Page 36 of Pride: The Rogue
When she’d been but a small girl, left in the care of old Bertha and alone with no children about for company, Livian discovered an injured bird.
With her nursemaid’s help, Livian had named the fragile creature, Hope, and together they’d cared for it until one day Hope’s wing had been properly healed.
Livian, a lonely child, cried the day it’d come to say goodbye to the tiny animal who’d become a friend to her. Whereas, Hope? Hope danced back and forth on her tiny, webbed feet along the crude perch in a cage made by Livian and Bertha.
Hope squawked and nearly battered herself against the stick doorway in a bid to get free as quickly as possible. The minute Livian lifted the stick-made door, Hope took to the skies without so much as a backward glance for Livian.
Right now, with the tension in Mr. Lachlan Latimer’s body and the frantic way he surveyed the taproom, he put Livian very much in mind of her beloved wren.
“Are you looking for someone, Lachlan?”
“Hmm?” He continued his scan of the empty establishment.
Then, it made sense. The reason he’d been so chatty and bold one moment, and the next had the look of a man running from the reaper.
Livian removed her hand from Lachlan’s.
“Ahh, Isee.” And as the bastard daughter of a bigamist, Livian most certainly did.
As she’d expected that brought him frowning visage back to hers.
“What exactly is it you think you see, darlin’?”
Livian folded her hands primly and laid them on the table before her. “You are afraid to speak with me.”
He laughed in her face. For all the arrogant Lachlan Latimer’s amusement, she’d uttered a jest to rival the Great Bard’s.
“Sweetheart,” he drawled, “I’m not afraid of anyone.”
“I didn’t say you were afraid ofme,” she clarified, “but rather, you are uncomfortablearoundme.”
He snorted. “Darlin’ there’s never been a more ridiculous—”
Livian propelled herself forward in her seat, mimicking his body’s earlier placement, and, in delightful reversal of roles, the big, fearless, Lachlan Latimer, recoiled in his seat.
Livian laughed. “Oh, Lachlan,” she gave her head a rueful shake. “The thing about it with you gentlemen—”
“I’m not a gentleman.”
“—is you believe young ladies are of a different species than experienced women. Just moments ago, you werealltoo happy to sit and converse with me and tease me, Lachlan.”
All of which she’d enjoyed so very much. It had distracted her.Hehad distracted her, from thoughts of what awaited her journey’s end.
Shaking those melancholic musings, she dropped her voice to a hush. “Let us be honest with each other, Lachlan. The moment you determined I wasn’t some young widow or a lonely, unhappy, married woman you could hop into bed with,” she said, finding entirely too much joy needling him, “you were ready to run.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Aye, darlin’, that’s right, I was,” he said bluntly. “I don’t deal with virgins and as a lady, I trust you’d understand that. Just as much as you no doubt understand married ladies don’t talk to men who aren’t their relatives, and they certainly don’t go around calling male strangers by their given name.”
His words hit her like an arrow all the way through and she winced on the outside and hurt on the inside.
“I’m well aware of the stringent expectations placed on ladies,” she said quietly. “I hardly requireyou, a man who by his own admission is not a gentleman, to tell me.”
As it was, since Verity’s marriage to Malcom, Livian found herself bombarded with those daily reminders.
“Given, however,” she continued with a calm at odds with the pain his words had wrought, “you seem just as schooled in propriety and the rules governing interactions between men and women, then, I believe you would also note, you were the one who approached me,again.” She placed that slight emphasis to drive home a reminder of how they’d first become acquainted.
Bringing her shoulders back, Livian gave a toss of her head. “You are the one who took the liberty to seat yourself atmytable, invademyspace, and who can just as easily walk away as you did join me.”
