“I quite liked you,” she said honestly. “There never was any guessing with you. You always said exactly what you meant.”

He looked past her shoulder. “You still hang Pelham’s portrait,” he mused. Gray returned his gaze to hers. “Did you love him so very much?”

Isabel turned, and looked at the painting behind her. She tried, truly tried to dredge up some remnant of the love she had once felt for him, but her bitter resentment was too deep. She could not reach below it. “I did. I cannot remember the feeling now, but once I loved him desperately.”

“Is that why you avoid commitment, Pel?”

She looked back at him with her lips pursed. “You and I did not discuss personal things either.”

Gray’s arm left the back of the chair and he leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “Could we not be better friends now, than we were then?”

“I am not sure that would be wise,” she murmured, once again glancing at her wedding band.

“Why not?”

Isabel rose and stood at the window, needing to put distance between herself and his new intensity.

“Why not?” he asked again, following her. “Do you have other, closer friends who you share things with?”

He set his hands atop her shoulders, and it took only a moment for his touch to heat her skin, and his scent to reach her nostrils. When next he spoke, his voice came close to her ear. “Is it too much to ask that you add your husband to your list of trusted friends?”

“Gray,” she breathed, her heart racing with her distress. Her restless fingers brushed the satin billowing beside the window frame. “I do not have friends such as you describe. And you say the word ‘husband’ with an import we never gave to it.”

“How about your lover, then?” he pressed. “Does he hear your thoughts?”

Isabel attempted to pull away, but he held her fast.

“Why a tent, Pel? Can you tell me that, at least?”

She shivered at the feel of his exhale against her nape. “I like to imagine it is a part of a caravan.”