He went over to her. “They have all left. You won’t have to take your leave or anything like that. Only Minerva will bring you home.”
“I did nothing wrong.” Her voice came so quietly she might have breathed the thought.
“Of course not. No one—”
“They will have to choose between a relative and me who don’t know me place, and I will be the one shamed.”
“Not by anyone who matters.” He doubted she took much consolation in that. “Did he hurt you?”
Her hand went to her cheek. She nodded. “Did you hurt him?”
“Yes.” He reached out and skimmed his fingertips down her cheek. Even with that light touch he could tell there was some swelling. That sent his mind back toward the fury. He only swallowed it because there was no Philip to take it out on now.
She faced him. “Thank you for stopping him. I should have myself. I should have guessed what he was about. I should have fought harder, or screamed, and not worried about where I was and who was in the drawing room. I should have—” She stopped, with a small sniff replacing the last words.
He held her head in his hands and gazed down at her troubled expression. “This is the last place any woman would expect such a thing to happen. Stop telling yourself that you should have anticipated his intentions or done this or that. The fault is all his. If you ever again meet my aunts or the wives, which I hope you never have to, because they are all insufferable, do so as you did tonight, proud and beautiful, and behave as if this never happened.”
Tiny reflections multiplied in her eyes. Crystalline lights sparkled, beautiful even though tears created them. She looked so vulnerable.
He did not tell her not to cry. She had good reason to. She had been assaulted and struck and called a whore. She had been insulted by a man who assumed she deserved no courtesy because of her birth. After what she had suffered, the last thing she needed was another man telling her that her emotions were not warranted.
She also did not need another man imposing on her. When he gathered her into his arms, he did not think of it that way. It was a natural expression of his urge to comfort her.
She did not push away. She laid her head against his chest and allowed him to hold her. Then she turned up her head and gazed into his eyes. He suppressed the impulse to kiss her, but it was hard. She deserved better from him tonight of all nights.
* * *
She did not know why she allowed that long embrace. Perhaps it was the strength of his arms, so protective and careful. Or gratitude that he had thrashed Philip. No one had ever done something like that for her before.
She liked the intimacy. The warmth and very human touch. Liked it more than she expected to. It awoke something better in her than what she had been feeling up here on this terrace. She experienced warmth and friendship and even some excitement.
She should not let it continue. It could be misunderstood. Men had a way of doing that. Philip was only the most recent in a long line of them, although none before had been so insistent or so ugly.
Proud and beautiful. He had not planned to flatter her any more than he had the first time they met. While he held her, she did feel proud and beautiful again, instead of used and demeaned and soiled the way she had just minutes before.
Their closeness did not stay that simple. He was a man. She sensed the arousal in him, like liquid beginning a low boil. The mood changed just enough to indicate he no longer merely comforted her. She tasted a new power coming from him, and noticed how her own body responded. She became very conscious of his hold on her. She lingered just long enough to give herself a small, distracting indulgence. Then she moved her head and leaned away.
He gazed down, his dark eyes still looking into hers, reflecting unfathomable thoughts as they so often did. His face, handsome and firm with its angles chiseled by moonlight, remained close enough to kiss her.
Instead, he released her. “Let us go find Minerva.”
Chapter Ten
The summons came early. Kevin received it at once because he had barely slept. His fitful night left him in no mood for the message he read.
Whiteford House. Nine o’clock. Hollinburgh.
Nicholas used his title with the rest of the family, but never with Kevin or Chase. Seeing it now, and reading the terse command, turned Kevin’s bad mood darker.
He did not have time to indulge Nicholas today. He had things to do, once the world was up. He was supposed to see Rosamund at ten o’clock unless she was too upset by last night to call. By then he needed to be past several decisions he faced, and already putting plans into place to execute them.
All the same, he rode to Whiteford House on Park Lane. As he handed his horse to a groom, Chase rode up.
“You too?” Chase said, dismounting. “If it couldn’t wait for morning calls, it must be important.”
“I hope so, if I am supposed to tug my forelock for him.”
“I see your mood has not improved much from last night.”
They followed the servant up to the ducal apartment, with Kevin thinking again about last night. The sorry episode had been on his mind a great deal during the last hours.
“Did Miss Jameson find some solace with Minerva?” he asked Chase.
“As I heard it, which means it may have been otherwise, she entered her home much composed. I think Minerva may have been more distressed than Miss Jameson by the time they parted. She certainly sounded both appalled
