She laughed, a harsh sound even to her own ears. “Are you likening yourself to a saint then?”
He stared at her in disbelief. “How is it that I can never say the right thing to you, that you can turn even the most innocuous things offensive?”
“I do not think playing with women’s lives is innocuous,” she retorted.
“I am not playing with them!”
“Is this a hobby for you?” she demanded. “A way to pass the time? You think to use these women to relieve your ennui?”
“No!” he ran a hand over his face. “You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I assure you, I do,” she snapped. “You probably think yourself some benevolent philanthropist, helping the plain and unwanted women of London find their happily ever afters. You cannot begin to think that a woman might find happiness without a man in her life; that she might prefer to be without one of the selfish, entitled males that think nothing of using a woman at will and then discarding her at the first opportunity to heartache and ruin.”
He gaped at her. Her anger dissolved instantly to horror. Why had she said so much? He must know now that there was something much deeper at work than a mere dislike of overbearing men. She steeled herself for the questions that must surely come after such an outburst.
But either he was too thick-skulled to put two and two together—complete poppycock—or he chose to overlook it. For he said, his eyes going serious, “I swear to you, I am not playing with these women.”
“We shall see about that.”
He stilled. “What the devil does that mean?”
“It means,” she said, advancing on him, “that I will stick to your side and see that Miss Weeton—or any other woman who comes into your orbit—remains safe, and is not pushed into anything against their will. It means,” she said, poking at his chest again, craning her neck to glare up at him, “that you will not be free of me until I see that you do not mean to cause mischief for the sake of merely relieving your boredom—”
He grabbed at her arms. She gasped, suddenly incredibly aware of how close they were, how large and warm his body was in the cool night air. She flattened her palms on his chest, intending to push him away. Instead her fingers curled around the material of his evening jacket, unintentionally strengthening the tether between them.
“Are you certain,” he rasped, his breath fanning over her face, “that is something you wish to do?”
Her heart pounded like a drum against her ribs, the strangest lethargy taking over her limbs even as her mind became incredibly attuned to every move he made. She scrambled to make a sensible argument. Instead, all she could manage was, “You won’t frighten me away.”
“You need to be frightened.”
“And you think this is the way to do it?”
His mouth lowered, hovering over hers. Their breaths mingled, rasping, drowning out the faint sounds of music and laughter drifting to them from the ballroom. “I know you liked my kisses, Rosalind,” he whispered, and she could almost taste the punch—and something stronger, champagne?—on his breath. “You wanted me. You want me now. I can feel it in the way you tremble beneath my touch, in the way you strain up to meet my lips.”
She almost closed the distance between them then. She very nearly pushed up on her toes, pressed her lips to his, answered the deep, primal call that he had awakened in her.
Instead, with incredible will, she released him, tore from his grip, and stumbled back. There she stood, panting, staring with a fair dose of defiance at him.
Not the smartest move, for bathed in pale blue moonlight, he looked like a Greek god of old, caught in stunning marble. Granted one clothed in exceptionally-cut clothing and not a sheet. Which only seemed to enhance his beauty. Drat it.
But she was losing her focus, something she needed in abundance when it came to Tristan.
“I am well able to refuse your advances, as you can see.”
He stared at her with growing respect before tugging on his forelock in salute. “So you can.”
“And you have not remotely managed to frighten me away. I am stronger than you think, Sir Tristan.”
“No, you are just as strong as I think you are,” he murmured.
It took Rosalind an amazing bit of effort to ignore the glow of pleasure that undeniable compliment gave her. “If that is true, then you know I have no choice in the matter.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I think you forget, Miss Merriweather, that you are employed by my own dear cousin. I daresay you will not have the time to follow me about.”
The smug look on his face made her long to slap him. Instead she smiled. “Put nothing past me, sir.”
