Free Provocative in Pearls by Madeline Hunter Page B

me.”
    She knew that she should not go with him. She was sure that doing so would be unwise. But she really had no choice, because he did not leave the decision to her.
     
     
    “ W ere you testing the tree, to see if you could escape if you ever decided to?”
    Hawkeswell was almost sure of the answer, but not positive, so he asked it. Some conversation would also distract him from the speculations about the night and their isolation and the possibilities that suddenly wanted to make an argument for being not only attainable, but desired by her as well as him.
    That was his blood talking, urging the bad judgment that so often got men into trouble. Even if she comprehended the mood surrounding them both, and he was not sure that she did, she would deny it. Why she would had become a significant question today. Enough that he was wondering for the first time if he had been unforgivably careless two years ago, with her future and his own.
    “I think that you should look to your own honor, and not try to direct mine,” she said.
    The white of her skin was very visible, down to the ruffled edge of her undressing gown. The skin of her leg had been just as clear in its delicate, feminine curves. So had the scent of her, and the faint musky odor that said his proximity stirred both her fears and her sexuality.
    “You remind me of my honor only to avoid my question. You have no reason to doubt it. I may have wanted to caress much more than your leg back there, but I did not, did I?”
    She tensed at his boldness, but she did not miss a step. Her delicate profile remained facing him as she looked to the garden path they trod. He resisted the urge to stop her and embrace her and make her look at him.
    “When we spoke in Cumberworth, you said that if I had made an effort to know you better, I would have understood why you resisted the marriage,” he said. “Since we are supposed to use these days to become more familiar, perhaps you will explain it now.”
    Her undressing gown was full and shapeless and festooned with layers and little bits of lace. Its fabric hit his leg while she walked. The body within it did not, however. She was very careful about that, which took some effort on her part.
    “We both know I will never be accepted. Not truly. It is not my world. You know that I am correct on this. The title, and that world, were alluring, but when I was honest with myself, I admitted the reality would never match the dream.”
    In other words, she had concluded he brought her nothing, since his place in society was the only currency he contributed to the bargain.
    Her cool dismissal of his status was not a view to which he was accustomed. Yet even as his ire gathered, he guessed that she was humoring him, and giving him an answer that would cost her nothing and make sense to him.
    “I do not believe that a few rocks on the road as you traveled in society would matter that much to you. Other women might require that total acceptance, but I do not think you would. I think there was more to it.”
    “Much more. The most important part. The part that my cousin deliberately violated in forcing this marriage, and perhaps the reason he did so.”
    Now they were down to it. “What was that?”
    “It was not my father’s wish for me to marry such as you. He intended my husband to be a man who could take his legacy and my inheritance and continue building his dream and his company.”
    “I have never met a man like your father who did not want his children to raise themselves up. He probably would have been delighted to have you made a countess.”
    “If you had known him, you would realize how humorous that is. He taught me that the guillotine had been a suitable end for those aristocrats in France, and we could use a few such machines here. He would have never bequeathed me the majority share of his company if he thought I would marry a man who disdained industry, and who was devoted to nothing but pleasure.”
    It was