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“I was just going back down,” she said, her lips trembling.
“Please accept my apologies, my lady.” Thomas didn’t quite meet her gaze. “I’ve behaved abominably. I shall see that you return to the ball this instant.”
“You mean you will escort me?”
“That would not look good,” Thomas said. “I shall take you down to the first floor, and then you shall enter the ballroom. If anyone asks, you were resting a bit in the retiring room. Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” she said, “but I’ve no need of an escort down two flights of stairs.” She turned. “I’ll be on my way then.”
But as she turned, her slipper caught the edge of a runner rug, and she tumbled once more.
Thomas lunged toward her, and a moment later, they were both on the floor of the hallway, tangled in each other’s arms.
Blimey! If she still wasn’t the clumsiest person on earth. Whyever was she so often in peril? First she fell after their kiss by the gravesite, and not a half hour ago, she nearly fell four stories from the parapet.
What must Thomas think of her?
Her back was on the hard floor, and Thomas’s body was above her, his gaze meeting hers. His dark eyes were on fire, and his full lips merely inches from hers.
Would he kiss her again?
How she wanted it.
Time seemed to stand still for a moment, and everything around Tricia became blurry. She could no longer see the hardwood of the floor, the golden velvet of the wallpaper. She saw only Thomas’s eyes, Thomas’s lips.
She closed her eyes, waiting for his kiss…
But it did not come.
Instead, he stood, brushed off the legs of his trousers, and offered his hand. “Are you quite well, my lady?”
And again, back to “my lady.”
Forget the fact that he had just offered to take her maidenhead, and he’d been quite forceful about it. Indeed, she’d been ready to allow it.
He had offered to marry her, after all.
Perhaps she didn’t need his love now. Perhaps in time she could make him fall in love with her.
She rose, helped by the strength of his muscular arm. She looked down at her gown, smoothing out the rumples.
And she knew she did not want that kind of marriage. The kind of marriage where the husband and wife lived separately, where he came to her only to put an heir inside her. Where her husband spent his time with mistresses, or worse, prostitutes.
“I’m absolutely fine, my lord.”
If he insisted on “my lady,” she would call him “my lord.”
Goodness me, she thought. He does need to take a wife. If not me, it might be someone else.
But the moment had passed.
Sadness overwhelmed her, and she scurried down the stairwell.
9
Thomas adjusted his trousers, his groin aching. If he weren’t the host of this dratted ball, he would go to his chamber and relieve himself quickly. He drew in several deep breaths, adjusted his cravat, and headed down the first flight of stairs toward the third floor, the air drifting about him smelling of Tricia.
All he needed to get his cock going again.
