Scandal of the Year

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  “I think he might be over that particular aversion,” Aidan said as he patted the dog’s head.

  “But you can’t do this! Spike is a guard dog!”

  He looked at her thoughtfully. “Against who? Yardley?”

  She pressed her lips together and looked away, but she could feel his gaze watching her. “Yardley hated my dog,” she said after a moment. “The dog hated him. I found that . . . convenient.”

  “I realize you bought him to keep Yardley at bay, Julia. I appreciate how unhappy you were in your marriage. How could I not after what you did to end it?”

  You don’t know the half of it, she thought.

  “Julia,” he said, his voice gentle, “I won’t pry, but—”

  “Thank God for that!”

  “But Yardley’s gone now,” Aidan reminded, moving closer, bending his head, forcing her to look at him. “So why do you care if Spike no longer hates men? Why should it bother you if your dog and I become friends? What are you afraid of?”

  Afraid? God, she was a mass of fears, too many fears to name. She looked at him, helpless to explain. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

  Aidan turned to the dog. “Sit,” he ordered.

  Spike did so, and so quickly it was like a military snap to attention. Aidan held up his hand, palm toward the animal’s snout. “Stay.”

  When he returned his attention to her, Aidan was smiling a little. “Shall I tell you what I think?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but went on, “If Spike and I become friends, that’s a barrier down, isn’t it? Spike is a line of defense. Like a witty remark. Like a lie. Like running away. I just wish I knew why you need defenses. Perhaps it’s simply to avoid being vulnerable. To prevent other people from seeing what you really feel.”

  His gaze, tender and warm, was too much to bear. “And just what,” she said through clenched teeth, “do you think I feel for you?”

  “After the other night, I think we both know the answer to that question, Julia.”

  Her toes curled inside her shoes and she felt that brandylike warmth seeping into her. She tried to speak, but what could she say? She ducked her head instead, staring at the ground.

  He leaned closer. “What I wonder is why you can’t admit it. Is it that you want me to go first, is that it? I will.”

  He bent down, ducking his head to look into her face. “I want you. I’ve always wanted you. I want you so much, I can’t think about anything or anyone else.” He smiled, and the tenderness in it pierced her defenses like a knife through butter. “Your turn.”

  “I don’t want you,” she lied, her voice so unconvincing to her own ears that she winced. Impossible to be cold and numb when she felt so warm and alive. She struggled to say something that would drive him away, wondering why she wanted that so much, fearing it was impossible anyway. “I had enough of you in Cornwall.”

  His smile widened. “That’s a lie.”

  Don’t. Don’t see inside me. She looked at him with a pretense of scorn. “That’s what every man believes when a woman spurns his advances.”

  “Spurns?” He was grinning now, the impossible man. “So that’s why you wrapped your arms around my neck and kissed me back. You were spurning me. I didn’t realize.”

  Her face grew hot with embarrassment. She didn’t remember doing that. “I did no such thing.”

  “Oh yes, you did. You also raked your hands through my hair and put your tongue in my mouth. Forgive me if I didn’t interpret those things as a spurning of my advances.”

  She stared at him, unable to remember these wanton actions on her part. She’d done them in Cornwall, of course, but they had been deliberate, calculated, and the idea that she’d done them the other night in a passionate daze made it all even more unbearable.

  The taste of him the other night came back to her—a full-bodied, lush, and fleshly taste—like port-soaked strawberries. And the warmth in her deepened and spread, arousing her.

  You’re numb. You’re numb.

  Such a lie. She wasn’t numb at all.

  “I don’t want you,” she repeated. Another lie.

  He continued to look at her, still smiling, but he didn’t say anything, and the silence goaded her on.

  “All right, all right!” she cried, furious that he was so sure of himself, when she was the one used to feeling that way. Furious that he seemed to know her feelings better than she knew them herself. “I don’t want to want you! I want you to leave me alone. Is that better?”

