am too, but I suspect that is because I’m with you and not some simpering seventeen-year-old debutante.”
Marguerite laughed and then looked up as a shadow fell across the table.
“Anthony, is that you? Valentin said I’d find you here, but I could scarcely believe it.”
An older woman stared at her companion, both hands clasped to her breast. Anthony stood up, bringing Marguerite with him.
“Mama, may I present Lady Justin Lockwood?”
The woman stared at Marguerite as if she’d grown another head and then blushed. “Oh, a thousand apologies for my rude-ness, I’m just so surprised to see Anthony here with you!”
Marguerite curtsied. “Your son has been very kind to me, ma’am.”
“Oh, I’m sure he has. He can be quite charming when he wants to be.”
“Mama . . .” Anthony sighed, and his mother patted his arm.
“I won’t interrupt your evening any longer, my dears, but Lady Justin, please come and visit me at home one morning this week. I’d be delighted to see you again.”
Marguerite sat back down and waited until Anthony had kissed his mother’s cheek, submitted to a kiss in return and waved her off with a smile. When he sat, she studied him for a long moment.
SIMPLY WICKED / 41
“Why is your appearance here so startling that everyone we meet has to comment on it?”
He shifted restlessly in his seat. “Because I’ve avoided society like a plague for the last two years, and everyone’s wondering what has coaxed me back.”
Marguerite swallowed hard. “I hope they won’t think it’s me.”
“Why ever not?”
“Because I’m trying to avoid becoming the subject of gossip, remember?” Marguerite rose clumsily to her feet. “Maybe this was a mistake. Will you take me home, please?”
Anthony followed her out of the ballroom and down the packed staircase to the equally crowded hall. He managed to catch her elbow and halt her flight, drawing her into the shadow of the stairwell near the servants’ door.
“Don’t go.”
She looked up at him, her expression distraught. “I have to.
I can’t bear for people to look at me and whisper again; I simply can’t.”
“They won’t, I can promise you that. Everyone will be too busy gossiping about me.” He saw the doubt on her face and leaned in closer, rested one hand on the wall behind her head.
“Please, Marguerite, we can do this. If we ignore the gossip, support each other and appear unaffected, it will soon die down, and we will both benefit from that.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m not sure I’m ready.”
He gave in to a strange desire to comfort her by kissing the top of her head. She smelled tantalizingly of violets and warm skin. Before his mind even registered his interest, his body was already reacting to her scent. At the touch of his lips, she went still and then raised her chin to look up at him.
He stared into her eyes, a dark blue similar to his own, won-42 / Kate Pearce
dered why it was suddenly so necessary to convince her to stay with him and why he would miss her if she changed her mind.
She slowly licked her lips, and his cock hardened in a sudden aching rush.
“You didn’t kill your husband, Marguerite, so why should you continue to suffer the consequences?”
She looked away from him then, and he almost regretted his words, but he needed to get his unruly thoughts and body under control. And what better way to do that than by mentioning her husband, the man she still claimed to love so much that she hadn’t had sex since he died?
“It isn’t that simple, Anthony.”
“Nothing ever is, but you can’t keep running away.”
He took another breath, inhaling a hint of his own arousal along with the sweetness of her skin, and wondered if she was aware of his erect cock inches away from her stomach. Mentioning her husband hadn’t destroyed his interest one bit.
“Are you all right, Anthony?”
He blinked as she gazed at him, the concern in her eyes an added balm to the side of
Jo Willow, Sharon Gurley-Headley