“Possibly not,” she conceded.
“You really should not be alone here with me.”
“With any gentleman,” she allowed.
“Your father is obviously relieved to be home again with his duchess,” Zachary remarked stiffly.
Rissa nodded. “They are totally devoted to each other.”
“What is happening to the school in the duchess’s absence?” He knew the other woman had previously been headmistress at a school for young ladies in Portsmouth.
His few minutes’ visit with the duchess before dinner had been less of an ordeal than Zachary had thought it might be. Mainly due, he knew, to the warmth and grace that was Sophia Spencer. Zachary had certainly said and done little to ease the awkwardness of the situation. The duchess had seemed to feel none of that discomfort as she thanked him for rescuing Rissa, nor had Zachary been ignorant of the questioning gleam in Sophia’s eyes when she spoke of her stepdaughter’s interest in their past scandal.
A scandal Zachary had refused to discuss further when the duchess told him of Rissa’s curiosity regarding those past events. As far as Zachary was concerned, raking up the details of the past served no purpose for any of them. His own life had been made difficult enough these past eleven years, but he knew they had been even worse for Sophia. The last thing Zachary wished to do, now that Sophia had at last found happiness with Weston and his daughter and was expecting the duke’s child, was to rake up that past scandal. Nothing could ever come of his attraction to Rissa anyway.
But being with her, in her family home, and unable to touch or kiss her, and with that specter of the past hanging over their heads, was a hell in and of itself. But nor could Zachary accept the alternative of sitting alone at Harrogate Park worrying as to his Angel’s safety. Damned if he did and damned if he did not.
But this, being alone with Rissa, was a danger to her and her reputation. Because of who he was and his involvement in the scandal of the past.
“Sophia still owns and takes an interest in the school,” Rissa, unaware of Zachary’s churning of emotions, innocently answered his question. “But one of the other teachers had necessarily to take over as headmistress once Sophia realized she was with child.” Rissa looked extremely beautiful this evening in one of her own gowns of a pale shade of blue that added that same color to her already intriguing gray eyes. “Zachary?” she prompted at his continued silence.
“I believe you attended the school yourself this past year?”
A knowing smile curved the deep pink of Rissa’s lips. “Is this an attempt on your part to remind yourself that I was still a schoolgirl until a few months ago?”
Zachary scowled. “It is a fact.”
She moved a step closer to him. “One that did not seem to bother you in the slightest when you kissed me yesterday.”
Rissa’s age did not bother Zachary now either, if he was being honest with himself. Nothing, it seemed, not Rissa being thirteen years younger than him, nor who her stepmother was and Sophia Spencer’s connection to the past, succeeded in dampening his yearning to kiss his Angel again. From wanting her.
And he could not do it. Must not do it.
He should not have come to Weston Park at all, feeling as attracted to Rissa as he did.
Except the man who had once been Zachary’s best friend and committed to an asylum a year ago had now been set free by a woman who sounded equally as disturbed, to go about harming the people he believed responsible for having put him there. The other man’s sickness of mind was such that Royston could not see he was the only one responsible for his own actions and the consequences.
As Zachary was one of the people Royston was angry with, it could be assumed that at some point, the other man intended to include Zachary in this campaign of vengeance. Not that Zachary gave a damn about himself. His only concern was for his Angel’s continued safety.
But for the moment, he agreed with the duke and duchess in their decision not to worry Rissa by telling her of that part of the situation as yet, when the memory of the danger she had been in during the fire yesterday was still so vivid in her mind.
Besides, if the guards Weston had hired were any good at their job, then they would hopefully have caught Royston before Rissa need be worried with any of the details of the threat hanging over them all.
He tensed as Rissa took another step closer to him. “It was unusual circumstances, and emotions were still a little high after the fire,” he said, dismissing yesterday’s lapses in propriety.
Rissa’s lips continued to curve upward in that knowing smile. “What do you think would have happened if my father had not arrived and interrupted us yesterday evening?”
A nerve pulsed in Zachary’s tightly clenched jaw. “I would have escorted you to your bedchamber before wishing you a good night’s sleep.”
“Are you sure?” Rissa lifted one of her hands and ran a lace-gloved fingertip lightly down the lapel of Zachary’s evening jacket.
A caress, not even bare skin against bare skin, which nevertheless went straight to Zachary’s cock, causing it to stiffen and swell inside his evening trousers. “This really is most improper, Angel. There are still servants about, and your father might return at any moment,” he added firmly as he realized his lapse in calling her by that name of intimacy.
Rissa’s eyes gleamed with that same knowledge as she looked up at him through dark lashes. “My father will not leave Sophia’s side again tonight,” she stated with certainty. “Besides, he believes me to have retired to my own bedchamber,” she reminded.
“Then perhaps that is what you should do?”
“It is still early, and I would rather spend the time getting to know you better.”
The last thing Zachary or Rissa needed was for speculative gossip about the two of them to start circulating, even on a local basis. “You have no idea of the risk you are taking—” His words were cut off the moment Rissa stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against his.
