She looked elegant and regal, even though her dress was a simple one more suited to morning. Her hair was piled in a loose knot on top of her head, tendrils escaping to caress her forehead and cheeks. He remembered how soft her curls had felt, slipping loose and luxuriously through his fingers. Even now he itched to pull the pins from her hair so that it would fall about her shoulders and he could grab a fistful in his hand.
He forced himself to his task. “Lydia, cut line. Are you going to have a child or not?”
He walked close enough to touch her. If he could place his hand on her belly he might feel for himself if a child grew within her. That would, he supposed, be even more of an intrusion than entering her house.
She raised her eyes to his, and he felt a jolt of attraction, the same attraction he’d been unable to resist when she’d asked him to make love to her. He waited for her to speak, his heart beating so hard, he thought she must be able to hear it.
She said nothing.
He tried again. “If the child is mine, Lydia, I will do my duty.”
“Your duty?” Her voice rose. “What do you mean by your duty?”
His emotions were in a muddle about this, but he was enough of his father’s son to know what was expected of a gentleman. “Marriage, if you should wish it.”
“Marriage!” She spat out the word and quickly turned her face from him, silent for so long he had an impulse to prowl the room like a caged cat. Finally she cast her gaze upon him again. “Do you expect me to believe you would marry me?”
Why not? he wondered. “I am an honourable man, Lydia.”
She gave a scoffing laugh. “You are a libertine, Adrian. Libertines do not marry.”
Her words stung. “A libertine? And how is it you are so certain I am a libertine?”
“It is what people say of you. They call you a rake, at least, which is the same thing, is it not?”
He was not about to debate the differences between a rake and a libertine. His eyes narrowed. “You of all people should know not to give credit to gossip.”
She glanced away, two spots of colour rising to her cheeks. “It is, nonetheless, all I know of you. I have no experience to tell me otherwise.”
He waved his hand as if erasing that piece of conversation. “It matters not what you believe of me. If the child is mine, I will take responsibility, and that means marrying you, if that is what you desire.”
Lydia glanced away, her muscles taut with anxiety. The ton’s most devil-may-care bachelor said he would marry her out of duty. She almost wished to laugh. The last thing in the world she desired was another marriage. She’d married once with stars in her eyes and look what a horror that husband had turned out to be.
But Adrian was not Wexin.
She darted a glance to him, so handsome, standing so tall and still. Masculine energy emanated from him, and, God help her, attracted her.
She’d be a fool to give in to the desire that pulsated inside her, a fool to entrust her life—and her child’s—to any man.
She took in a fortifying breath. “There is no need for you to do anything, Adrian. There is no responsibility that I would hold you to.”
He stepped away and bowed his head, seemingly lost in thought.
It would be so easy to simply lie and tell him the child was Wexin’s, but she could not make herself say the words.
Think of what the newspapers would write about her if she married him and acknowledged the child as his. The world would know that she’d bedded a man before her husband was cold in his grave.
Her indiscretion had been the cause of this pregnancy. That made it her problem to handle, not Adrian’s. If her child was born within the ten months stipulated by law, the child, son or daughter, would be considered Wexin’s, but she would be in charge of her finances and her life.
She made herself look directly at Adrian again, even though looking at him made her heart leap and flutter and her body yearn for him. She could not forget how his hands had felt upon her, the softness of his lips, the firmness of his muscles. Her carnal urges flared into life and it was all she could do to keep from propositioning him again.
Dear God, she could not possibly want to couple with him again, not when she was hiding that this child was his.
“You need not have an attack of conscience or duty or whatever it is that men have,” she said to him in an angry voice, although the anger was at herself for her weakness, not at him. “It is quite all right with me if you forget this matter.”
He met her gaze and she thought she saw a wounded look in his eyes. “I have done nothing to deserve your bitter tone.”
Her cheeks flamed at the truth of his statement, but she recovered quickly. “Nothing?” She hit him with the one dishonourable thing he had done. “I asked you not to call upon me again, and you break into my home like a thief.”
“I did it to find out about the child,” he shot back, taking a step towards her, coming so close she caught the clean scent of lime soap on his skin.
She held her ground with difficulty. “Is it so hard to believe that this baby is my husband’s?”
His voice turned so low it vibrated inside her. “It is when I know there is a chance it is mine.”
“Believe me, Adrian,” she whispered, “it is not so easy for me to conceive a child that I would conceive after one time.” At least it had not been that easy with Wexin. She softened her tone. “Take your leave. You have done enough by coming here. There is nothing I need from you.”
To her surprise, he reached out to her and gently touched her arm. “Forgive me for not knowing. I have been abroad. They say you have been a recluse. Are you not going out at all? Is there no one who has renewed acquaintance with you?”
She was startled by his concern. Besides Lord Levenhorne calling today, and the occasional bank representative, no one but Adrian had called upon her. “No member of the ton wishes to see their name in the newspapers, I suspect.”
He frowned. “You must not allow the newspapers to make you a prisoner in your house. Go where you please and ignore them.”
He could say that with ease. He was not the one followed about, or stopped on the street and asked rude questions.
She glanced at his hand, still upon her arm, then back at him. “I am not certain I should heed advice from an intruder.”
He did not take the hint and release her. “Then accept the advice as from a friend,” he said. “Our connection may be brief and…unusual, but enough for me to be concerned for your welfare. I am here, if you need me. I will come, if you need me to.”
She held her breath.
His words felt like a proposition, an invitation to seduction. His touch melted her like a flame melts wax. She felt she would only have to put her arms around his neck and her lips against his and in a moment they would be making love on the settee. God help her, she did need him. She needed to feel him hold her with strong arms, needed to run her hands up his firm chest, to dig her fingers into his hair. She needed to feel him fill her again, as a man fills a woman. She trembled with need.
But she backed away. “I need nothing from you.”
He stared at her, a hint of pain in his angry eyes. Her guilt escalated. Obviously he had not shared her carnal thoughts.
He swung away and started walking towards the door. It felt the same as when he had left her before, loneliness engulfing her.
He reached the door and turned back to her. “I will trouble you no further.”
As