Page 10 of Teach a Rogue New Tricks
He looked away from her. “I’d rather not discuss it.”
“So, I’m to go into this blind and bound to a man whose character I do not know?” Foolish. Dangerous. She wasn’t stupid.
“Cad that I am, I do understand there is a danger to your reputation. I am happy to do all I can to safeguard it. If we conduct our lessons through letters, you do not have to risk life or reputation in my presence.”
Hmm. Letters. Sent to a strange man, a villain, when neither of them planned to marry one another. The very idea scandalized her only slightly less than the thought of covert meetings in person. Yet, lettersweresafer. It could work. A thrill ran through her. She swallowed, trying to tame it.
“No, no. I’m so sorry. I am not the good woman for you.”
Strong, warm fingers wrapped around her wrist and guided her back down to her seat. “Wait.”
She felt a fury rise through her she’d not often let escape, though she knew it lurked deep down. “Let go. Now.” Her gaze dipped to the manacle his hand made on her arm.
He jerked away as if burned. “Don’t reject the plan out of hand, Miss Cavendish. Consider it. It will work. I know it will.” His jaw hardened and his head fell forward, obscuring her view of his face. Dark curls fell like a silken curtain between them. When he lifted his head once more, he shoved fingers through the thicket of hair to push it back from his face, and the eyes he raised to her then—revealed to her, really—made her breath catch in her chest. They shone with embarrassment and desperation and a touch of fear. “Please. I need you.”
He’d said the words guaranteed to ensure her help.
I need you.
The needs of others enslaved her. Her father, Lucas, the children. The hint of a tear in a single eye, and she danced to their whims. She hated it.
But helping Lord Albee did not burn like the manacles of another’s need. Helping him sparked a thrill of danger low in her belly. It felt like an adventure, and she sorely wanted one of those.
Her stomach churned, and her limbs grew heavy—too big, clunky, hot and sweaty.
She wouldn’t do it. Ada Cavendish, country girl, already betrothed to a man she felt little for, had nothing to do with adventures, after all. Had no need of them.
She lurched to her feet and paced to the window. Standing at its very edge and looking out at an angle, she saw her family in the garden, knew what they expected of her, what she expected of herself eventually—return to the country and tend to children, marry a childhood sweetheart, and be his docile, perfect mate.
Her clunky limbs tripled in size, almost dragging her body to the floor, and her lungs seized, frozen in serrated panic. Now she really would cast up her accounts. She rested a palm flat against the wall and wrapped her other arm around her stomach.
“Are you unwell?”
He’d followed her, it seemed, for she felt his heat at her back, though he did not touch her. He stood so very near to her, but his voice sounded as if it came from a continent far away, from an entirely different world she could never join. His fingers tingled at her elbow, finally touching her with an unbearable lightness.
She should shake him away again. He seemed entirely too used to giving in to his impulses, and those appeared to be, at present, to touch her. But she did not shake him away. She squeezed her eyes tight. What if she ripped right through whatever separated his world from hers, let him rub her elbow in his palm and comfort her?
“Miss Cavendish? You look pale.” His hand wrapped around her elbow, and he guided her away from the window. And, as if he’d pulled her through from her world to his, she heard his voice now, loud and clear. “Sit. I’ve shocked you. I have a habit of doing that. It’s one of the ways in which I must be reformed.” He sat her in her chair and crouched beside her. “Can I get you anything?”
She lifted her gaze to him. His blue eyes were clear, steady, concerned.
And she felt less nauseous.
What he asked her to do—communicate with a single man—only a truly brazen woman would do such a thing. But she felt even worse when she considered continuing along the same route she always had, the route others had chosen for her long before she knew what she wanted for herself.
A compromise, then. She’d do something dangerous—correspond with a rogue—while doing something comfortable—lecturing a devilish mischief maker. She had plenty of experience with that. It wouldn’t be so different from lecturing the twins or helping Poppy ease her post-transgression guilt.
His hands, somehow, had become tangled with hers, and he wore no gloves, and neither did she. It had been hot outside, after all, and she had not yet become accustomed to the formality of the country. Skin to skin, no barriers between them, she understood how necessary gloves were. Her body… sizzled? New, that.
Also new—the intensity with which he viewed her. She had his whole attention, and she felt like squirming.
Instead, she sizzled.
No different than lecturing the children? Ha. A world of difference stood between a little girl’s torn and muddy hem and a man who made her feel like stars might rise from her skin and nestle in the night sky.
She should say no. Her star-shimmering skin begged to differ. “I’ll do it,” she said.
His eyes widened with shock. “Byit, you mean—”