Zachary closed his eyes, fighting his instinct to wrap his arms about Rissa’s waist and pull her closer still. A struggle in which he battled to succeed when the warmth of Rissa’s lips were pressed to his, her body was curved purposefully against his own, and her perfume was invading all his senses.
It was a battle Zachary was predestined to lose.
As, it seemed, he had been predestined to want this woman from the moment he looked up and saw his Angel standing on the balcony of the Catchpoles’ home.
Zachary gave a groan as his arms moved possessively about her waist, and he pulled her closer still before deepening the kiss.
Within seconds, he was lost to her taste of sweetness and passion, followed by the sweeping heat of desire as he first licked along the seam of her lips, and Angel offered no resistance as he thrust his tongue into the inferno of her enticing mouth.
She seemed tiny held so tightly against him, Zachary at least a foot taller than her, his chest wide and muscular, and yet Angel returned his kisses with a fierceness of passion so much bigger than herself.
Much as he wanted her, Zachary knew he could not allow this to continue. That their attraction toward each other must come to an end. Before Rissa was hurt. Either by him or by others.
Zachary reached up to take a firm grasp of her arms before wrenching his mouth from hers and holding her away from him.
Painful as it was, and despite his earlier decision otherwise, Zachary knew of only one sure way to achieve and maintain a lasting distance between them. He wished it could be otherwise, but Rissa’s family connection to Sophia made that impossible.
Even evidence of his innocence and Sophia’s tacit support of him during Royston’s trial a year ago had not succeeded in quietening the suspicion he had somehow been involved in that past attack on Sophia’s innocence.
He knew Rissa well enough to know that once she learned the truth, she was stubborn enough to want to deny those whispers. To dismiss them as the idle chitchat of the more vindictive in Soci
ety. But a steady diet of those whispers must eventually take its toll on even this brave young lady’s determined nature. Zachary did not want that for his Angel.
For him to pursue his attraction to her, to encourage her, would be to then sit and wait for the day when the gossips had their way and she began to eye him with that same doubt and suspicion as they did.
Zachary would prefer to suffer her anger and disgust now rather than later.
“Zachary?” Rissa eyed him uncertainly, aware of the tension roiling through him and uncertain as to the reason for it after the force of their shared passion just now. A passion that still caused her to tremble and ache.
He drew in a deep breath before speaking. “Your stepmother has left it for me to decide when or if to tell of the events of the past,” he bit out harshly as he released her to take a step back, putting even more distance between them. “I believe that time has now come.”
Rissa’s sense of foreboding intensified.
Chapter 6
Nor was she in the least reassured when Zachary moved to open the door she had closed when she entered the dining room minutes ago, ensuring—
Ensuring what, exactly?
That her father’s butler was within calling distance if she should need him?
Which, considering Rissa had been the one to initiate their kiss just now, did not seem at all likely.
She nervously moistened her lips. “Does this mean Sophia had something to do with the scandal which you have previously refused to discuss with me?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
His nostrils flared. “Everything!”
Rissa felt her stomach clench, and the palms of her hands become damp at the possibility Zachary and Sophia might once have been romantically involved. They were, after all, more of an age. And yet… “The two of you seem…amicable enough toward each other.” More to the point, despite the obvious tension when the two men first met, her father had not tried to kill Zachary for having a past association with his beloved Sophia.
One thing Rissa knew for certain, her father, a widower for so many years before meeting and falling almost instantly in love with Sophia, adored and loved his wife with every part of him. He would not tolerate the presence of a past love or lover of Sophia’s in their lives or his home.
Zachary nodded. “If you would care to sit down? I am not about to break any confidences. Your father and stepmother will confirm all that I am about to say to you, if you doubt me. It might not be openly discussed now, but it was public knowledge eleven years ago. It is still, I believe, a subject for conjecture behind ladies’ fans.”
Rissa sat before then listening to a tale of an evening more than a decade ago during which her darling Sophia lost her virginity in the worst way possible and Zachary was believed to have been responsible, resulting in his losing his reputation and standing in Society. That the latter had been rectified a year ago, when the real culprit was incarcerated for his crimes, seemed to have made no difference to Zachary’s alienation from Society.
Rissa was standing again by the time Zachary came to the end of his dialogue, feeling too restless to remain seated a moment longer. “I appreciate what you have told me, know that it cannot have been easy for you to talk of it. My heart breaks for what you and Sophia both suffered. I shall, of course, be speaking with Sophia as soon as I am able,” she spoke evenly. “But, as socially the wrong has now been put right and the culprit incarcerated for his crime, I fail to see what it has to do with the two of us now.”
Zachary eyed her pityingly. “You are extremely naïve to see it that way.”
Rissa bristled. “I might not be as old in years as you, but I am not a child. You were innocent of any wrongdoing, and this has now been proven beyond a doubt.”
“As I have said, I doubt Society will ever completely believe that,” he mocked.
She frowned her irritation. “They will not believe it, or you will not allow yourself to accept that they believe it?”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you accusing me of?”
