She hugged him closer, pulling him down and burrowing her face into his neck. “’Twas such a tragic loss.” She sniffed. “Amherst was so very lovely, my favorite of all his properties.”
Her words doused him with ice. “Amherst?” Zeus went rigid, saying it. Then he sought comfort by wrapping both arms around her and squeezing her tighter, settling himself more deeply against her. “Amherst?” he whispered hoarsely. “It’s…gone?”
7
Endearments, Confessions & Completion
The nod of her silky head against the underside of his chin confirmed the worst. “Up in billowing clouds of black smoke that smoldered for days.” She turned her face to his, pushed on his shoulders until she could snare his gaze. “Why? Do you know it?”
“I…” He…what? What could he tell her? That his reason for being there no longer existed? That his sole ambition these last years was gone? Turned to nothing more than dusty embers blown into oblivion by the first gust of wind.
Then why, he pondered as he stared into her grief-shadowed eyes, then lower at her lips, parted and plumped by his kisses, did it not feel as though his very dreams followed the scattered ash? Why was he not, even now, retreating from her in a fury? Striding quickly away while he cursed the time wasted? The loss of the ultimate goal that had guided his every action for over a decade?
He should leave, allow her the opportunity to marry a better man than he. Maybe that seafaring one she’d sent on his way. A man not consumed with seeking vengeance against a father long dead.
But he couldn’t make his feet move toward the door. Couldn’t stop himself from brushing his fingers over the tousled strands of red-gold framing her concerned face. Couldn’t stop his thighs from wedging themselves more solidly along hers.
“Mr. Tanner?” Her searching fingers feathered over his jaw. “Zeus? What is it? What has you looking so lost?”
Did he tell her? Admit the lure, until meeting her, was not the bounty she offered—that of herself—but lands he not only coveted but loathed? Or did he stay mute? Give her the taste of passion—just a taste, mind—she craved, and then leave, as a true “gentleman” should?
Zeus swore harshly. A true gentleman wouldn’t consider tasting anything beyond what he’d already stolen. He’d settle for licking his fingers clean on the way out and never look back.
Well, hell. As though defying his very thoughts, those bound-to-be-tasty fingers opened and after smearing her essence across his chest, rose to entrench themselves against her scalp. And why shouldn’t they? A real gentleman would never have compromised her to this state to begin with.
Guilt crashed down on him.
A bastard might, by some miraculous stroke of fortune, marry a lady, but that wouldn’t change his stripes. Wouldn’t make a gallant gentleman out of a churlish cur’s seed.
Before he could rationalize it further, mayhap talk himself out of the altruistic action, Zeus wrenched his head from her comforting hold and blurted, “Forgive me, my lady. I must go.” He angled backward, distancing his torso from hers, determined to leave, to do right. “I cannot marry you!”
Nails pierced the skin of his shoulders even as she wound her strong leg around both of his. “No! What are you saying? Leaving? You cannot—”
“I came here for Amherst, not for you.” The weight of regret made him nearly shout at her. “I don’t deserve you!”
“Don’t deserve…?” It was a ragged sigh. But her leg only gripped him tighter, the heat of their melded bare skin burning a path to his soul, forcing the confession to erupt like steam trapped too long.
“I’m Letheridge’s bastard! His damnable son!” And with that admission, though he’d once sworn he’d make any sacrifice, surrender anything necessary to regain his questionable birthright, Zeus realized he wasn’t willing to heap more lies upon the ones already uttered, wasn’t willing to sacrifice Juliet. Wouldn’t use additional duplicity nor her own inexperience to do it. “You deserve someone better! Someone forthright. Someone…else.”
“Leth’s…boy?” Said as though simply the act of comprehending his statement took great strength.
“His bastard.” Zeus nearly spat at her, making it clear as shattered crystal. He would have no more falsehoods between them.
He expected her to throw him off, to scurry away. To curse him for the deceitful, deceptive rogue he was.
Zeus was confident he’d get over losing her. In another decade. Or ten.
But instead of screeching at him to remove his filthy person from her sight and her life, Juliet wound her arms savagely round his neck. Nearly cut off his air.
But who needed to breathe when she hadn’t cast him out? At least not yet…
Zeus clutched her as fiercely as he could. And prayed. For the fortitude to leave or for her forgiveness to stay, he knew not which.
He couldn’t go! Juliet’s mind screamed. Not this beautiful man with his impertinently insightful replies.
Discounting the wretch who caught her out due to an untimely dust mote and resulting sneeze, not a single one of the other applicants had seen through the ruse. No one had surmised she watched from beyond the shielded corner, once she’d had the forethought to retreat there after the Mongrel Misadventure.
None of them had realized she created the crewel-worked “masterpiece”, save Mr. Tanner. While some had told her the truth during questioning and not simply what they thought she wanted to hear, none had done so with his aplomb. With confidence bordering on arrogance.
And certainly none drew her like a magnet, their very person energizing hers in such a way that when she neared them, parts of her came alive for the very first time in her life.
And now he sought to desert her? Over nothing more than his unfortunate circumstance of birth? “Nay, you cannot! Not if that is your only reason for thinking to do so.”
“But Lecherous Letheridge…” She thought he mumbled rotten, hateful father and hated, useless son. Then clearly, “I should go. Must go. For you. For—”
“No!” She
