Page 25

Her hair was shot through with at least half a dozen different shades of gold, copper, and auburn. A few wispy curls had come free of her coiffure at her temples and on her nape. Her gray-green eyes were framed with lush lashes that glinted. Her jaw was at a stubborn angle, and he would be eternally tempted to touch his tongue to every freckle that dusted over her collarbone and throat.

“You seem far too young to be jaded,” she said, returning his regard as she reached for her own wineglass.

Another reference to his age. They were seven years apart, it was true, but he was hardly a wet-behind-the-ears babe. He couldn’t tell if she recognized him yet; he had hoped she would. But perhaps she was merely guessing from the lack of silver at his temples. She’d done nothing to indicate she knew who he was behind the mask, and not wanting to give her any excuse to push him away, he had chosen to do the same.

“I can assure you I’m not,” he told her. “It isn’t age that leaves one jaded. Rather, it’s life.”

“I suppose that could be true enough.” She cocked her head, considering him with an intensity that made his cock go hard without any effort on her part. “What happened to you, then, to make you jaded?”

Her earnest query was unexpected.

“Too many people who have disappointed me,” he answered with the same candor. “Is that not what makes everyone jaded?”

She frowned. “Disappointed, how?”

“In all the usual ways, I expect.”

“Tell me.”

He didn’t want to speak of his past, of the lovers he had known who had broken his heart and stolen his innocence. He was not necessarily proud of his past. He’d spent years chasing skirts with a devotion that would put any sybarite to shame, trying to somehow banish his futile desire for her. It seemed hopelessly tawdry in comparison to the connection he shared with her now that he was free to do so.

But then she reached across the table and laid her hand on his coat sleeve and added, “Please.”

And he was so thoroughly undone that he would have done anything she asked of him in that moment, even if she requested he run barefoot through raging flames. Hell, he would have crawled.

He stared down at her small, elegant hand, liking the way it looked where it was. Her fingers were slender and dainty and kissed by the same proliferation of freckles that dappled her shoulders and nose.

“The first woman I believed myself in love with was also bedding a good chum of mine,” he volunteered. “Or at least who I thought was a good chum of mine, until I discovered the two of them together at his town house.”

It was but one tale in a sea of many.

Ophelia bit her lower lip. “Oh dear.”

“They both did me a favor.” He smiled, thinking of how bloody stupid he had been.

Helene had been an actress like Madame Beaumont, and she had used her considerable skill to her advantage. She had known how to leverage herself to get what she wanted, and she had done so. He’d been an inexperienced young buck of nineteen who had been easily duped by her protestations of love. He had yet to meet Ophelia back then, and his heart had been ripe for the plucking.

“They both did you a favor?” Ophelia asked, frowning. “How so?”

“I’d intended to marry her, so she saved me from the fate of binding myself to a faithless wife who wouldn’t have been happy at my side. And as for my friend, well, he quite proved why I shouldn’t consider a man my friend merely because he claimed to be so. I would like to think I’ve become a far more discerning judge of character as a result of their betrayal.”

She was quiet for a few moments, and he found himself wondering if Corbett had been faithful to her. Perhaps Apollo had inadvertently stumbled upon an uncomfortable subject. He could have kicked himself. The last thing he wanted her to be thinking about was her dead husband.

But then she spoke again.

“It is generous of you to think of such an unfortunate situation with pragmatism,” she said.

“And it is generous of you to see the best in me, though I fear I’m woefully undeserving. After all, what choice did I have?”

“You might have grown bitter or hard-hearted. You might have sought revenge instead.”

“What makes you think I didn’t seek revenge, or that my heart isn’t hard?”

She gave him a searching glance that was so thorough and earnest, he was tempted to look away. “Did you, then?”

“No,” he admitted.

“And is your heart hard?”