  “Yes, it is better,” he murmured. “At least you’re being honest. Can we keep that honesty going for a bit?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are things about that day in Cornwall that I don’t remember, things I don’t know, things I think you can tell me about what happened.”

  She licked her suddenly dry lips. “You know what happened.”

  “I told you, I don’t remember most of it. I’d like you to tell me about it.”

  “Tell you about it?” She forced a laugh. “Darling, what’s to tell? We got drunk and had a tumble. It isn’t particularly complex, you know. People do it every day.”

  “Don’t.” He reached out to cup her cheek. “Don’t prop up those defenses. Don’t put on the sophisticated façade you seem able to don at will. Don’t deflect. Don’t give me a charming smile and a glib, witty reply. I’d just like to know certain things about that day that only you can tell me.”

  “There’s nothing to tell!” she said, and jerked free. Cursing herself for ever having come out here, she decided a retreat was in order.

  She bent down and grasped Spike’s leash, then stepped around Aidan. “From now on, leave my dog alone,” she said, and started across the lawn toward the gardens, but she’d barely taken three steps before she was halted by resistance at the other end of the leash, and she turned to find Spike had not moved to follow her.

  “Come, Spike,” she said, and patted her thigh in an encouraging fashion, but the dog still did not move.

  “I ordered him to stay,” Aidan reminded, as if that should matter.

  She didn’t give a damn what her dog had been commanded to do by Aidan, or anyone else. “Spike, come,” she said, her voice more commanding than before.

  The bulldog whined and looked at Aidan as if uncertain what to do and expecting him to provide new instructions. When Aidan did not do so, he whined again and returned his gaze to her with something like apology in his droopy brown eyes. To Julia, that was the last straw.

  “Traitor!” she burst out, and to her mortification, tears stung her eyes, tears of anger and frustration, hurt and fear, tears she knew were all out of proportion to a dog’s disobedience. She felt vulnerable, fragile, and she knew she had to escape before she let Aidan see it.

  “Be damned to both of you,” she muttered, and turned, walking away, leaving her formerly faithful friend in the hands of the man who had suddenly become her nemesis.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Aidan was following her. With a pang of alarm, Julia quickened her steps across the turf, but she was headed in the wrong direction to escape him. In order to return to the house, she’d have to face him, and that was the last thing she wanted right now.

  In the distance, she spied the lavender house, and deeming that her best option, she hurried toward it. When she reached the small stone building, she jerked the door open, and stepped inside, but the moment she started to shut the door behind her, she realized that there was no latch or bolt on the inside to keep out the man who was coming toward her with a very determined expression on his face. “I want to be alone,” she said, hoping his innate chivalry would impel him to withdraw. “Please go away.”

  Aidan’s sense of chivalry, however, didn’t seem to extend quite that far. When she started to shut the door between them, he blocked her move, flattening one palm against the splintering oak panels. “I want you to tell me about Cornwall, Julia.”

  “Why?” she demanded, knowing her only choice now was to bra
zen this out. “You already know what happened.”

  “I know the bare facts.” Pushing the door wide, he entered the building, leaving her no choice but to retreat into the dim, dusty interior. He closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. “I want more than that.”

  Her throat went dry. She glanced around, but the lavender house, used for drying herbs, had only tiny windows to let in a minimum of light and no other doors. Cornered, she raised her chin. “I don’t owe you any explanations.”

  “I think you do. I think I’m entitled to have my questions answered. You were right that I went to your cottage because I wanted to. And although I don’t remember it, I have a pretty clear picture of what happened later.”

  She tried not to grimace at the certainty in his voice as he made that statement.

  “And God knows,” he went on, “if it was anything like that kiss the other night, I can understand why I lost my head so completely and bedded a married woman.”

  Julia looked away so he wouldn’t see the truth in her eyes.

