Page 25 of Forgery, Love, and Other Lies
The suspicion, the mistreated bottom lip, the white teeth peeking out at him beneath her fiery green eyes—stole his breath. Just a bit. Just one little breath he could not push through ribs and teeth to mingle with the air.
“Come in,” she said finally, stepping aside, and he found his breath again, everything as it was before. She smiled up at him, a wavering thing. “I must admit to being slightly anxious about all this.”
“Forgery has serious consequences.” He spoke too harshly, but he felt a bit sour. He should not be thinking of her bottom lip. He was unavailable by choice, by circumstance, and she was too. Why’d she not mentioned her suitor when he’d brought up the danger of others misinterpreting their relationship?
“Not that, Lord Lysander.” She waved a hand between them. “This. Even a jeweler’s daughter knows not to be alone at night with a man.” She led him into a workroom at the back of the shop. The walls were lined with narrow drawers with tiny knobs for handles, and a large, beaten table took up much of the space. In the corner, near an empty fireplace, a small armchair sat like a squat brown bear, a matching ottoman pushed right up against it. It was clearly a workspace, but it seemed cozy as well. Their home had been cozy, too. They were clearly a family that took comfort seriously.
Miss Frampton wore a green muslin gown with a gray shawl pulled close over her shoulders, and she bustled about the room. With no bonnet and no gloves, she seemed most at home. “Have a seat. I’ll find us something to drink.” She knelt near a cabinet, opened it, and half disappeared inside it as she dug for something.
He sat, doffing his own hat, stripping his hands of his own gloves, and digging a fingernail into a dent in the tabletop. If she could be comfortable for tonight’s discussion, so could he. “If you’re so worried about impropriety, Miss Frampton, you should have asked your suitor to stay.”
She popped upright, a wine bottle in one hand and two murky glasses in another. “My suitor?” She shook her head, standing and placing her bounty on the table between them. “I have no suitor.”
“Then who was that fancy fellow who waltzed into the shop earlier, took your hands in his, and left you with a love note?”
She blinked, her gaze going far off. When she came back to the room with him it was with a laugh. “Archer? Is that why you ran away?”
“I didn’t run. I simply did not wish to wait for your answer while you made love in front of all of London.”
Her face contorted in disgust. “Archer? Make love tome?”She shivered. “He’s a duke. A friend, to be sure, but most certainly nothing like you imagine. And I would never… I have never…” She made a retching noise. “No thank you. He’s a friend. Nothing more.”
Zander lifted an eyebrow. “A friend?” Her visceral reaction to his assumptions suggested she spoke the truth, yet doubt remained, a stubborn burr between his ribs. The eager way in which the man had greeted her, the ease she’d had with him. “He may be now, but—”
“Absolutely not. He’s like a brother, and I would like to move on to a more productive conversation now. You are stubborn, aren’t you? Get an idea in your head and don’t let go. Well, please do let go of that one.” She sat next to him and splashed wine into both cups then scooted one across the table to him. She took a sip of her own, going thoughtful and distant again. “Though I have wondered a time or two if he and Posey might have feelings for one another.” She shook her head. “Apologies. I tend to spin stories, and they are not productive. Now”—she pulled a wrinkled bit of paper from her pocket, and he recognized his handwriting on one side, hers on the other—“which of these ideas of mine do you think best?” She smoothed the paper on the table.
He sipped the wine, felt the burn down his gullet, then leaned back in his chair, letting the front legs pop off the floor, and folded his hands over his belly. He believed her about the duke. The bit about her sister having atendrefor the man did it. Made him feel lighter. Of course it did. He no longer had to worry he’d be discovered alone with another man’s intended. Deuced awkward, that. But also… hell, he tried to be honest with himself because he often kept honesty from everyone else, and he couldn’t pretend—not to himself—that the threat of a suitor’s fist in his face had been the only thing plaguing him. He’d stormed off, after all.
They’d looked so pretty in the frame of the shop window, so perfect with the duke’s golden curls bent toward Miss Frampton’s darker yellow locks, her chin tipped up, both of them grinning like fools.
He’d turned green. No reason for it. But he couldn’t deny it. And the lightness he felt now? Relief that she didn’t belong to another man.
Hell.
He rapped his knuckles on the table, annoyed with himself and about to feign annoyance with her because of it. “Trying to sell a forgery,” he said, “is an obviously brainless idea.”
Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened. Hurt flashed there, and her pink lips curled into disgust.
He couldn’t. His pride demanded he wound, but that organ nestled in his chest, protected by bone and muscle, wanted to protect her, to give her the honesty he usually reserved for himself alone. He hurried to add, “But also a good one. Apologies for the gruff way in which I phrased it. It’s not brainless. You’re not brainless.” The chit seemed sensitive on the topic of her intelligence. “The plan is good. Merely rough.”
The flush of hurt bloomed into one of hesitant pleasure.
He took another sip of wine. Sip? No, more like a gulp. It had been a long day. A long week. A long year. He’d slept little, worked hard, and couldn’t seem to keep his temper when he used to be the most charming of his brothers. Now he growled instead of grinned and insulted pretty women instead of flirting with them, turned green with jealousy when he should feel nothing.
The wine burned resolution into his veins, though. He would be nicer to her from now on. He downed the rest of his wine and gave her his most charismatic expression, making sure that one lock of hair fell right across his eye.
She cocked her head to the side. “What are you doing?”
“Smiling at you.”
“I see that, but why.”
“Because I have been unpardonably rude during our short acquaintance, and you do not deserve it.”
She laughed and swiped his wineglass away. “No more for you.” She poked the paper. “Now let us focus. Imagine…meinsisting we focus. Mama and Posey would love to see it.”
“Most women find me charming.” He wantedherto find him charming.
“Have you growled and cursed at most women since meeting them? Have you revealed their sordid secrets to their families?”
