Free A Fine Passion by Stephanie Laurens

my lady.”
    She didn’t frown, but her gaze sharpened. For a moment, she studied him, as if debating whether to inform him gloating was uncouth, then she raised her chin and fixed him with a challengingly direct gaze. “When we first met I misjudged you, my lord. Pray accept my apologies.”
    Clarice waited, willing him to simply nod.
    Instead, he raised his brows. “Misjudged? How so, if I might make so bold as to ask?”
    His hazel eyes held hers. She felt her temper stir. Make so bold, indeed. “As you’re perfectly well aware, I thought—had deduced from what I’d heard from others here—that you cared nothing for your acres, and were wholly absorbed with the typical, frivolous, and inconsequential entertainments of gentlemen of our class. That view, it appears, was incorrect.”
    His brows rose higher. “I thought it was my prolonged absences that invoked your ire?”
    She pressed her lips tight, then nodded. “Indeed. But I now understand those absences were…excusable. Understandable.”
    “Perhaps even laudable?”
    She drew in a breath, held it, then nodded again. “Even that.”
    He smiled, all gratified male.
    She exhaled, pleased to have the deed over and done—
    “You didn’t hear anything specific from those round about, and you didn’t ask what they thought of me, either. You leapt to unwarranted conclusions.”
    She snapped her eyes up to his and caught her breath. Felt her own eyes widen as he stepped closer, and she was afforded a glimpse of the man behind the charming mask—one whose honor she’d impugned, at least as he saw it. Looking into his face, at his squared jaw, the etched line of his lips—and most especially the changeable, now clear and agatey-hard hazel of his eyes—she understood that clearly.
    He was one of the few men she’d ever met who made her feel…slight. And some part of her knew he wasn’t even trying, not deliberately trying to physically intimidate her.
    Eating crow suddenly seemed easy. Even advisable. Holding his hard gaze, she nodded. “Yes.”
    He blinked. His brows rose again; this time, when his eyes met hers, she detected surprise, swiftly superseded by an untrustworthy amusement that warmed the hazel depths, softening them. His lips eased, but he managed not to smile. “Just yes? No equivocation?”
    She narrowed her eyes to slits; folding her arms, she fixed him with a gaze just short of a glare. “You’re determined to be difficult over this, aren’t you?”
    “Difficult? Me? Everyone round about will assure you I’m the most easygoing gentleman you’re ever likely to meet.”
    She sniffed. “More fool them.”
    “It would be unwise to leap to any further conclusions about me, don’t you think?”
    She held his gaze, then succinctly replied, “Overlooking the obvious would be more unwise.”
    Amusement again flirted about his mobile lips. With any other, she’d be incensed; with him, she was intrigued….
    The oddity of that brought her back to earth with a thump.
    She lowered her arms. “You’ve forgiven me—I know you have.” She started to turn away. “There’s no point dragging this out—”
    “I haven’t forgiven you.” Jack moved across and into her, with one step trapped her against the edge of the pond. The basin of the fountain within it stood shoulder high, preventing her from leaning back. He studied her eyes from close quarters; such dark, dark brown was hard to read, but he sensed from their wideness, from her quickened breathing, that he’d succeeded in claiming her entire attention.
    Tauntingly, he let his lips quirk, let his eyes light with understanding. “Perhaps an olive branch? That might sway me.” Beyond his control, his gaze dropped to her lips. “Might appease me.”
    And my demons.
    He had to fight not to move closer still, to crowd her even more…to feel her body against his, teasing, tempting…
    She licked her lips. He watched the tip of her tongue slide over the lush, lower curve; something