He was no longer so sure that was true.
Not after she’d blindsided him with her statement about her virginity, serenely absolving him of any and all responsibility for taking her maidenhead.
Not after what had followed.
He didn’t, even now, understand his reaction. All he did know was that it was real, that it was a fundamental part of him, no fleeting response but something grounded in who he truly was, in the man he was, not superficial, not something he could discard. His taking her virginity might not have meant anything to her, but it had meant, and still did mean, a great deal to him.
Her dismissal of her virginity as valueless, her casting of her allowing him to take it as a matter of no account, had triggered that response. When she’d so calmly put her hand in his, he hadn’t been able to suppress it, whatever it was. Not temper; that didn’t even come close. Something akin to an unquenchable need to conquer.
The passion she’d unleashed in him had been frightening. It had pushed him to sweep her into sexual arenas of which she couldn’t possibly have had any experience, into realms of sensuality that should have shocked her, that should have had her retreating if not outright fleeing.
Instead, she’d met him, matched him, risen to every challenge, every blatantly sexual demand he’d made of her.
One point was clear; the gentlemen who’d labeled her an iceberg had had no notion of what she truly was. It was true she wasn’t a woman who melted into a man’s arms. Boadicea didn’t melt—in the throes of passion, she was like flaming steel, hot, searing, malleable, giving in her way, but not weakly. Never weakly.
He’d wanted to conquer her, and in the end she’d surrendered at least enough to appease him, but along the way he greatly feared that she had returned the favor.
His head was still spinning, an unsurprising response to discovering the one lady who could affect him to that extent, while simultaneously realizing that she hadn’t intended to.
Didn’t intend to; she had no interest in any long-term relationship. It wasn’t hard to understand why. Even while he’d been inwardly rebelling at her insistence that their liaison was strictly temporary, he’d recognized why she’d taken such a stance, and declared it so clearly.
But that had been before he’d thrust inside her and felt the telltale give, so slight that if he hadn’t been concentrating so intently on her body’s responses, he would have missed that fractional instant of pain. Most other men would have; he hadn’t. He’d known.
And the knowledge had made him feel…like a conqueror who had found his rightful queen.
Putting his head in his hands, he clutched his hair and groaned.
He’d turned his back on marriage, deliberately, unequivocally, so fate had sent him a lover, one who possessed the ability to satisfy him, all of him, as no other ever had, one who wanted marriage no more than he….
It should have been perfect. He should have been deliriously happy.
Instead, there he was, sated to his teeth, sitting on a cold hard bench trying not to think of how his entire life had, in one night, turned on its head, so that his future—any degree of future contentment—now depended on him succeeding in a task that was as close to impossible as made no odds.
He had to get Boadicea to change her mind.
Chapter 8
He’d charmed women by the hundreds, ladies by the score. All he had to do was charm Boadicea.
Jack stood at the manor’s drawing-room window and watched Clarice walking briskly up his drive. So briskly, she appeared set on storming his castle; from the look on her face, pale and serious, he doubted charm—any amount of charm—would get him far today, but what concerned him most was the figure struggling to keep pace by her side. James.
Clarice was only an inch shorter than James; she had the longer legs. Jack watched as she halted, rather grimly waited for James to catch up, then stormed on.
James didn’t look upset; he looked concerned but, Jack would swear, not about Clarice. He didn’t waste time wondering what might have happened; he headed for the front door.
The doorbell pealed. Howlett appeared, tugging his coat straight as he made for the door. Jack fell in behind him. He waited until Howlett swung the door wide, then stepped forward to greet Clarice as, head up, spine rigid, she marched in.
He reached for her hand, squeezed it, met her dark eyes. “What’s happened?” This close, with her hand in his, he could sense her agitation.
She drew breath, then said, “Over the breakfast table this morning, I realized who that unfortunate young man reminds me of.” Turning, she waved at James, who, almost puffing, had followed her in. He exchanged a nod with Jack as Clarice continued, “The young man reminds me of James.”
Jack blinked; the young man looked nothing like James.
Clarice made a dismissive sound. “Not as James is now, but there’s a portrait in the family collection of James when he was sixteen.” She viewed James critically. “Now James looks more like the Altwoods, but then he looked more like his mother’s family, the Sissingbournes.”
James met Jack’s eyes. “If Clarice is right, I greatly fear the young man might be one of my relatives.” James’s face clouded. “I should have come earlier, done the right thing and put my books aside—”
“Never mind that.” Clarice took his arm and drew him on. “You’re here now, so let’s go upstairs and see—” She broke off.