Catherine Archer - Lord Sin

Yet what he had learned of Mary over the past days had taught him that she deserved better than he could offer. From what he’d seen of her, she had a quick mind and a strong spirit that prevented her from bowing to anyone. Ian could not but admire that, for it answered a like place within himself. He had spent most of the years of his adulthood flouting convention. It was what had earned him the appellation of “Lord Sin.” But that was all behind him now, and fortunate that, for he might not have been able to resist the temptation to seduce the lovely Miss Fulton despite his assurances to Victoria.

His resistance to his desire was made doubly hard by her own reactions to him. For in spite of her anger toward him, he was not blind to the fact that Mary was not immune to him. Ian had experienced the charms of enough women to know mutual passion when he experienced it. Her response to his kiss, though brief and untutored, had been apparent Her desire needed only a gentle and sensitive hand to call it to the fore.

Ian drew himself up and forced himself to concentrate on the conversation Jedidiah was having with his wife. He would not allow himself to think of Mary Fulton in any but the most appropriate of terms.

It was all he, with any honor, could do.

He was drawn from his thoughts by the servant who announced that dinner was ready to be served. Ian watched as Jedidiah offered Victoria his arm.

Mary stood and came forward with them. Ian told himself that his recent feelings for this young woman precluded his doing the polite thing and offering his own arm. But as she moved toward him, Mary glanced up from beneath the fringe of those thick dark lashes, her golden eyes uncertain. When she saw that he, too, was looking at her, she raised her head high.

He could not help thinking of the way he had found her that afternoon, quaking with terror on the bell tower steps. She was such a strange mixture of strength and softness, this Mary Fulton.

Without even realizing he was going to do so, Ian held out his arm. “May I?”

She hesitated, and Ian had to make an effort to hold back his annoyance. Why was he so drawn to this woman when she seemed to resent him despite the attraction she had not been able to hide? Could it be because she was the exact opposite of his cousin Barbara, who would never openly disagree with anything he said or did, as Mary was quite willing to do?

Finally she nodded, then reached out to place her hand on his arm. As she did so he was struck by a jolt of piercingly sweet awareness that moved from her to him. A delicately floral scent rose from her hair and Ian found himself wanting to take it down from the loose bun she wore, to see the glorious golden mass draped across her shoulders and naked…

He stopped in his tracks. What in God’s name was he thinking here?

Mary looked up at him in question. “My lord.”

He could see that Victoria had already reached the doorway that led to the dining room across the foyer. He had indeed been lost in thought. Knowing that Mary would be completely shocked to know what he had been thinking, Ian did not meet her puzzled gaze. “I beg your pardon. I fear I was not attending.”

He made no comment on her suddenly closed expression. Releasing his arm and stepping away from him, she said, “I will leave you to your thoughts, then.”

Ian nearly reached out to stop her, but he drew his hand back. He told himself that it was much better for both of them if she was annoyed with him. Hadn’t he promised Victoria that he would not seduce her? Hadn’t he promised himself?

As he had told himself before, Mary deserved better than that.

Victoria was watching him closely as he entered the elegantly furnished chamber behind the others. She raised her dark brows high as she glanced pointedly from Ian to Mary, who was already seated.

He quirked a brow in return, wondering how she would react to the turn of his thoughts.

Jedidiah interrupted this silent exchange. “Please be seated, Ian.” He indicated the empty chair directly across from the vicar’s daughter.

As he took his designated place, she flicked a glance toward him and Ian saw again that Mary was not immune to the strange attraction that existed between them. Her cheeks darkened to rose and her breath came more quickly from her slightly parted lips.

Victoria interrupted his contemplation, and though her tone was teasing, he could not but hear the chiding in it. “I hope, Ian, that you have not forgotten the promise you made to me.”

He drew himself up, meeting her gaze directly. “I have not forgotten.”

With a relaxed expression, which Ian knew belied the keen mind he possessed, Jedidiah asked, “What promise is that, my dear?”

Victoria turned to her husband with a smile. Ian knew she would not risk hurting Mary’s feelings by making her reprimand of Ian known. “That answer you will not get from me, love. No more than you would tell me why Ian had come to visit before you had given me the mare. Torture would not have it from me.”

For a moment Jedidiah said nothing, letting the heat of his gaze fall upon his now blushing wife. “I think we both know that you have your breaking point, my dear.”

She flushed even more deeply and Ian looked away. What must it be like to be so close to another human being? Ian had never known.

Ian’s gaze flicked to Mary. Though she flushed, she faced him squarely. He felt a wave of admiration.

As a notion he had been trying to reject for days set itself even more firmly in his consciousness, Ian’s lips pressed to a line of determination. He would not seduce her.

But there was another way to have her. Was he not a man, free to do as he pleased? The act he was contemplating might very well garner enough disapproval from his father to see Ian disinherited, but he would not be ruled by the older man.

In the next breath Ian halted himself. What was he thinking? He could not marry this woman simply because he desired her, nor even because it would be the perfect act of rebellion toward his father. Had he not decided that he would no longer live up to his reputation as “Lord Sin"? Mary Fulton was a young woman who had shown that she took much pride in ordering her own life. How could he not understand this sentiment when it was a right he valued so highly himself?

As a knock sounded on the front door, Mary looked up from the box of books she was packing. Still holding a volume in her hand, she went to answer it.

Deliberately she avoided looking at the letters waiting on the hall table to be posted. She had crossed a bridge by writing them, as each was an offer of her services for the position of governess. She had every hope that at least one reply would be favorable. Her problem lay in the fact that she had been assaulted by doubts as to the wisdom of her decision as soon as the missives were sealed. The idea of facing the unknown future had become suddenly overwhelming, but she knew she must do so, must have the courage to leave behind the only life she knew and strike out on her own.

She told herself they must be sent this very afternoon. Before she could change her mind. Why she was having such doubts she could not say, other than realizing that Ian Sinclair’s face kept intruding on her thoughts. But that, she knew, was completely ridiculous. Lord Sinclair had nothing to do with her future. Even if she had wished to accept Victoria’s generosity and live at Briarwood, she would not be seeing him. Sinclair was only visiting her friends and would soon be off to do…well…whatever a single man of his wealth and undeniable attractiveness did.

And beyond that he was not in the least interested in her. He had hardly spoken to her last eve at Briarwood.

It was true that Ian had kissed her the second time they’d met, but he had done nothing of the sort since. Oh, there had been times since when he looked at her…when she had thought…Obviously it was nothing more than her overactive imagination at work.