Page 36 of Anything But a Duke
But she couldn’t stop herself. She couldn’t temper her desire to know more, to take him apart a little and understand what made him tick.
“Why did she refuse you?” she asked on a whisper.
“She didn’t.” His gaze fell to her mouth, skidded over her cheeks, traced the line of her nose, took in the messy fall of hair across her forehead.
“Then you’re engaged to her?” Diana blinked and held her breath.
Was that a flicker of triumph in his eyes?
“No. Of course not. Both a refusal and an engagement require a proposal. I have made none. To any woman.”
Warmth flooded her cheeks, kindled in her chest, spread like heated treacle through her veins. She liked that he wasn’t engaged, that he’d never proposed to the earl’s daughter. Far too much. But why? This man’s matrimonial machinations were none of her concern.
She’d invited him to come to the conservatory for one purpose. She needed him for one purpose. The tenacious fluttering in her stomach was utter foolishness, as was her inability to stop flicking her gaze to his lips.
She’d kissed that mouth, knew the taste of him, and she could never ever do that again.
Backing up, Diana put as much distance between them as she could. Eventually she bumped into the workbench she’d installed along the wall of the conservatory. Her arm brushed a pile of papers and they fell in an unceremonious heap onto the tiles.
He approached to assist her and she bit her tongue to keep from barking at him to retreat.
“I can manage. Thank you.” She gathered her papers, including the invitation to her finishing school reunion.
Iverson stayed hunched next to her, much as he had when she’d dropped her box at Lyon’s, but he didn’t attempt to retrieve any of the pages.
She glanced up at him and felt a tremor dancing along her skin.
His gaze fixed on her mouth. Perhaps he was thinking of their kiss too. Had he thought of her in the months since they’d met?
It didn’t matter.
This silliness, these impulses, were for Grace and every other young woman of her acquaintance who was on the hunt for a husband. Diana forced her gaze back to the pile of papers and her finger slid over the embossed invitation.
A plan began to form in her mind.
Perhaps Aidan Iverson’s marital machinations were a matter of interest after all.
“You didn’t answer my question. Do you seek a noblewoman to wed?”
A wash of color infused the lean cut of his cheeks and she knew she’d hit upon the truth.
“My matrimonial needs seem to interest you a great deal, Miss Ashby.” He leaned forward and placed his hand on the tile next to hers. “Are you offering yourself as a prospect?”
No.The answer should have come easily, but instead Diana found herself desperate for air and willing her tongue to work.
There was a question in the way he looked at her that made her insides quiver.
“Not myself, no,” she finally said, though her voice emerged husky and tremulous. “But I know many noblewomen. Eligible ladies who are seeking a husband of means.”
Fumbling with the invitation, she lifted the cream rectangle between them as if the insignificant board of paper pulp could stave off his heat and the way his scent made her mouth water.
Twisting his head, he read the words that she’d inadvertently displayed upside down. “You are cordially invited to a reunion of the 1842 graduates of Bexley Finishing School for Ladies of Character.”
“I could introduce you to them.”
All the warmth radiating off Iverson seemed to chill. He stood and straightened his cuffs. Unlike at Lyon’s, he offered no hand to help her up.
Diana collected her papers to her chest and rose to stand beside him. “I know which ones are kind and timid, which are clever and full of fire.”