  “And,” he went on, “it was obvious to me all along what your intentions were that day, putting together a picnic of foods I like, seducing me. I was flattered. I didn’t know then that I was being used.” He paused. “I applaud your timing,” he said, his voice suddenly tight. “It was flawless. Yardley arrived at just the right moment.”

  Don’t do this. Don’t relive it. Just forget it. She forced herself to look at him, and she smiled, a wide, artificial smile that made her jaw ache. “Well, it seems you already know everything,” she said brightly. “I don’t know what I can tell you.”

  “I want to know what you felt.”

  Her smile vanished, and she stared at him in dismay, her throat tight. “What did you say?” she whispered.

  “I want to know what you felt.”

  “What does it matter what I felt? Good God,” she added, striking out in self-defense, “is it praise for your lovemaking prowess you’re after? You were wonderful, darling, the best lover I’ve ever had. And considering all my previous affairs, that’s saying something, isn’t it? There,” she added with the air of one patting a child on the head. “Feel better?”

  It didn’t. It made him angry. She could tell by the press of his lips and the muscle that worked in his jaw. She didn’t blame him. She was being awful, she knew, but she couldn’t help it, not when he was pressing her for things she did not want to tell him, things she never wanted him to find out. When he stepped forward, she stepped back.

  “Why should being so obviously patronized make me feel better?” he demanded, stepping forward, forcing her backward until she hit the cool stone wall of the lavender house. “Another time, I might be curious, I admit, to know how my lovemaking ability stacks up against what must be—if the society pages are true—a significant amount of competition, but no. I want to know what you thought, what you felt. I want to know why you chose me.” He took a deep breath and reached out, cupping her face in his hands, his fingers tangling in the hair at her temples, tilting her head back and forcing her to look at him.

  “Did you want me at all?” he demanded. “Or was I just the mug who happened to be standing on the street that day? You knew Yardley was coming on the five o’clock train. You must have done. So, why did you choose me? If not me, if I hadn’t happened along, would you have just seduced someone else?”

  Admitting he’d been the only man she’d ever considered as a lover was impossible; she could never allow herself to be that vulnerable. And yet, try as she might, she couldn’t seem to prop up her defenses. If tearing them down was his goal, he seemed to be succeeding admirably.

  “So you’re refusing to tell me what I want to know, hmm?” he asked as she remained silent. “How about if I tell you what I remember, then?” He eased his body closer, and his breath was warm against her mouth. “You smelled like lilacs. And when you held out that glass of champagne to me, I remember just how you smiled, and the thought went through my mind to leave, leave now, this is a mistake, that if I drink this champagne, I’ll never be able to be this close to you and not have you. And I remember thinking I’m such a fool because I came that day, proud bastard that I am, to prove I could resist you, to prove I could live up to my principles.”

  He laughed under his breath as he kissed her lips, her cheek, her jaw. She began to shake, deep down, on the edge of feeling. “Damn me a fool for thinking I could ever resist you.”

  He pulled back a little to look into her face. “I drank that champagne. And then you offered me another, and another, as you told me all the things I wanted to hear. That it wouldn’t hurt me to live a little before settling down to matrimony, that a few drinks wouldn’t hurt. I told myself you were right, I reveled in it. Another petty rebellion, just like when I was sixteen years old. But then you knew that’s how I would feel, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said, feeling wretched.

  “I remember that white dress you wore,” he murmured, “and how you gathered it up around your knees, and how I watched your legs as you waded into the water. But you knew I’d watch, didn’t you?”

  Guilt slid through her at his recitation of how thoroughly she’d played him. “Yes. I knew.”

  He closed his eyes. “You dove underwater, and when you came up and started walking back toward me, that dress was plastered to your body. God,” he added in a hoarse whisper, his lips brushing hers as he spoke, “it was so transparent, I could see your skin underneath. No doubt that was why you wore it.”

