She’d taken a step toward him before she remembered that he was the enemy. “But how?”
Silas ran his hand through his hair again and his gaze settled on her with a bleak resignation that, despite everything, made her want to take him into her arms. “You’ll loathe me.”
“Probably,” she said, while her rage evaporated drop by drop. With each second, it grew more difficult to believe that his wretchedness stemmed from a nasty prank gone awry. She missed her anger. It lent her a strength she feared she was going to need. “Silas, tell me.”
He firmed his jaw. That little muscle in his cheek still danced. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a joke. He looked as austere as a funeral. “I went to West’s house last night to challenge him for you.”
“You went—”Caroline needn’t have worried about her absent anger. Her breath escaped with an indignant huff. “The devil you did. I don’t belong to either of you and I don’t appreciate being the subject of asinine male contests.”
Gloomily he examined the rush matting covering the floor. “I knew you’d hate it.”
She shifted closer. Mere feet now separated them. “What on earth did you think to achieve?”
One elegant hand made a dejected gesture. “I know it’s mad. I know if you really wanted West, I could beat him to porridge and it wouldn’t make a jot of difference to the outcome.” He settled a blistering gaze upon her. “But you’ve driven me insane ever since I met you, Caro. Have an ounce of pity for a poor fellow out of his head with unrequited love.”
She really didn’t want to soften. She really, really didn’t. All his palpable misery and declarations of love didn’t alter his unsuitability as a temporary lover. Yet her traitorous heart swelled at his grudging admission. When she’d met Silas, he’d been such a model of common sense and gentlemanly behavior. She dared any woman alive to resist feeling flattered to know she’d turned that self-sufficient rake into this wreck.
“Something’s definitely unhinged you.”
His relentless gaze drilled through her. “Love. It’s a confounded disaster.”
She couldn’t argue. She’d suffered a few unhinged moments herself. She folded her arms in front of her to try and hide how she was shaking. “Go on. You may as well tell me the rest.”
Silas’s lips turned down. “West laughed at me, told me I was an idiot.”
“He was right.”
Silas ignored her remark. “He might have been less amused if he knew I’d broken his trust and read his mail. Worse, stolen it so he never knew you’d written to him.”
“That was low,” she said, trying to summon appropriate disgust. Silas’s love must be mighty indeed if it drove him to such lengths.
He buried his face in his hands. His voice emerged as a muffled undertone. “The worst of it is I’d do it again.”
“If I mean to have West, I’ll have him.” She struggled to sound like that might still happen, when she knew the moment for taking Vernon Grange into her bed had passed, if it had ever existed at all.
Slowly he raised his head and for the first time, his eyes held a speculative glint instead of an ocean of self-castigation. In an instant, the balance of power in the room shifted, like an earthquake beneath her feet. Her fingers clenched in her skirts as icy trepidation slithered down her spine. Any advantage that his confession had given her now disappeared.
His regard was penetrating. “Yet it seems you don’t want him.”
She swallowed, cursing that Silas had heard her pathetic ramblings. “You make too much of what I said in the grip of temporary panic.”
He definitely came back to himself. His hands curled over the arms of the chair and he sat straighter. “You didn’t sound panicked.”
“Never mind that.” Nervously she saw that she’d ventured close enough for him to catch. She retreate
d a shaky step and stood shifting her weight from foot to foot. “You’ve behaved disgracefully. What did you imagine would happen when I discovered you in West’s place? That I’d just smile and shrug and throw myself into your arms?”
“A man can hope.”
“A man would be a fool if he did.”
He stood and despite the distance between them, his height left her feeling intolerably dominated. Intolerably dominated, but alive with excitement. She shivered as she recalled yesterday’s incendiary kisses. His intent expression indicated he too remembered.
A wry smile lightened his face. “I am a fool. Your fool.”
“Stop it. You don’t mean it.” She faltered back another step, berating herself for failing to run when he was too sunk in despair to follow. He no longer looked ready to cut his throat for his sins against Caroline Beaumont.
Instead, he looked…predatory.