Page 69 of Teach a Rogue New Tricks
Her heart fluttered, and she ran into the moonlight pouring into the street.
He held up her almanac. “This is yours.” Dressed only in trousers, stockings, and a loose linen shirt, his hair disheveled in the most delicious way, he should have looked playful, intimate. The dark cast of his eyes, impenetrable even by moonlight, transformed him hellward. He seemed a demon intent on a night of earthly mayhem. This man had kissed her beneath a gently weeping tree in Berkeley Square, a fake mustache on his upper lip, tickling her into loving him. Just a little bit. Not enough to make her stay, to marry. But she could not deny she’d lost her heart a bit that day.
She hesitated to take the almanac. It might result in striking a deal with the devil who stood before her. But her courage took control, and she took the book, replacing it in her reticule.
He turned to re-enter the house.
She reached for him, grabbed his wrist. “Stop.”
He froze.
She squeezed his wrist, telling him with the pressure of her fingers that she needed him to stay. “I have something to tell you.”
He turned slowly, shook free of her hold, and crossed his arms over his chest. “At midnight? Can whatever you have to say not wait until a reasonable hour?”
“It could not. I wanted to explain last night at the theatre, but you left.”
“There’s nothing for you to explain. I proposed marriage and you said no. We have incompatible futures. End of a story, not the beginning.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned a shoulder against the warm brick beside her. “As delighted as I am to see you—and do not mistake me, I am delighted; can’t seem to help myself, even when the sight of you strikes me like a blow to the chest—you should go home.”
“Not before I have my say.” She lowered her eyes to her feet and then raised them back to him with a shuddering breath. It was now or never. “I am not a virgin.”
He went still as stone in the shadows. “Pardon me?” He twisted a finger in his ear. “My ears must be full of wax. I thought I heard you say you are not a virgin.”
“You did not mishear me.”
“Oh, well then, thought I’d check. That’s exactly the sort of thing a fellow expects to hear after midnight on the street outside of his best friend’s townhouse after a lady has summoned him using the world’s smallest almanac tossed against his bedroom window.”
“Say something,” she demanded.
“I’ve just said quite a lot of things.”
“No. Say something about me not being a virgin.”
He looked up the sky and held his arms wide, as if asking God for the right words. He shoved his fingers through his hair and dropped his gaze to hers. “You kept telling me you weren’t as good as I thought you were. I should have believed you.” He shook his head. “No, no that’s not right. That’s not what I mean. You are exactly as good as I thought you were. This knowledge doesn’t change my view of your goodness. You are just not quite asproperas I had initially thought. I had begun to suspect the wind blew that way. And you did keep telling me, so… Ah, hell, Ada. You’ve scrambled my brains.” He finally met her gaze with darkly dancing eyes. “Is that why you’ve refused to marry me? You think I’ll be disgusted with you? You thought I’d feel cheated if we wed and I found out I am not the first man to have you?”
It’s exactly what she’d thought. Any other man with marriage on his mind would certainly react that way. She’d convinced herself she had to marry for Lucas for that very reason. No gentleman would marry a woman who had slept with another man.
“Ada, I promise you, I’m not disgusted. I’ve done far worse in my life. I would never judge you for giving your heart away. And if this is your way of warning me away—ha—I’m the master of that particular maneuver, love.”
“It’s not a warning.” She waited for him to give another half-bitter rejoinder, and it never came. She pushed the sea of his words—I would never judge you for giving your heart away— and the heady emotions they roused in her away and focused on what she’d come to say. “The suitor I wrote to yesterday.” Only yesterday? Seemed a lifetime ago. “We had been friends before, neighbors. After we slept together, I knew I had no other choice but to marry him. Not all men are as freethinking as you, and how could I have known such a freethinking man would one day offer for my hand.”
The wind whipped around them, encouraging her to continue.
“But this last week, all this talk of creating a new future and stepping into it… I realized I could do that, too. I did not have to live by anyone’s expectations other than my own. I just had to have the courage to do so. And when I asked myself what future I wanted to form for myself, I saw travel.”
“Adventure.”
She nodded. She gripped her hands together before until her knuckles shined white in the moonlight. She had been brave enough to walk away from Lucas and from her past, brave enough to reveal her past to the man before her, but words still pressed against the back of her teeth. Could she speak them?
He hung his head, his dark hair covering his eyes, and his shoulders stooped. His skin glowed like starlight, and when he lifted his head and met her gaze with his own, his midnight eyes spoke poetry. “I understand now.”
And he did. She heard it in the tone of his voice, free from anger, haunted by a hint of sadness.
Yes, she had the bravery to say the words because he deserved them. “I would marryyou”—something fierce and wild bloomed in his eyes—“if doing so would not tether me to one spot.”
The wildness in his gaze faded, and he slunk off the wall he’d been leaning on. He slipped on quiet feet until he stood before her, then stole his arms about her shoulders. “I do not judge you.”
