Page 6 of Beguiled

Balfour glanced at him, then gave a defeated sigh. “No,” he admitted. “I found you…provoking. Your views were so earnest, so uncompromising. All or nothing. I could tell you despised me for saying I intended to marry at some stage.”

“I didn’tdespiseyou,” David protested. “In fact, I made a point of saying that I could only speak for me and my conscience.”

“It wasn’t just that,” Balfour said with a wry look. “Yes, I was shocked by your reckless act that night. And yes, it bothered me to feel judged by you. But when I thought about why I was so angry, I realised it was…fear for you.”

“Fear?”

“I could see how easily it could destroy you—this passion you have, this commitment to your principles. You can’t seem to walk away from it, even when it endangers you. I couldn’t believe anyone could have so little instinct for self-preservation. It made me angry.” He paused. “But as I said, I regretted that, later. Wished we could have parted on better terms. The time we spent together before that was—interesting.”

David didn’t know what to say. His throat felt as if it had closed up entirely. He’d felt regret too. Regret for allowing Balfour to seduce him. Regret for opening himself up to the desolation that had swamped him in the months that followed that last, bitter conversation.

“Was Miss Chalmers disappointed?” Balfour asked, changing the subject abruptly. “I rather had the impression she had set her cap at you.”

He was right—Elizabeth had set her cap at him, and David hadn’t even realised. Oh, he’d known she liked him, but it was months after Balfour went back to London that David had finally, far too slowly, caught on. And then there was that awful day, the day David asked to speak to her in private. He’d wanted to tell her, gently, that he intended never to marry. Only she’d misunderstood and thought he meant to propose. That had been a painful conversation, and when he’d left her, he’d been weighed down by a burden of guilt that had only begun to ease when she’d married, quite suddenly, a few months later.

“Miss Chalmers is now Lady Kinnell,” he told Balfour calmly. “She lives in Galloway on her new husband’s estate. So she has done far better for herself than if she’d married me.”

“She is married toSir Alasdair Kinnell?” Balfour replied. An expression of dislike arrested his handsome face. “Surely not? She’s much too sweet for the likes of him. His first wife was an unhappy girl. I wondered if she did away with herself to get away from the brute.”

David felt himself pale. “You know him?”

“I went to school with him. He liked to terrorise the younger boys, of whom I, unfortunately, was one. For a time anyway.”

The thought that Elizabeth may have married a man who would mistreat her made David feel sick. Made the old feelings of guilt stir in him again. He’d been so relieved when he’d heard of her engagement to Kinnell, pleased that she’d found a husband so obviously more eligible than himself.

He realised Balfour was watching him and shoved his disturbing thoughts aside to be examined later.

“What about you?” he said to deflect Balfour’s attention. “Have you taken your own advice?”

“Have I married, do you mean? No, not yet.”

Not yet.

“But you intend to.”

Balfour stared at David for a long moment. Was he remembering their last conversation again? When Balfour had confirmed his intention to eventually marry, while continuing to enjoy male lovers at his whim.

“I intend to wed at some stage, yes,” Balfour said finally.

An entirely predictable statement, that. David felt suddenly flat.

Why was he sitting here? Why had he agreed to come here with Balfour in the first place? He should’ve declined the man’s invitation and gone home to tackle the work sitting on his desk.

Throwing back the rest of his whisky, he set his cup down on the table, very quietly and precisely, then glanced up and smiled pleasantly. “Well,” he said. “It was good to see you, Balfour, but I really must be going. I’ve a lot of work to do this evening.”

He scraped his chair back, moving to rise. Before he could do so, Balfour leaned forward and laid his hand on David’s forearm.

“Wait a moment,” he said. A faint frown drew his brows together. Those brows were dark against his pale skin; his eyes were too, black as ink. It was a wild, dramatic combination, the pale skin, the dark eyes. This close, David recalled, pointlessly, what it felt like to look into those eyes when they glittered with desire. Memory flooded him; his cock throbbed.

David jerked back, pulling his arm from Balfour’s grip even as he subsided back into his chair, ruining his pretence at cheerful unconcern. “I can’t stay,” he muttered. “I have things to do. Work.”

“I just—I need to tell you something,” Balfour persisted. “Though you may know already, I suppose.”

“What is it?”

“Your friend is in town,” Balfour said. “Euan MacLennan.”

David didn’t bother to hide his astonishment. “Euan?” he said at last. “Are you quite sure?”