Page 71 of Cold November Rake

"Not exactly." He tugged at his cuffs nervously. "We were not on good terms, you and I, and I thought our marriage was effectively over. I wanted to drown my sorrows in a woman, so I kissed her."

"You wanted to bed her," she breathed, a pained expression on her face.

He could not stand seeing her hurt like this.

"I did, but I couldn't. I realized that when I was kissing her, I was thinking of you, and I couldn't do that to either her or you. It would have been dishonest. So, I stopped."

Her eyes gentled. "You wanted to kiss me."

He just shrugged.

"What did she say?" she asked after a brief pause.

A small smile broke out on his lips. "Thank God."

She blinked. "Pardon me?"

He laughed outright then. "That's what I asked, and she burst into tears. She told me that she had been tired of being accosted by lords young and old, and she thought she would save herself trouble if she picked one protector, but she couldn't do it. After that ill-intentioned kiss from both sides, we realized we were entirely unsuited as lovers, but more than suited as friends."

"Just friends?"

He nodded. "The mistress arrangement was a fiction, to keep other men from troubling her. I was her protector, in the most literal sense."

A pause hung in the air between them.

Then she swatted him on the arm. "You could have explained that earlier, you know! I was completely beside myself with jealousy and sorrow⁠—"

"It was not my secret to tell." He caught her hand and held it. She was beside herself with jealousy? "And we were hardly friendly. I didn't know if I could trust you not to tell all of London the truth about Marie to save your own pride."

"You didn't trust me," she said with a frown between her brows.

"I did not." He took a breath, about to argue, remind her that they had barely known each other. That she had left him for seven years, and when she returned, her reputation was in tatters thanks to the Brazen Belle.

She did not give him the chance.

"But you do now," she said.

"I do now," Sutton echoed.

They were still staring into each other's eyes when the door opened and the duke and duchess climbed in, talking at once.

"Wasnae this the most wonderful evening?" the duchess remarked, her gaze instantly dropping to their joined hands.

"Most wonderful," Sutton and Temperance said, still staring at each other.

"Home," the duke said cheerfully, rapping the ceiling of the carriage. "I should like my bed before my back fails me."

Sutton still held Temperance's hand when the carriage rolled forward. He did not let go as the wheels clattered over the road.

Somewhere behind the clatter of the wheels, he heard shouting.

High voices. Boys' voices.

"Stop!" they cried. "Stop! Stop the carriage! Your wheel, my lord, the wheel⁠—"

"What about the wheel?" Sutton parted the curtains and looked out at the link-boys, who were running alongside and shouting something he could not make out.

In the same instant, the carriage struck a rut.