Page 33 of Pride: The Rogue
He froze.
What if those lips he’d spent the better part of the night thinking about, obsessing over, were in fact the innocent ones belonging to a lily-white lady.
Fuck.
Latimer flew to his feet quick and rounded the table.
Recoiling, the golden beauty backed up until the wall hit her back.
He grunted. “Here,” he said, and righted her chair.
All the while, the lady eyed him with deservedly wary eyes.
After he had returned to his seat, she hovered there, silent, and still carefully watching him.
Go, darlin’. Leave.
With the regal grace of a queen, she seated herself.
He should have known better than to hope or expect this defiant chit to doanythingLachlan wanted.
Latimer spoke quietly. “There is no Mr. Lovelace.”
“There was,” she said, so indignant were Latimer any another man than the cynical one that he was, he would have believed her. “However, he is no longer with us.” He eyed her dubiously.
“Are you expecting me to believeyouare a widow?”
Please, be a young widow,he silently implored.
The lady hesitated. “No,” she said, sheepish. “I was referring to my late grandfather.”
Bloody fuck, she was a virgin. At that, Latimer had been locked away alone with a ladyandattempted to seduce her.
No wonder she’d been shocked and indignant after their almost embrace. She was as unsullied as a fresh born dove. If he were a man of her station, he’d have felt a proper modicumof shame. Shame, that a fellow like he, street born and street raised, couldn’t feel or for that matter have picked out of a bloody burlap sack.
Cursing into the quiet, Latimer dragged his palms over his face.
Good Christ, this would be bad for any eventual business. No one could ever find out. No titled men didn’t have any problems tossing down their fortunes at a man like Latimer’s gaming tables, but they would always, absolutely draw the line at letting one like him touch one of theirs.
Latimer let his hands drop to the table and found the beguiling miss staring back at him with those big eyes. Those big, blue pools that’d previously intrigued him, now scared the everlasting hell out of him.
“You got a name?” he asked, gruffly.
She nodded.
Latimer gave her a look. “That is… one of yourown?”
Her cheeks pinkened. “ItisLovelace. Not Mrs. butMiss. MissLivian Lovelace,” she murmured so damned trusting, for the first time in her presence, he found his feet twitching with the need to get the hell away from her.
Latimer glanced about eying the stairways offering his escape. He made to take it, before he remembered. The woman whom he’d kicked out of his chambers and sent her packing alone to the tap room, was some guile-eyed miss.
“What of you?” she asked softly, snatching him from the edge of panic.
“What of me?” he rejoined frantically looking for absolutely anyone to come and collect her; hell, he’d even take the pain in the arse, Mr. Felchlin.
“What of you? Doyouhave a name?”
“Igaveyou my name,” he muttered distractedly.
