Free The Glass Orchid by Emma Barron Page B

tensely in the chair, his large booted feet set stiffly in front him. He held his brandy tumbler so tightly his knuckles were turning white. His brows were drawn, his jaw tight, his shoulders rigid. Though he always had a serious, reserved look about him, tonight he looked almost — dangerous, as if there was an energy building up within him that threatened to explode. She wanted to ask him what was wrong but she hesitated, as though moving or speaking too suddenly would be the spark that lit his fuse. She didn’t fear for herself, of course, but she didn’t want to see him self-destruct.
    He inhaled, about to speak, but then shook his head and downed the brandy. Wordlessly, Del rose and refilled his glass. And waited.
    “Why am I so drawn to you?” he said finally. His voice was strained, as if he were speaking against his will.
    Del eyed him, deciding whether to be affronted. Was this what was making him so surly? The fact that there was an attraction between them? What part of it was the worst for him, she wondered, that he was experiencing something he couldn’t control, or that he was experiencing it with
her
? By rights, she shouldn’t be offended by any of it, for she was just as irritated by her lack of composure when it came to him. Still, she didn’t like hearing him speak of it aloud, his expression like that of someone who had eaten something gone rotten weeks before.
    “
Are
you drawn to me?” Del asked, deciding to be difficult.
    Camden looked at her, his face clearly showing anger, frustration, confusion, and something else, something Del couldn’t quite identify. “Yes,” he said, gritting his teeth. “In defiance of everything I am, everything I’ve been told to be — I can’t stay away.”
    “Everything you’ve been told to be?”
    Camden pushed out of his chair as if it had suddenly caught fire. He stalked around the study, looking at Del and then looking away. Many times he stopped, drew in his breath, ready to speak, before letting it out in a frustrated rush and resuming his pacing. Del waited quietly. She would not press him to explain himself. Whatever it was he wanted to say, he needed time before he could tell her.
    “I have always done what he asked, behaved as he expected,” Camden said finally. “I have obeyed him without question. But in this, I cannot.”
    Del knew Camden referred to his father, and she could guess what order he was rebelling against. “Your father told you not to see me anymore,” she said. She brought her glass to her lips and sipped the brandy, then leveled her gaze at Camden. He nodded, confirming her statement. “And yet here you are, sitting in my study, drinking my brandy,” she said.
    She wasn’t sure yet what she thought about the situation. It was not unexpected, that a father would warn his son away from her, that he would be concerned with her effect on the family’s social standing. It
was
unexpected, however, that she should feel such pang of irritation and — hurt from hearing Camden say it.
    “Yes, here I am.” Camden walked over to the sideboard and distractedly fingered the decanter and glasses. His fingers curled tightly around the neck of the decanter and released, then curled again, as if he were trying to restrain himself from choking it. “When I should be at the shipping office working, or home at my townhouse calculating the quickest way into some society maiden’s heart, or even off getting drunk with Farber. I should be anywhere but here.”
    Suddenly, Camden was at the settee, looming over Del like an angry storm cloud. “Bloody hell, woman, why can’t I stay away?” He dropped on his haunches in front of her, searching her face as if it held the answers to his torment.
    Del knew she should say something. She should lay a hand gently on his arm and murmur reassurances. Or she should feign outrage and righteous indignation and throw him out of her townhouse with admonishments to never darken her door again, so he