Page 25 of A Remarkable Rogue

“No.” She’d known it, too, and fresh guilt bubbled inside her. “He was a schoolteacher. He barely had enough money to buy new shoes.”

“It had to be his money?” His hands tightened almost imperceptibly on her hips, but she felt the change, just as she felt every move he made when he was with her, no matter how small. “You couldn’t hand over your own and claim you’d received it from him, just to make Scepter go away?”

She’d considered doing just that, but… “I was being watched. They told me when to meet with him and where, to keep pressuring him to repay, to threaten to send him to debtor’s prison if he didn’t. The last time I spoke to him was at Vauxhall about a fortnight ago. I asked again for the money. He didn’t have it, and we argued.” She squeezed her eyes shut and choked out past the knot in her throat, “That night at Barton’s when you told me he was dead, I thought that you were another messenger and that he had been killed because of me.”

“Shh.” His hand slid behind to the small of her back and gently shifted her toward him until she rested against his front, safe and secure. He whispered into her hair, “That man’s death isn’t on your head.”

She wanted so desperately to believe him, to trust him to protect her and keep Robert safe. But she’d been lied to by men too many times before to blindly put her trust in another, even in one so heroic. “How do you know that when I don’t even know for certain?”

He began to answer, then asked instead, “That’s all Everett was to you? Someone whose gambling debts you were forced to buy?” He brushed his hand slowly up and down her spine. The slow caresses spiked her pulse, and she was certain he could feel it beneath his fingertips. “Nothing more?”

“Nothing more.” Although at that moment, she certainly wanted more. From Nate.

“Not lovers, then?”

She and Henry! She laughed at the notion.

“You have a lover, though, surely, a beautiful woman like you.” His mouth hovered just above hers, close enough that every word teased at her lips. He tensed as if restraining himself from simply lowering his head and claiming the kiss she so desperately wanted him to take. One that would leave her breathless and free of the fear she’d experienced during the past few weeks. “Someone who knows all your secrets.”

He touched her throat. As his fingertips trailed over the curve in her neck, she tilted her head to the side to give him both access and permission to keep touching her.More.She wanted more.

She admitted breathlessly, “There’s no one.”But there could be…

His fingertips stilled. “Not since your husband died?”

She gazed up at him. Did her own eyes appear just as heated, just as dark and confused as his? “Only one man,” she confessed. “But he would never have been able to blackmail me.”

“Why?”

Because it was only one night, only a desperate attempt for solace…“Because I never told him my secrets.” In fact, she’d told no one. Not even Robert himself. Not even the woman now responsible for raising and caring for Robert, a woman who was proving to be a better mother to him than Sydney most likely would ever have been.

“No.” His fingers strayed lower toward the unbuttoned gap in her waistcoat. “I meant…why take a lover?”

Their conversation had gone astray. She suspected they were now discussing two very different topics, only to not care about the conversation at all when he slowly unfastened another button between her breasts.

She forced out from trembling lips, “The same reasons anyone takes a lover.” Another button, and she shivered with longing. Only a few inches from his fingers, her nipples hardened and ached to be touched. “I was lonely. I wanted pleasure.”

His forefinger swiped under the waistcoat and caught the wide collar of her shirt to tug it out of the way and caress against the bare skin beneath. She sighed.What a wonderful tease…But she wasn’t in the mood for play.

She said huskily, “The same reasons you take lovers, I’m sure.”The same reasons I want you to take me.

Not answering, he fixed his gaze on her mouth as if he knew how much she wanted him to kiss her but torturously refused to grant her what she craved. She groaned inwardly. His refusal only made her desire him more.

He took another teasing caress over the bare skin beneath her shirt. “Didn’t it feel as if you were betraying your husband?”

“No.” Not him.Neverhim. “Doesn’t everyone have needs?”

“Not me. Not anymore.”

His denial came so low that she could barely hear it, and she suspected he spoke more to convince himself than her. “I don’t believe you.” Especially as he drew slow circles with his fingertip against the warm flesh of her chest just above her right breast. He shifted his hips away from her, most likely to hide any evidence of the very need he denied possessing. “You’re a man.”

He drawled with amusement, “Therefore I tup every woman who comes along?”

“Of course not. I meant,” she tried again, although at that moment he made thinking quite challenging, “that every man has need of a woman’s pleasures.” And every woman need of a man’s. Certainly she did. “Even you.”

His lips curled upward in the faintest of smiles. “You don’t know me, Baroness.”

“I know enough. For instance—” She pulled in a breath to summon her courage. “I know you want me.”