"Do I make you nervous, Aurora?" he asked knowingly.
"Yes," she retorted. "The way you look at me is disgraceful."
"What way is that?"
"As if you're undressing me. It makes me highly uncomfortable."
His mouth lifted in a smile of tempting allure. "Good. I never want you to be too comfortable around me."
Aurora shook her head, torn between fury and despair. "You really deserve to be arrested, you know – before you cause a scandal or drive me to distraction."
"Would you really be glad for my arrest? Clune says you were bereft at my presumed death."
Her alarm returned full measure as she remembered Clune. "Surely you weren't mad enough to actually speak to him?"
"I'm afraid so. I decided a truthful approach would be most advantageous, so I revealed myself and told him the entire story about my imprisonment and near hanging."
"And how did he respond?" Aurora asked worriedly.
"Once I swore that I wasn't committing treason against your country, he was perfectly willing to assist my deception. I told him I was only here to see my wife, which is the truth."
Aurora eyed him with dismay. "How could you take such a dangerous risk?"
"Actually it was a calculated risk. Clune is always ‘ripe for a lark,' as he puts it. He also believes in loyalty toward his friends – and he claims me as a friend. He is fond of you, as well. Too fond, in my opinion. He as much as admitted that he'd been bent on your seduction."
Aurora felt Nicholas studying her intently. "I have done nothing to encourage Lord Clune to believe he could succeed."
"So he says. When I warned him to keep away from you, he claimed he had made little progress because you were madly in love with your late husband."
She felt herself blushing. "I had to have some story to explain my abrupt marriage. I thought it best to let people believe I fell in love at first sight."
His flashing smile held a relentless charm. "I rather like that version of the story."
"Yet you and I know the truth. Our union was never a love match – nor was it supposed to last longer than one night."
Nicholas let her comment pass. "You might not have encouraged Clune wittingly, but as a beautiful widow, you are a prime target for men like him. And your resistance only adds to your allure. For a rake like Clune, it's the challenge of the chase that is stimulating."
Her eyebrows lifted curiously. She suspected that while Nicholas might not be as great a libertine as his friend, he knew what drove a rake. "You sound as if you speak from experience. Is that why you still seem to be pursuing me? Because my reluctance to be your wife presents a challenge to you?"
He cocked his head, scrutinizing her with a half-lidded gaze. "Partly, I expect. But it goes deeper than that. As implausible as it may seem, I'm motivated by concern for you."
"Me?"
"Yes, you. It disturbs me to see you so limited by the strict observations of widowhood. That you're forced to lock yourself away from the world. This is not India, where widows are burned alive with their husbands' remains."
The tea tray arrived just then, brought by Aurora's very proper butler. She gave a guilty start, realizing their conversation could have been overheard. Vowing to be more discreet, she fell silent until Danby bowed and withdrew.
After offering Nicholas scones and jam and small finger sandwiches, she hesitated, eyeing him uncertainly. This man was her husband; they had been together in the most intimate way possible. And yet she had no idea how he even liked his tea. "Do you care for milk or sugar?"
"Sugar, no milk. I know," Nicholas said wryly, reading her thoughts. "For a husband and wife we are still practically strangers. Perhaps we should remedy that."
"I see no reason for us to become more closely acquainted."
He studied Aurora as she poured tea from the silver pot into china cups. She performed the task as she did everything else, with a graceful elegance that was the product of a lifetime of training. The perfect lady. And like most gently bred ladies, she had been raised to honor the stifling codes of society.
Yet she continued to surprise him. Aurora was not like so many of her contemporaries – shallow, vain, self-centered, arrogant – although with her breeding and beauty, she could very well have turned out that way. She had unexpected depths, intriguing facets that he found enchanting, sensual. He had been captivated this morning by the glimpse of her free spirit when she'd galloped in the park. And he'd tasted the hidden fire in her embrace more than once…
There was a keenly passionate woman beneath that ladylike exterior, and he was determined to find her, to chip away at her very proper inhibitions. She was too young to bury herself away in a living tomb of celibacy.
It wouldn't be easy to break through her defenses, though. Not when Aurora held such an aversion to risk, when she was so determined to deny any vestige of desire. Like now. When he took the cup of tea she offered, their fingers brushed, creating a frisson of heat. Aurora drew back as if burned. Averting her gaze, she picked up her own cup, clearly intent on ignoring the attraction between them.
Nicholas felt his resolve harden. She needed shaking up, even though she didn't know it.
"So," he said finally. "Do you mean to live the rest of your life hiding behind your widow's weeds?"
Her blue eyes lifted to his. "What do you mean?"
"You've immured yourself in a prison here. Not one of your own making, but a prison nonetheless. You're a captive of convention and decorum, letting society dictate your every action."
"There is nothing wrong with following the dictates of society."
"There is if you let it drain the very life from you."
Aurora pursed her lips together in a frown. "I am not like you, Nicholas. I want a quiet, orderly life."
"I don't think you do, or you never would have come to my rescue and agreed to wed a stranger."
"Those were highly unusual circumstances. I am perfectly content with my situation."
"Are you?"
"Yes. I enjoy a very full life, despite my current limitations. My household may be much smaller than the one I managed for my father, but it still requires effort. I write letters often – actually, I have a wide correspondence. Friends call on me frequently. I read a great deal. I ride daily…"
"Ah, yes, your secret vice. What other hidden desires do you harbor, Aurora?"
She ignored the question. "I have what I have always wanted… independence."
"I don't think you can call this independence. You live in constant fear of what others will think. You can't go out in public without hiding your face or out after dark at all. You feel trapped here, you've intimated as much."
"Perhaps, but only because I am determined to avoid scandal. What is acceptable behavior for a man is not at all tolerable in a lady, much less a widow."
Determinedly, Nicholas held her gaze. "Either you're deceiving yourself or you don't know yourself very well. I think there are two sides of you. The woman who bows down to convention, worshiping as if it were an icon. And the one who loves galloping wildly through the park for the sheer joy of it. The same one who gave herself to a stranger in a blazing night of passion."
He could see by the darkening of her expressive eyes that he had hit a nerve. "I think you want to escape that straitlaced prison of yours," he pressed in a low voice, "to let yourself be a sensual woman, but you're afraid to take the risk."
When she didn't respond, he drew the journal from his pocket and set it on the table before her. Aurora stared at it, her eyes very blue.
"I thought of you the entire time I was reading this. You're very much like the anonymous lady who wrote it."
"I cannot see any resemblance," she replied defensively, as if embarrassed by the thought. "Our circumstances could hardly be more different. She was French, enslaved by corsairs and imprisoned in a Turkish harem. She was forced to become a concubine and engage in acts no lady would ever willingly abide."