Page 14 of Sinful Persuasion of a Lady in the Making
“Look,” he said finally. “I know this is… well, this is not the sort of thing you ask a lady at a ball, but you do not seem the same as all the other ladies. So, how would you feel about—”
She gasped, leaping back this time, fear firing through her blood.
Not again, please!
“You are just like all the others,” she cried. “Thinking you can take what is not yours simply because—”
“No!” He stood up, straightening himself, his hands once more out in a calming gesture. “No, please, that is not what I meant. I promise you, Miss Jones, I amnotlike the others.”
“So you say,” she said, still tense and eyeing him warily, but softening. He certainly didn’tseemlike the others, and Jenny could feel herself once again becoming drawn to him.
“I find you… different, too,” he said, smiling softly. “I would like to get to know you better. That is all.”
“All right,” she said. Her body was taut with fear after what had happened with Lord Frederick, but he seemed to respect her concern and keep himself at a decent distance. And the truth was, she wanted to get to know him just as much.
“Why don’t we go somewhere?” he asked. “Away from the cruel people here. There is a bench, just yonder. We could—”
“Cruel people?”
She tilted her head and regarded him as she considered his words.
And there was that word again.Cruel.It was such an unusual word to use, one that would only come from experience, and he had used it twice in a matter of minutes. Perhaps, she realized, he had experienced such cruelty himself. If he had once been on the receiving end of their judgment, their fervor, perhaps he did understand after all.
“All right,” she said carefully, slowly, not fully allowing herself to believe in the goodness of him.
But her agreement had changed his anxious expression to one of pure and simple joy. He was almost childlike, with a glint to the eye that made her want to smile. She suppressed it, of course. She still didn’t know whether she could trust him, but he had been pleasant enough so far.
Pleasant?she scoffed at her own thoughts.The man has been far more than pleasant.
“All right,” he said, repeating her words as he smiled at her, and then he led her away.
There was, as promised, a bench. It was of the wooden variety, the slats barely an inch apart and the seats separated by wrought-iron arm rests. He sat first, and she followed, tentative and careful.
“All right,” he repeated once more, his words entirely different this time, instead filled with hope and expectation.
