Wedding of the Season by Laura Lee Guhrke

Author:Laura Lee Guhrke [Guhrke, Laura Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Historical, Victorian, General
ISBN: 9781611290776
Google: QXkNo19W0DQC
Amazon: 1611290775
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2010-12-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

In an instant, Will fully appreciated the damage he’d done. It was in Julia’s horrified face. It was in Paul’s angry scowl. And it was in Trathen’s stiff, abrupt departure.

“Oh hell,” he muttered, and turned to look at Beatrix, but he didn’t have the chance to say a word.

“You bastard.” She swung before he could block the move, her palm hitting his cheek with enough force to swing his head sideways, and then she was running past him, sloshing out of the water and across the sand, headed for the ladder. “Aidan, wait!”

Will, his cheek stinging from the slap, his body on fire from the arousal of her kiss, and his mind still dazed from the chaos inside him, didn’t try to stop her. He’d done that already—with disastrous results—and pushing his luck was not a good idea. Besides, if he did go after her, what could he say? She’d called him a bastard, and that pretty much said it all. He certainly felt like one. God knew, he’d acted like one.

He hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t meant to sound his opinions, force her to listen, or haul her into his arms and kiss her. But he’d been driven to make her see the truth—that she was a beautiful woman far too passionate and loving to imprison herself in a passionless, loveless marriage.

Not that saving her from making a huge mistake had been a pure and noble motive on his part. No, he couldn’t salve his conscience with any heroic rot of that sort. He wanted her, pure and simple. Six years of trying to forget her, of trying not to want her, had been an utter waste of time. He watched her as she ascended the ladder, and the sight of her clinging bathing dress and bare legs only sent the desire he felt flaring even higher, desire that, if her outrage was anything to go by, would remain unrequited for the rest of his life.

“Hell,” he said again, and wanted to kick himself in the head.

Beatrix had by now vanished from view. Her cousins, however, did not seem inclined to go after her. Julia hovered on the cliff edge, glancing over her shoulder, then back at him as if uncertain quite what to do. Paul, however, had no such ambivalence. He started down the ladder.

Will inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly, knowing Paul’s intent was to give him a sound thrashing, and since he wholly deserved it, the only thing to do was meet it like a man.

He came out of the water and waited on the sand as Paul approached. When the other man halted in front of him, he made no attempt at explanations. Lust, after all, was not an explanation.

“You son of a bitch.”

When Paul’s fist came flying at him, he didn’t even try to duck. He felt a shattering pain in his jaw, saw stars, and then he felt his body falling backward into the sand and everything went black.

Beatrix

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