Page 45 of If the Slipper Fits
“Do you suppose we ought to…” he jerked a thumb toward the door, unable to voice the words that would catapult them from this room, this moment. He was a sad sack. Reduced to a bumbling greenhorn lad, from one bloody kiss.
“By all means.” She lifted her hands to her hair, experimentally padding the once neatly coiffed chestnut tresses. Several tendrils had escaped her hair pins altogether, to artfully frame her face.
His fault, he supposed, him and his clumsy hands.
The thought of how his hands had roamed over her had him inching further in her direction. He slammed to a halt, pinching the bridge of his nose. Bloody, damned idiot.
“Are you…quite all right?”
He ignored her question and the concern etched on her face. “Is Jones your actual, married name, by the by?”
She unfolded herself from the settee, shimmied past him leaving a trail of her heavenly scent in her wake. She made for a small, gilt-framed wall mirror he hadn’t noticed to the right of the door. Women always seemed to know where those things were, even in a room they’d never entered.
The fact she had not answered him did not escape his notice.
Gazing at her reflection, she made an inarticulate sound of horror, and her nimble fingers went to work, smoothing and re-pinning.
He moved to stand behind her and met her eyes in the looking glass. His insides tightened with a maddening desire to drag her into his chest and nuzzle the tender skin at her nape.
Instead he jammed his hands in his trouser pockets. “Good as new, Glory,” he said, voice gruff.
She lowered her eyes, licking her lips. “Caden, may I ask that you refrain from referring to me by that name? I wouldn’t want you to slip. Indeed, sticking with Mrs. Jones would be best. And I shall call you Mr. Thurgood.”
“I won’t give your secrets away by word or deed, Glo--An—Mrs. Jones,” he corrected himself with mock severity. It helped, focusing on her predicament as opposed to his own unsettled state.
“I think, however, you could come clean with Lady Wentworth, and then your need for secrecy would disappear altogether. She seems genuinely fond of you. You don’t seriously believe she would dismiss you if she learned the truth?”
She twisted around to face him, eyes pleading. “Please, Ca—Mr. Thurgood. Promise me you won’t say anything to her. To anyone.”
Panic reflected in her eyes again. What was he missing? “I’ve already promised, haven’t I? You must believe I’d never do anything to harm you.”
She searched his eyes a long moment, before nodding once. He didn’t know whether he felt relieved or insulted.
“Now, then,” she began.
“Yes?”
“Shall we make an effort to fill some more of the squares on our game card? Where did I leave that feather?”
She set off in search for it.
He blinked, piqued by the notion she wanted to go on as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened between them, although why he should be—he wanted the same.
“A moment, if you please. Hadn’t we ought to finish discussing Hardasher?” He wasn’t stalling for five more minutes of having her all to himself. Hah.
She plucked the recalcitrant feather from the ground near the settee, and turned to face him, skirts swishing at her feet. “But we have. You convinced me his interest in me lies more in the way of a, er, shall we say…”
He arched a brow. “Lascivious nature? I’m happy to handlehis interestfor you.” He imagined planting his fist in Hardasher’s face.
Her eyes went wide. “Mr. Thurgood, promise me you won’t approach him about me.”
“Another promise? You’re demanding quite a lot of those, aren’t you?”
She pressed her lips together.
“I suppose you also want my promise not to badger you about your future plans. You know you can’t continue indefinitely as a lady’s companion, An—Mrs. Jones.”
She slipped around him like water ‘round a river rock, making for the door. “Why-ever not?”
