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The door closed behind them and Vi ripped her arm from his. “How dare you,” she seethed.
“Please allow me to escort you home.” It was the least she could do after forcing him to chase her all over the streets of London, finally coming to a stop in the East End.
Brock would be lucky if his driver had not been assaulted and his carriage stolen. Did she not realize the jeopardy she faced by coming here unescorted—and in a hack, no less? The woman was careless and reckless, but now was not the time to point out all her flaws. First, he needed to get her into his carriage, which thankfully sat across the street whole and unharmed.
“Are you delusional enough to believe I would enter a carriage with you after you practically shouted to all of London that I would be better off dead?”
Bloody hell, she had a very valid point. “I do apologize for my behavior.” Now was as good a time as any, although he never dreamed this would be happening on the streets in front of anyone passing by, in the worst part of town. “Now, would you—”
“Just stop.”
Brock shut his mouth to stop himself from making an utter fool of himself, more then he already had.
She glared at him and he glared back at her—much as he imagined his brothers glaring at each other as they looked down the barrels of two matching pearl-handled pistols. There was nothing separating Brock from her now, with the exception of every person on the crowded street and the children who no doubt had their noses pressed to the window panes of the house behind them.
Obviously, forcing her into the carriage was not an option, and their glaring was also getting them nowhere. “The children are staring.” He tried a new tactic.
From the stiffening in her back, he knew he had chosen the right one.
She glanced over her shoulder and when she turned back to face him, she was smiling. It was a frightful, wooden smile, but it was a smile nonetheless.
He held out his arm and she slipped her hand in to rest lightly at his elbow.
“Blast,” she muttered.
“I promise I will not do away with you on the ride to your father’s house. I only wanted a moment of your time to make amends properly.” Brock looked both ways and stepped from the walk in the direction of his carriage. “See, this is not so horrible.”
“You are correct, my lord,” she looked up at him. “It is far worse than that.”
Ignoring her remark, Brock handed her up into his carriage and turned to Jeffers. “The Liperton townhouse.”
“Of course, my lord.”
Brock entered the carriage to find Lady Viola perched as if ready to flee on the front-facing seat. Her hands looked ready to launch herself toward the closing door. When it clicked shut, she sagged against the seat, her arms across her chest.
The carriage pulled into traffic and jolted down the uneven street. He only had a limited time to talk with her; there was no doubt in his mind that as soon as they pulled to a stop, she would either bolt out the door or jump through the narrow window she was currently eyeing. And that might look even worse than the scene they had made before.
But how to get her talking?
“What was that house?” he asked, hoping to break her icy exterior.
“That is none of your concern. You will not be going back.”
“I am not so sure I will not be returning. Little Abby was quite affronted that I arrived at her party without a gift. I promised that sometime in the near future I would rectify my faux pas.”
The carriage hit a large hole, and Viola put her hand against the carriage wall to steady herself before she spoke. “Why would you care about a little girl?”
“I am not a heartless man, Vio—”
“Lady Viola.”
“Fine. Lady Viola, I am not a heartless man. And now it seems I know you are not the heartless, cold woman I have pictured all these years.” He spoke the truth. “It is odd. I never thought you to be a woman who would like children.”
She crossed her arms once more. “You do not know me in the slightest.”
“That is true… But I find myself wanting to know you.” Images flashed through his mind unbidden—thoughts he had kept at bay from the time he first learned that the tantalizing Lady Posey was, in fact, the very woman he had blamed for his family’s misfortune for the past eight years. For a moment, he let those thoughts wash over him once more. He wanted to know the way she would feel close against his body; the way her lips would melt against his own. He wanted to see her hair cascading loose down her back . . . and possibly over her unclothed body, his hands running through its silken waves.
“Why are you looking at me such?” Her lips pressed together in a firm line.
He knew where to find something else that was currently a bit firm. At least her comment drew his attention from thoughts of her naked body . . . to her lips pressed against his.
Bloody hell! This was the woman responsible for Cody and Winston’s deaths, how could he be looking at her with any sort of lust? What she had been and who she was today were completely at odds.
“You are still staring,” she said. “Why did you truly follow me?”
All right, she wanted to talk. He also wanted to talk . . . among other things. “As I said, I felt it was only honorable that I apologize for my behavior the other evening.” That was not as truthful as his other admissions. “And to return something that had been taken from you.”
“Could you not have waited for me to return home?”
“You left in a hired hack, without a maid, and ended up in the East End. My actions were very justified.”
“Be that as it may, I am a grown woman.”
The stiffness in his breeches dissipated at her icy tone. He took her in from head to toe, then back to her face. “I am extremely aware that you are a grown woman.”
She straightened, as if just now seeing the folly of entering his carriage without contesting more. “Well, I do accept your apology and I hope that we can ignore each other in the future.”
They would be arriving at her father’s townhouse at any moment. The street had leveled out, and he felt the rhythmic passing of the cobblestones under the wheels. “I have yet to apologize—I have only expressed my desire to do so.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “And I suppose you expect an apology in return?”
“Not at all. There is not enough time in one day for you to apologize for all you should.” His words were overly harsh.
She scowled as she pulled the curtain aside. “We have almost arrived, and I am quite busy, so thank you for your ‘wish to apologize.’ I believe it would behoove both of us to act as if we are unacquainted from now on.”
“Oh, I think we are far beyond that.”
“And why is that?”
“I will find it hard in the future to not let others know you are not the cold and selfish girl they all think you to be.”
“I should have run the second I heard your name at Foldger’s Foals,” she muttered, her arms still firmly crossed.
“Ah, but then we would not know the chemistry between us.”
“There is no chemistry between us, unless you count hatred.”
“Come now, Viola, you cannot deny that you felt something that day.”
“I do not know what day you refer to.”
“No? What about our kiss? Or that night in the rain? Do you also deny our connection then?”
She couldn’t possibly deny she had felt something. He knew he could do so no longer. Truth be told, if Brock had not found out her true identity, he knew he would have sought out her company again—under very different circumstances.
“Luckily, I know the exact day, the time, and the weather overhead. You were striding in from the pasture—”
“I do not stride, that is very unladylike.”
“I do beg your pardon, my lady. You floated across the low grass in the pasture toward me, your hips swaying with a barely restrained sensuality, and . . .”
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Her cheeks flushed pink and her head dipped, breaking eye contact.
“Your foal followed you, completely caught in a hypnotic trance in which I too found myself.”
Now, her face flamed red, spreading down her neck and below her modestly cut neckline.
“As you walked toward me, all I could think about were my hands resting on your narrow hips. . . . My lips against yours.”
Her eyes met his again.
“And then, our lips were touching—dancing—and it was everything I had dreamed of it being.” At the thought, heat flooded his body. Without thinking, he moved to sit next to her, his body drawn to hers.
To his surprise, she didn’t withdraw, but leaned toward him.
“Your lips were soft, so accommodating.” His hand rose to stroke her jaw. Again, she didn’t pull away. “I would have wrapped my arms around you and never let go, if it had not been for—”
His hand dropped from her chin. What was he doing? Had he gone mad? She was the one responsible for all he had lost—all that he missed. Family.
But no, he’d held a glimpse of the woman she’d become that night when he’d found her, soaked to the skin on her runaway horse. She had been raw with grief, beaten down emotionally—beyond anything a woman should ever have to experience, and quite possibly lower than Brock’s lowest moment.
Despite all she’d lived through, she’d found the courage to start anew, rebuild her life and give back to others. What had he done but focus on ruining what little she’d accomplished?
Viola had paid her penance tenfold.
Brock lost himself in her eyes in that moment, and he wasn’t sure any of their past mattered anymore.