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She smiled. “Will you be returning with me?”
“I have several business matters here to take care of first.”
“Oh, but—”
“Elizabeth, much as I have enjoyed our time together, I do not at any time wish for you to feel pressured into…into giving yourself to me again.”
“What do you mean?”
His lips thinned. “I will help you to get away from the earl regardless.”
“Regardless of what?”
He sighed. “I am trying to say that, although I obviously enjoyed our intimacy just now, it is not necessary for you to feel you need to offer me sexual favors in exchange for my giving you and your son refuge here.”
Elizabeth recoiled as if Sterling had struck her, those words hurting at least as much as Whitlow’s physical assault, if not more. Because they would remain with her for far longer than the bruises on her body.
“How can you say such a thing to me so soon after…after?”
“I am trying to be reasonable—”
“While being completely insulting!” She eyed him frostily. “Perhaps youarethe cold and haughty Duke of Bristol that Society claims you to be after all.”
He stared at her for several long seconds before giving a stiff inclination of his head. “Perhaps I am.”
Elizabeth turned away. “Then please do not let me keep you a moment longer from that other business you say is in need of your attention.”
As dismissals went, it was far from a subtle one, Sterling admired with an ache in his chest. But it was wholly merited, he accepted heavily.
The problem wasn’t with Elizabeth, but his having been beset with an urgent need to distance himself from her.
Because Sterling had now realized that, like his two friends before him with the ladies close to the man they wereinvestigating, he had fallen in love with the widow of his own quarry.
He had never thought such a thing could ever happen to him.
Believed that he was immune to the emotion.
In a mere matter of days, Elizabeth had stripped him of that illusion.
Sterling now knew he loved her with a fierceness of desire and protectiveness he had not previously imagined himself ever being capable of.
A love he did not fool himself into believing was, or ever would be, reciprocated.
Despite their lovemaking just now.
Elizabeth had been in need of a refuge from the cruelties of her father-in-law, and Sterling was the only person close enough to give that to her. He truly believed that the two of them making love just now was as a result of their heightened emotions with the addition of gratitude on Elizabeth’s part.
His words just now had been meant to alleviate any further obligation Elizabeth might feel toward him rather than any desire to insult her.
It was probably for the best if Sterling didn’t try to right the impression Elizabeth now had of his being every inch the cold and haughty Duke of Bristol.
Especially when he had yet to confess to Elizabeth that the answers she could give him about her deceased husband were his only reason for coming to Cornwall in the first place.
No, far better to put the distance between them now rather than suffer the fires of hell later when Elizabeth decided she no longer wished to continue with their relationship.
Which did not mean Sterling could not enjoy paying a visit to the Earl of Whitlow and taking out some of his frustration on the other man.
CHAPTER TEN
