She lifted the dome over her plate and stared at the enormous plate of food. There was so much, it had begun to fall off the plate when she’d removed the dome.
“Do you want tea?” Arundel asked. “I ordered the Sencha Kyoto from earlier.”
Why the deuce did he have to be so thoughtful? It made it difficult to hate him. “I’ll have tea after I eat,” she said. She’d need to fetch her Pan Long Yin Hao from the pocket of her skirt in the bed chamber.
She lifted her fork and began to eat, barely tasting the food but too hungry to reject it simply because sitting here with Arundel was uncomfortable. For a long time, there was only the clink of silver on china and awkward silence.
“Belle,” Arundel said when it seemed as though the silence had gone on for years. “I feel as though I should apologize.”
She gave him a look from under her lashes.
“I—er—know I should apologize,” he amended. “But I can’t, for the life of me, think what I should apologize for.”
Belle sat back and gave him a direct look. “Can’t you?”
“Should I apologize for being honest with you?”
Belle blinked, slowly.
“Should I apologize for refusing to lead you on? I could take you to bed and then tell you I can’t marry you. Instead, I preserved your virginity and told you the truth.”
Belle clapped once. Then again. Then again. “You are quite the hero.”
Arundel crossed his arms over his chest. “What should I have done? I know. I know.” He held up his hands defensively. “I never should have opened that door. Never should have walked into the bed chamber.”
“Wrong.” She dropped her fork, letting it clatter sharply on the plate. “Do you want to know what you did wrong? What you’ve done wrong? What you are doing wrong?” She stood and glared down at him. Arundel gave her a wary look and slid backward in his chair.
“Where do I even begin? Oh, I know.” She came around the table. “You are an idiot.”
He furrowed his brow. “I beg to differ.”
“Don’t.” She held up a finger. “You married an unfaithful woman. I’m sorry about that. You’re not the first cuckold and you won’t be the last. But you’re an idiot if you think that because one woman betrayed you, every woman will.” She wagged the upraised finger. “We’re not interchangeable, Hew.”
“I see, but—”
“No, you don’t. That’s the problem. Because that’s not the only reason you’re an idiot.” His expression darkened. Belle ignored it and held up another finger. “For some reason, you have the idea that I want to marry you lodged in your skull.” She reached over and poked him in the head. “You think if you”—she made a sweeping gesture with her hands and changed her voice to imitate his accent—“compromise me, I’ll try and trap you into marriage. Idiot!”
“You can stop saying that.”
“No, I can’t! Have you ever considered that perhaps I don’t want to marry you any more than you want to marry me? Are you too much of an idiot to realize that not every woman wants to trap a man into matrimony?”
Arundel opened his mouth then closed it again. Belle wasn’t sure if he’d thought better of what he’d been about to say or feared she’d call him an idiot again.
She lifted another finger.
“Don’t say it,” Arundel warned.
“There’s a third reason you’re—”
“Don’t say it.”
“An idiot,” she said. He was on his feet before she could blink and had her hand closed in his, effectively lowering her fingers.
“I’m not an idiot.” He walked her backward until he had her pressed against the wall.
“No, you’re a Royal Saboteur. You’ve taken all the training classes. But you must have been absent the day they taught you how to know when to trust someone. And if you don’t trust me by now—after all I have done for you and all we have been through—then you really are an—”
His mouth came down on hers before she could say the word. This kiss was nothing like the sweet, teasing kisses they’d shared before. This kiss was that of a conqueror, seeking to subjugate. But Belle was not so easy to vanquish. She kissed him back with equal passion, nipping at his lip until he pulled back and glared at her.
“I didn’t want this,” he panted. “I didn’t want to want you.”
“Then walk away,” she said between gulps of air. “You think I want a man who doesn’t trust me?”
His hand still gripped her wrist, trapping it against the wall, even as his body pressed against hers intimately. She could feel the hard planes of his muscles, the core of steel underneath it all. How had she ever worried he might die of a simple knife wound? In this moment, he seemed invincible.
“I think you want me as much as I want you—even against our better judgment.”
Oh, no. He would not get away with questioning her judgment. She’d proven without a doubt that he was the idiot.
“Oh, really?” She yanked her wrist free of him. “Watch me use my better judgment and walk away.” But she couldn’t walk away, not with him trapping her against the wall. “Move back.”
He lowered his head and slid his lips over her temple. “Are you sure that’s what you want?” he whispered in her ear, his breath making her shiver. His lips slid over her ear and his tongue darted out to nip at her earlobe. Belle gasped, heat flooding her and making her knees weak.
His mouth—that mouth she’d known was skilled but hadn’t expected to completely vanquish her every sense—skated down her neck, kissing a path of fire in its wake. His hands, meanwhile, had not been idle. They pushed the shoulders of the robe off to allow his lips to tease and tantalize the skin there.
“I’ll stop whenever you want,” he whispered against her skin. “Just say the word.”
She would say the word. She would say it—oh! His hand cupped her breast, fondling the nipple through the thin fabric.
“You can say it now or you can wait.” He parted the robe, revealing her breast. “Until I take your breast into my mouth.”
How could she stop him, knowing what he was about to do? She bit her lip, letting her head rest against the wall as he sucked and teased her nipple with his tongue.
“Do you want to say anything?” he asked as his hand slid over her belly and toward her center.
She did. She would tell him to stop. Her head was saying stop but her mouth wouldn’t seem to obey. And her body—her body was in full on revolt. It wanted Hew’s touches, his kisses, him.
“You called me an idiot.” He slid to his knees, pressed his mouth to her bare belly, and made her gasp. He looked up at her. “But you are an idiot as well.”
She shook her head.
“Oh, yes you are.” His mouth traveled lower, and he slid a hand between her legs opening them wider. “Because you don’t realize how beautiful you are. You don’t think you deserve this.” He bent and pressed his mouth to the curls at her center. “You don’t think you’re worthy.” His breath tickled her, made her shiver. “You don’t think any man will ever love you.” He licked her then, making her cry out as his tongue rasped against her most sensitive parts. “You’re wrong.”