What the Stubborn Viscount Desires by Sandra Sookoo

Author:Sandra Sookoo [Sookoo, Sandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2018-05-11T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

This was beyond a worst nightmare. This was the deliberate wounding of a woman who trusted him, a woman he was responsible for, a woman he’d betrayed by his past actions. The accusation and horror in her eyes cut him to the quick. Unfortunately, nothing he had to tell would alleviate those feelings.

And he would hurt her even deeper.

“What are you saying?” Sophia fluttered a hand between her mouth and her heart. “You didn’t mention that in the letter you sent home. I know because I read that same letter twenty-five times and committed those words to memory.” Panic and a touch of hysteria lit her voice, rising with every word she uttered. She implored him with her gaze. “Explain. Right this minute, Viscount Trewellain. I need to know.”

Succinct as always. He allowed himself a ghost of a smile, which was a mistake, for she narrowed her eyes and stared at him with suspicion. “Come back to the table and I’ll tell you.” When Jonathan reached for her hand, she wrenched away.

“Don’t touch me.” The warning in her voice was unmistakable. “I don’t trust you enough for that anymore.”

And she was right to think so. Still, his stomach muscles cramped at the verification. “Very well.” He indicated she should precede him around the shelves. Once she led the way back to the table littered with several books and travel journals, he stared until she seated herself on one of the high-backed wooden chairs in the shadows. “Before we were introduced in Kent at Christmas, I recognized your eyes.”

“What the devil does that have to do with anything?” she demanded as she flexed her fingers into fists on the tabletop.

“They are very much like Stephen’s, and that made me remember. Guilt for that day—for many days and many people—haunts me. It caught me off guard at the holidays, which is why I ‘came the crab with you.” How did he tell her the tale and not come off looking like an ogre?

She continued to regard him, but with no trace of amusement this time. No, he recognized the emotion in her blue eyes, and he hated himself for putting that doubt, that horror, that… disappointment there. It was something he was an expert at—disappointing the people closest to him. “I’m waiting, viscount.”

He flinched at her use of the title, and the generic form at that. Any vestiges of the friendship they might have previously shared had fled. It was his fault, and that guilt added to the already growing pile. “Before I was a king’s agent, I served in the Royal Navy. My assignment was recon after the Battle of Trafalgar, or rather cleaning up the mess we left in Spain.” He moistened his lips before continuing, “I was all of twenty, green but eager without much military training at the time, and I wanted to prove myself. I was also extremely skilled in hand to hand combat, especially against the French scum.”

When Sophia said nothing, he sighed. Obviously, she didn’t wish to hear his naval history.

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