Page 25 of Nothing But a Rakehell
She tried to protest, but he stopped her. “Pointy chin and all, you are an enchanting conundrum, my dear, and you’ll have to face it.” And he’d always been drawn to a puzzle, and to the new and interesting. And he’d been right about her having mettle. It all set his inner alarms to screeching, in fact.Careful. Careful. But this girl deserved to know the truth.
She didn’t care to hear it. “Stop it,” she ordered. Her mobile expression had gone flat.
“Stop what?”
“Stop complimenting me.”
He threw back his head, chuckling. “Another first for you, Lady Glory. I know no woman has ever given me that particular command.” She would make a magnificent partner for some lucky bastard—and he doubted she would be happy until she had. But it was going to take more than words to convince her of the truth—to make her begin to see her own worth.
He leaned in.Careful.
He was being careful, damn it. He was kissing her for her sake, not for his own. Not because her aged cognac eyes were intoxicating him. Not because the sun danced like fire amongst her curls. His gaze followed the sun’s path down a little and settled on her fine, plump lips. He wasn’t kissing her because the thought of being first to taste that smart, funny, lush mouth made his heart race.
That was just a surprising side effect.
He moved closer still. Too close. She lifted a hand and placed it on his chest. She must feel his heart beat. It pounded as if he’d walked up to this height himself.
He moved to distract her with a touch. A delicate brush of his finger across her cheek.
She stared up at him, her gaze dancing lightly across his face. Her lips parted.
“No,” she said.
He stopped.
“No?”
“No.” She said it firmly.
He sighed. Fine. Words, then.
When he spoke, his tone sounded low and rough. “You are more than just an injured leg, my lady.”
He braced himself. Perhaps she would slap him. Or cry.
He probably deserved both.
But she merely shrugged. “Fine. Thank you. But stop . . . that.” She waved her hand again as if she was chasing away a pesky insect. “That tone. The flirting. The . . . rest of it. I’ve already told you, I don’t like it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t believe in all of that.”
He waited.
“Flirtation. Attachment. Romance.”
‘Of course youbelievein it,” he told her. “Your sister and Tensford have it. In spades. It stares at you across the dinner table every night.”
She lifted a conceding shoulder. “Have you ever seen it before? Love? Real love?”
He looked away. “Once. My cousin found it, I once thought. At least, he and his wife appeared to be deliriously happy with each other.” The last time he’d seen his the pair of lovebirds, though, they’d been harried and distracted, chasing after their passel of young children. Picking up a pebble, he tossed it over the edge and into the abyss. “But then, everything has always seemed to come easier for him.”
“I say the same thing about Hope.” They stared out at the expanse. Keswick became absorbed in watching the shadows of the clouds overhead move across the land below.”
“It does exist, I suppose,” she said at last.
“For some people,” he agreed.
