Page 41 of Anything But a Duke
“I think there may be some part of our agreement you don’t understand, Miss Ashby.”
He released her, but Diana felt a band of heat where he’d touched her and couldn’t stop herself from rubbing her fingers over the spot.
“Our terms are clear to me, Mr. Iverson.”
“Not our terms. My intentions.” He pursed his mouth and glanced away before looking at her again. “I will not pretend to be anything other than what I am. I have little to offer a lady like Lady Sophie, so my intent is to be honest about what I can provide.”
“Which is?”
He started to speak, then held his breath. His gaze captured hers, and for a long, pulse-racing moment they stared. Diana got lost in imagining him as a husband. He didn’t seem like the domestic sort. There was an energy about him, as if he loathed standing still. Yet here he was, still and watching her. Waiting. Though she was the one who’d asked the question.
“Wealth,” he finally said. “That’s all I have.”
“Is that true?” She didn’t know him well, but she knew it wasn’t.
“What else do you see, Miss Ashby?”
“Resolve. Intelligence.” Diana bit her lip a moment before adding, “Kindness.” The overcoat he’d given her that night in Belgravia still hung in the back of her wardrobe.
“You’re the kind one. You rushed into danger and likely saved my life.”
Somehow he knew where her thoughts had gone.
“Perhaps I’m reckless.”
He tipped his head. “It’s quite an appealing combination.”
The longer he looked at her with admiration in his gaze, the harder it was to recall why they were here.
“She’s just there.” Diana pointed toward Sophie, needing to remind him and herself about the business at hand.
But he didn’t go off in the direction of the young woman he was here to meet. He took one step closer to Diana.
“Do you truly think a man woos a woman by affectation and pretending to share her interests?”
They were standing too close. As close as they had that stormy night. She remembered all of it, every minute, far too vividly.
“I possess no expertise in wooing,” he admitted quietly, “but I won’t play act. Lady Sophie needs a rich husband?”
Diana nodded sharply.
She’d been taught that speaking of other’s circumstances wasn’t seemly. But it was no secret that Sophie’s father was much like her own. A man with a creative mind and no interest whatsoever in managing his finances. If anything, Sophie’s circumstances were worse, since her father was an earl with an estate to manage and a mother known for her spendthrift ways.
“Then a rich husband is what I’ll offer her.” Iverson reached up to tighten the knot of his neck cloth and swept a hand through his tumbled auburn waves. “Presentable?”
“Yes, you’ll do,” Diana said, when in fact he looked ridiculously appealing. Sunlight loved him, finding all the gold in his hair, all the flecks of amber in his green eyes.
One of his brows winged up, and she realized he was staring at her cheek. “You have a...” He gestured toward his own ear. “Your hair has come undone.”
Before she could reach up, he swept two fingers gently across her cheek and tucked a long strand behind her ear. Heat kindled in every patch of skin he touched and when he hesitated, letting his fingers linger at the sensitive spot behind her ear, a shiver swept down her body.
“There,” he whispered. He lifted his hand and stepped away, but her skin still tingled everywhere his fingers had been.
When he turned back, she realized he was waiting for her. She was, after all, the one who’d agreed to make this introduction.
She stepped out from under the tree and approached her friend, calling out softly so as not to give her a fright.
“Sophie, I thought I might find you here.”