  Aidan opened his eyes, and somehow, looking into their warm depths hurt her, like an exposed wound in her chest. “And then,” he went on, his voice hardening, “you sank down on the sand in front of me, running your fingers along your neckline just above your breasts. ‘Go on,’ you said, tilting your head back and leaning toward me. ‘Take it. You know you want to.’ And I did want it. God, I wanted it all, right there in the sand.”

  Julia didn’t reply. She didn’t like this, hearing from his point of view just how relentless she’d been, and yet, his words were stirring arousal inside her, arousal she’d been unable to feel that day, that she didn’t want to feel now, that she never wanted to feel again.

  “I remember your lips were full and soft when I touched them.” His thumbs brushed over her mouth, making her shiver, and she tried to be numb.

  “I remember kissing your throat.” He ducked his head to press his lips to the pulse in her neck. “And I thought your skin was like warm satin. And then I kissed your mouth . . .” He lifted his head, and his lips brushed hers, a light tease. “You tasted like the blackberries we’d eaten. And I felt as if I was drowning, and I didn’t give a damn if it was wrong. I felt as if I could go on kissing you forever.”

  His words made it all seem so tender, so intimate, when the whole time, she’d been striving against intimacy, striving to feel no tenderness, striving to seem warm on the outside and be ice cold on the inside, so that when the moment came, she wouldn’t lose her nerve. “Aidan, I—”

  “I just couldn’t say no to what you were offering. Hell,” he added, with a laugh, “if you’d stopped at that point, I might even have begged.”

  “Don’t.” She didn’t want to hear any more. She didn’t want to hear what he thought, how he felt, that she’d hurt him. She couldn’t bear it. “Why are you doing this?” She tried to duck past him, but he was quicker, wrapping one arm around her waist, pulling her hard against him.

  “I don’t remember anything clearly after the kissing part,” he said, his voice hardening to a ruthless tone she’d never heard before. “Somehow, we ended up in the kitchen, I know that. I remember you unbuttoned my trousers, and I pulled down your dress, but other than that, it’s all a blur. An erotic, delicious blur. So you’ll have to fill in those missing parts for me. Did we make love right there on the kitchen floor, and then go upstairs? Or did you take me upstairs first? How did we do it? Were you on top, or was I?”

  Desperate, she tried to free hersel
f, but he would not let her go. “I want the truth. These questions have been tormenting me since August, and I want some answers, Julia. Did you want me? Did you? At any point, did you feel what I felt? When our bodies were pressed together and I was inside you, did you want it? Like it? Did it feel good? Or did you stare at the ceiling and wonder if Yardley had gotten off the train yet?”

  She couldn’t take any more. “Stop it!” she shouted, slamming her fists against the hard wall of his chest. “I can’t tell you what you want to know! I can’t!”

  “You mean you won’t.”

  “I mean I can’t,” she shot back, at the end of her tether, “because it didn’t happen!”

  The moment the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to take them back, but it was too late.

  “What do you mean?” he asked tightly, and let her go only long enough to grip her by the arms. “What do you mean it didn’t happen? Of course it bloody well happened. I remember pulling down your dress and your hands on my groin. I remember—” He paused, for everything after that was blank.

  “And that’s as far as we got. You stopped.” She laughed, a laugh without humor, for she felt the same disbelief now that she’d felt then, the same disbelief that she saw on his face now. “You said no, it was wrong, I was married and you were engaged, and it was wrong for us to do this.”

  “I stopped?” He shook his head. “I had my tongue in your mouth and your naked breasts in my hands. Your hands were wrapped around my—” He broke off and shook his head again. “There’s no way I could have stopped. No man could stop at that point.”

  “You did,” she said, hearing the acerbic note of her own voice. “You said you couldn’t do this to Rosalind, you couldn’t cuckold another man, you couldn’t dishonor me. Even drunk, even randy as a stallion, you had to uphold your principles. I couldn’t believe it. We were standing in the kitchen of my cottage, sweaty, breathing hard, and nearly naked, and you were calling a halt.”