Page 26 of The Wolf of Mayfair
“I always loved the snow,” she said softly. “And in the Highlands? There’s so much of it.”
He’d asked her for silence. Of course she’d been unable to grant that request which had been more of a demand.
Peculiarly, he found himself unable to shoot that retort her way. Strangely, he found himself ... angling his undamaged ear so he could hear the whole of her telling.
Miss Wallace touched a lone fingertip to the glass, and her index finger left an oval-shaped mark upon the frost. “As a wee lass, my maand da and I, the moment the storm would let, we would play hide-and-seek. My da was always it first, and would count to thirty.”
As she spoke, her speech dissolved into a thicker, more noticeable brogue that swallowed up nearly completely her crisper English tones.
“A wad trudge throuch as quick as Ah coud an’ jump intae as many drifts as Ah coud, then race an’ hide myself in one. Then, whan he’d come close tae catchin’ me, I’d spring oot an’ hurl a snowball at him, hittin’ him square in the nose, an’ ah’d tak aff runnin’. He’d pretend tae howl an’ shout, but he let me evade capture.”
That bucolic scene she spoke of was something foreign to the Blofield way of life and living. Family closeness and playful moments were not something they partook in.
The crystal panes reflected back the sentimental smile adorning her full lips. “Then, after, we’d return, sit in the Great Hall by the old stone hearth, and sip hot chocolate and sing carols and Scottish ballads.”
Her smile wavered, dipped, and then faded altogether, and it was as if the cold breeze had gusted in the room and stolen the warmth Wingrave hadn’t even known existed until the woman before him.
She cast a glance over her shoulder, back his way, those big eyes now stricken. “And I’m ashamed to say, I loved the snow and wintry months, but I dinnae give a proper thought to all the people who dinnae have a home and warm hearth. Or food.”
As if on cue, her stomach growled, and Miss Wallace reflexively touched a hand to her flat belly. “Until now,” she said, with a palpable shame not a single lord or lady of London could have managed to express.
The lady took a step toward him, and he hooded his eyes.
She stopped a pace away. “Until now. Until this very moment”—she pointed a finger at the floor—“I didn’t know what it was to be reliant upon the generosity, charity, and kindness of strangers.”
“I’m neither kind, nor generous, nor given to charity,” he said flatly, determined to disabuse her of the desperate conclusions she’d come to.
Miss Wallace briefly considered her leather boots. “Mayhap you haven’t been before.” She lifted her eyes to Wingrave’s. “You could be now.”
She believed that. Sheactually believedthat.
A log shifted in the hearth, setting off a noisy hiss and crackle of embers.
Turn her out.
Or . . . let her stay.
What was it to him whether she remained now, or left tomorrow, or the next day? In fact, she’d proven a diversion from the tediousness of London at winter.
Perhaps she could prove an even greater diversion, in more lascivious ways.
“Fine.”
In further testament of the lady’s naivete, her wide eyes grew impossibly round, and an even bigger smile curled her lips up into her matching and deceptively sweet dimples. Her joy transformed Miss Wallace’s elfin features into something ... almost ... beautiful.
“Thank you,” she said, full of her customary ebullience, and then as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she took Wingrave’s hands in her own.
Heat from her silken, soft palms radiated into his own larger ones, and his traitorous fingers curled themselves over hers in a bid to be closer to that tremendous warmth.
“May the scent of the heather and Bonnie blue bell waft a message to you that no words can tell.” Her husky, dulcet tones pulled him deeper under her spell. “May the links in our friendship keep steadfast and true ...”
Friendship?Good God, was that the conclusion she’d drawn? That snapped Wingrave out of his trance.
Her winsome smile deepened. “May good fortune and health be ever with you.”
Wingrave sneered. “If I were really enjoying good fortune, we’d not even be having this discussion now.”
He attempted to pull free of whatever maddening pull and hold her touch had over him, but even slight of frame as she was, she proved as tenacious with her grip as she did with her words. “Now that we’re friends ...”
