicted her. “That’s when I happened upon you. Outside Jeb and Effie’s room.”
“Oh yes,” she admitted weakly.
“Listening to them rolling in the sheets.”
“Nye! I was not!”
“Your face was red as fire,” he teased. “And when I spoke to you, you jumped two feet in the air and shook like a leaf.” The playful look left his face and he looked regretful. “You were scared of me.”
“No,” she contradicted him uncertainly. “It wasn’t as straightforward as that. I felt really, really angry with you.” She heaved a great breath. “On the walk back from the church, I had wound myself up into a huge temper with you. Even at the time,” she mused. “I knew it was strange that I blamed you more than Jeremy.”
“Did you?”
She nodded and bit her lip. “Because, I felt—” She broke off her words. “It’s silly really.”
“Tell me,” he insisted.
“I felt that we’d been forced into it together and—” She heaved a breath. “But you didn’t feel that way at all and I felt so humiliated in the church,” she squeezed her eyes shut and felt him shift closer into her, crowding her with his bigger body, his hand stroked over her hip encouragingly. “I couldn’t really make head nor tail of anything that night,” she recalled wonderingly. “And I didn’t know anyone save you and Jeremy. Everyone else were complete strangers to me. And I knew there was something between you and he, but I didn’t understand then what it was at all. I just knew I was completely in the dark.” She paused and his fingers squeezed her waist. “And when you grabbed my elbow, I just felt myself relax, because for some reason, I trusted you in the dark to steer me right.” She swallowed. “But then you – you left me behind. You walked out of the church and everyone followed you. And when I tried to catch up, I fell over my shoe,“ she broke off as a tear rolled down her face. “So stupid.”
“Yes, I was,” he said gruffly. “Because you were right. We were in it together and I had no right to blame you like that. I was a fucking idiot to leave you in that church. I showed myself up, not you.”
She looked up quickly at that. “Well, but—”
“Do you know why I was angry with you, Mina?” he asked softly.
“Yes. Because you didn’t want to marry me.”
“No,” he contradicted her. “It was because I thought you were Jeremy’s cast-off mistress.”
Mina gasped. “Oh yes, I had forgotten about that,” she admitted. “Ivy explained it to me later.”
He looked grim, but she knew his anger was directed toward himself. “I thought he was giving me his leavings, like his father did to mine.” She regarded him speechlessly a moment. “And I was furious about it, really furious. I wanted to break his neck. Not yours,” he added. “Never yours. But I didn’t want you. Not then.”
“Well, I’m not surprised.” She gulped. “Not if you thought that!“
“I wanted you at the top of the stairs, though,” he said gruffly.
“What?”
“When you stood there, looking so fucking embarrassed.” He reached up and scratched the side of his jaw. “It really threw me off.”
“You had to put your mouth by my ear to make me hear,” she recalled. “Because Effie was making so much noise.” She cleared her throat.
He smiled. “And you shivered and dropped that ugly bag of yours as if I’d touched you. And I thought, why the hell does he want to be rid of someone as sweetly responsive as that?”
“Is that really what you thought?” Mina marveled. “I thought you despised me at that point.”
He snorted. “No. If I had, I never would have sent you up to my bed.”
“Your bed you didn’t sleep in!” she pointed out.
“Till now.”
“Nye?” she whispered. He turned his head to look at her. “Did you really want me then? That first night, I mean?” He nodded. “Oh.” She smiled at him.
“Nothing like as much as I do now, though,” he admitted, reaching down and dragging her leg over his hip. He twisted his body, so he lay on his back, bringing her over him. “When I think about how I left you to walk back to The Harlot like that in the dark and on your own—” He broke off angrily. “I hate that I did that. Can you forgive me, sweetheart?”
Mina relaxed her body into his with a sigh. “Yes.”
“Really?” She nodded and the expression in his eyes grew warm. “You’re so good to me, sweet Mina.”
Mina hid her hot face against his shoulder. Sweet Mina? “You wouldn’t say that, if you knew what I fantasized about doing to you all the way up that hill,” she mumbled.
He let out a laugh, then dropped his voice. “I hope it was filthy.”
She swatted his shoulder. “Of course, it wasn’t! I was a virgin bride at that point and hopelessly clueless.”
“What was it?” She squirmed and he grabbed her backside and ran his thumbs under the lace covering her buttocks. “Tell me.”
“Pulling off my shoe and flinging it at your stupid, handsome head,” she admitted.
He chuckled, then looked instantly contrite. “And instead you dripped candle-wax all down your poor little wrist,” he sounded so regretful, Mina looked up in surprise.
“I didn’t realize you’d noticed me do that.”
“Of course, I noticed it. I wanted to pull up your sleeve and check your skin, but I thought you’d likely piss yourself with fright if I touched you at that point.”
She made a rude noise. “I
