Page 48 of Teach a Rogue New Tricks
She took another bite, held the spoon up, considered it, then licked its bowl. “What should I lecture you about?”
Cass’s groin tightened. The soft moss might worry him most, but the more pressing problem remained the lust. Because that lurked in the forest, too, all tangled in vines with the moss. Could moss grow on vines?
“Anything,” he ground out. “You have your pick of sins.”
“Those are in the past. If I’m to lecture you now, it must be a current misdeed.”
Lusting after an innocent. His only current misdeed worth a good tongue lashing.
Tongue lashing. Her tongue lashing his—
Bloody hell. This had to stop. If he did write a book, he’d have an entire chapter on lusting after innocents. It would begin and end with one word:don’t. Or, if he must add more, perhaps also:If you cannot help it, don’t for the love of God act on it, you cock-led reprobate.
There. Perfect chapter. Perhaps heshouldwrite a book.
When he did not answer, she took another bite then pointed at his cup with her spoon. “You’re not eating yours.”
He’d been too busy devouring that dimple with his eyes, when it appeared, and he kept as good a look out for it as a sailor searching for land. He took a bite, though. “Good.” He smiled. He’d rather bite her, but he’d be respectable, damn it, even if it killed him. “Do you wish to travel to the places whose language you’ve learned? Spain and Italy and the like.”
Ada sat up straighter and nodded her head enthusiastically. “Very much so. Perhaps then I can learn to speak the languages. And see sights I’ve only ever read about.” A far-off future gleamed in her eyes.
“How will you get there? And when?”
She blinked and seemingly returned from wherever she’d been. “I don’t know.” Her eyes dimmed. Her shoulders slumped. “My father mentioned Italy after the season, but… I might be married by then.”
No.The word ripped through him. He did not want her married to anyone. A selfish impulse. He fought it back, focused on her. She’d dimmed, and he liked her bright. How to bring back her glow?
“Surely whomever you wed will take you to all these places.”
“I… I cannot count on that. He will likely have too much to do with his estate.”
Cass couldn’t help it. He scoffed. “I have much to do with mine, especially since I ruined it, but I’ve hired people more capable than me to do the brunt of the work. If you marriedme, nothing would stop me from putting you on a boat and asking where you wished to go.”
She went entirely still.
So did he because he’d said the words “if you married me,” and after he’d said it, notions of planning had crowded into his mind once more. Planning for…that? Absurd.
She put the ice aside and folded her hands in her lap. “That is not true, Lord Albee. You are going to rejoin your family, and you would not wish to travel then, to exile yourself from them.”
He picked up one of the discarded ices. He could not argue with her statement. “You seem to think my reunion with them inevitable. I admire your optimism above all else. You look at the world, at me, and see not what I’ve done but what good I am capable of.” He shook his head. “I wish I could bottle some of your outlook and drink it with my morning tea. It might do me good.” He looked down at the ice, spoke without thinking. “Youdo me good.”
The breeze blew flicks of rain and flecks of flower petals on their shoulders, in her hair.
“I…” She hesitated, bit her bottom lip. “That’s quite the nicest thing anyone has said to me.”
A shame.
She finally looked at him. “I have a suitor.”
The tree must have fallen directly onto his head. He felt dazed, defeated. Might as well be dead.
“A suitor,” he repeated through numb lips and ringing ears.
She nodded. “He’s in the country. But he’ll be in London soon. We have known each other a long while. I do not know why I am telling you this.”
He knew why. Because he’d put too much of his heart in the air between them. Her words served a warning. A man like him could never deserve a good girl like her. A warning. Hm. She must have learned that trick from him.
Of courseshe already a had a man to love her. The man likely loved her with a heart pure as snow, too. Cass’s love could only be compared to a London snow, dirtied with soot and mud. Her betrothed would be a man of great character and honor, a man who’d never kidnapped anyone.