Rissa sincerely doubted he would appreciate the blunt answer to that question. “Surely the fact that my father and Sophia publicly supported you a year ago, that my family has now embraced and welcomed you into our home, shows that they do not harbor any doubts in regard to your innocence.”
His mouth twisted. “Is that what you were doing just now? Embracing and welcoming me?”
Her cheeks warmed at his taunt. “You will only feed the gossips with your present implacable attitude toward them.”
“Years of experiencing their ‘attitude’ tells me it does not need any feeding.”
Rissa eyed him impatiently. She could not even begin to imagine how traumatic these past eleven years had been for her darling Sophia as well as for Zachary, for both seemed to have suffered their fair share of condemnation, when both were absolutely innocent of any wrongdoing. But at least Sophia was determined to move on from the event and had made the best of her life, first by making a success of her school and then by falling in love with Rissa’s father and now expecting their child. Zachary did not seem to have fared as well. Nor did he seem inclined to change the situation.
Her chin rose. “I ask again, what does this past and now resolved scandal have to do with the two of us?”
“There is no us,” he dismissed harshly. “These past events should show there can never be an us.”
Rissa glared her frustration. “Do you not think my father had similar whispers and gossip to deal with when my mother was alive?” Her father, thank goodness, had chosen to share her mother’s infidelities with her before she ventured into Society, so Rissa was never put in the awkward position of being unaware of her mother’s scandalous behavior. “My father chose to hold his head high and ignore those gossips. He still does.”
Zachary grimaced. “Obviously, your father is a paragon of virtue and I am not!”
Rissa drew in a sharp breath at this deliberate insult toward her beloved papa. “No, he is merely a man confident in his own and Sophia’s innocence of any wrongdoing. As you should be.”
“I am not as forgiving as your father.”
“Obviously not.” Rissa gave him a formal curtsey. “Perhaps you could inform me when or if you are feeling less…inflexible on the subject?” She swept to the door with a swish of her skirts, her head held high.
“Angel!”
Her shoulders stiffened at the familiarity, her features schooled into polite query when she slowly turned back to face Zachary. “Yes?”
His expression softened. “Never think I do not want you. My only reason for holding you at arm’s length is so that you will not be hurt by my past.”
“Indeed?” Her eyes flashed. “In that case, perhaps you should have done me the courtesy of asking what I want rather than telling me,” she snapped.
He winced. “What do you want?”
Her smile lacked humor. “After this conversation, I believe that is now something you will need to discover for yourself.”
“Angel…”
This time, Rissa ignored the pleading in Zachary’s tone as she continued out of the room and up the stairs to her bedchamber.
She could understand Zachary’s bitterness, even sympathize with it. What she could not forgive him for was allowing that past to continue to influence his future. For possibly jeopardizing a future they might have had together.
She was also dismayed that Zachary appeared to have so little faith in her.
Rissa trusted her parents’ opinion implicitly, but even if she did not, she would never have condemned Zachary out of hand. Sophia had taught her to question everything and everyone. To learn two sides of a story and then make up her own mind as to how she felt in regard to the outcome.
Zachary had saved Rissa’s life when no one else had even seemed aware it needed saving.
He had kissed her with intimacy and passion, both before and after he had discovered she was the daughter of Magnus Sp
encer, the Duke of Weston, and the stepdaughter of the woman from Zachary’s past.
Much as it pained Rissa and went completely against her forthright nature, she would not force herself or her affections and company on a man who refused to allow their attraction to each other even the chance to flourish, because he could not allow the past to die its natural death.
Oh, she did not disbelieve Zachary’s claim that others in Society would not allow it to die either. Even her few weeks spent in that company had shown her how Society did love a good scandal. But if she could keep her head held high when the matrons decided to discuss the scandalous behavior of her deceased mother, then she would have no difficulty standing at Zachary’s side and staring down those same gossiping matrons.
But that would not happen until, or if, Zachary decided to do the same.
Nor, if this was how he felt, did Rissa completely understand why he had bothered to come here at all.
“Where are you going?”
Rissa had finally conceded defeat in regard to being able to sleep and risen from her bed at six o’clock in the morning, washed, and then dressed before coming downstairs. She now turned to look at Zachary as he stepped from the library into the entrance hall.
She had not expected anyone else to be up and about at this hour, except perhaps the maids tidying and dusting the dining and drawing rooms, readying for the day ahead.
She glanced down at her dark gray velvet riding habit, the matching hat perched rakishly on her dark curls. “I should have thought that was obvious.”
Of course it was obvious to Zachary that his Angel was dressed to go riding. The earliness of the hour and the absence of any of the rest of the family also told him she intended going out alone, with perhaps the concession of taking one of the grooms with her for propriety’s sake.
An occurrence, given the circumstances, Zachary knew would be as unacceptable to her parents as it was to him. “If you would care to wait a few minutes while I change, I would like to go with you.”
Forbidden (Regency Lovers 4) Page 5