Page 18 of The Devil of Drury Lane
The mattress dipped and Damien was there, his arms tightening around her. “Shh…don’t cry, please. You’re breaking my heart, sneaky girl.”
“I have forty-three pounds from my commissions, and the Drury stage manager has asked me to work on the next production’s placard. I should have fifty saved soon.” She sniffled and burrowed into the warmth of his body. He smelled of leather and that delicious scent his alone. “But this…this is insurmountable. I must face reality, and the reality is, I’m stuck with Prickly Percival and his staggering fortune.”
“I could strangle your father for putting you in this position. What man does this to his daughter?”
“A selfish one,” she whispered. “But he’s always viewed his children as expendable, especially the girls.”
“I have a charming cottage in Oxford I can sell. Another professor has contacted me twice about it already, and leasing a smaller flat near the university isn’t a problem. I have eleven hundred or so pounds myself, a modest inheritance, plus my savings. Unfortunately, Knox assumed a financial burden when he gained the title and—”
Mercy clamped her hand over his mouth. “No, Damien, no. Just because you’re smitten, and we’ve spent two days”—she glanced to the bed, searching for a way to describe the sensual activities that had transpired there—“wrapped up in each other, doesn’t mean you must step in and save me. I won’t, for one second, let you do that.”
His chest rose and fell, his hands rolling into tight fists. Rising to his feet, he paced to the window, staring out at what sounded like an increasingly active day on the street below. “This feels like more than infatuation, minx.” He glanced back, the muted sunlight winking off his lenses. The muscles in his back were worthy of a sculpture, a medium she’d never attempted but might if he was her model. “Don’t you agree?”
Stupefied, Mercy’s mind spun with visions of Damien as a boy, a growing lad. A grown man, his head thrown back in ecstasy. Her heart had always been his, but their futures didn’t belong to each other. She had nothing to give, aside from scandal and penury. She wouldn’t drag him down with her, a brilliant man with a bright future tied to the daughter of an earl with no choices.
If she agreed, he’d move heaven and earth to help her.
She swallowed back tears, praying he couldn’t see the sheen glistening in her eyes. “This was magical, Damien, and I’ll never forget it.”
He cursed softly, although he didn’t look surprised. “Magical, huh?” He popped his knuckle against the windowpane, two firm taps. “I’ve always wanted a woman to tell me it was magical.”
“DeWitt,” she said, her temper flaring, “be fair.”
He stalked across the chamber and into the main room. “Fair. My next favorite word after magical. Both small enough for your future husband to use in sentences.”
She scrambled from the bed, determined to…
What? Change his mind? Explain? Negotiate? Instead, she braced her shoulder on the doorjamb and watched her provoked lover collect his clothing from her studio’s paint-spattered planks. Her mouth watered as he thrust his arms in his shirtsleeves, the muscles in his chest doing all kinds of wicked and wonderful things. “You’re being ridiculous.”
He fastened his trouser buttons, closing himself off from her in rapid degrees. “You know the Troublesome Trio, ridiculous to the extreme. Emotional, when the English approach is to appear as if one is deceased whilst breathing.”
She gathered her tattered chemise at her neck. “I never said anything about that silly nickname.”
He grunted, on the hunt for his cravat.
“It’s under my easel,” she murmured, debating whether to laugh or cry. She was in love with the ninnyhammer tying the worst knot she’d ever seen. There was no use denying it to herself when she was making a very meager attempt at convincing him. “Can we discuss this? Or are you preparing to storm off like a child in the middle of a tantrum?”
“I’m leaning toward tantrum,” he growled and shoved his foot in his boot.
“I’m not clear what I’ve done to make you so vexed.”
His expression was blazing when it struck her, it’s heat forcing her back a step. “Because you’re lying to me, and you’re lying to yourself. When this was the most incredible two nights of my life, and I fear I’m in love with you. Frankly, I’m terrified fate is going to snatch you away because I’m an impoverished third son, when I’ve never cared about being poor before. I guess I didn’t have anything I wanted enough to care.”
Her lips parted, closed, then parted again. Love. He’d used the word love. “I’m not lying to myself,” she managed to squeeze out between the rapid beats of her heart.
He laughed, wrenching his other boot on. “Only me, then. Brilliant!”
She started to panic when he wrestled into his coat and went in search of his hat. It was under the settee but she’d be damned if she told him. “Can you talk to me, please?”
He marched to her, took her face in his hands, and kissed her with such passion, her knees nearly buckled. She’d only begun to cling to him when he backed away. “How’s that for talking, Ainsworth?”
She dusted her hand over her lips, nothing, not a thought, sitting at the ready.
He scrubbed his fist over his temple, his eyes glowing behind his smudged lenses. “I can’t think straight, so I’m going to find the nearest horse and ride him or her until we’re both ready to drop. My mind hasn’t spun this madly in years, and I recall how much I loathe the feeling.”
She followed him to the door, making sure to stand behind it. If Mercer Campbell, the painter who lived down the hall, saw her prancing around in her unders, Mercy would never live it down. “Then you’ll come back here?”
Sighing, he yanked his hand through his hair and halted mid-way down the corridor. “After that, minx, I’m going to Oxford to teach a class in applied physics. Possibly, with a terrific hangover.”
