“I might think not too many men have complimented you.”
She fiddled with her fan in her lap. “You’d be right, Tain.”
“Theo,” he corrected her on a whisper.
She blushed more brightly. “You are a tease.”
“Yes. And I do love the affect it has on you.”
She picked up her fan and stirred a mighty breeze.
He could not resist thoughts of tomorrow’s activity. “I understand we are to go ice-skating tomorrow.”
“I like to race,” she told him.
“Around on ice?” He was surprised. Most ladies wished to show a serenity or a temerity on skates.
“Hmm. Yes. I may not go and save others any comparison to my extreme skill.”
“Do come. I will race with you.”
“And if you can’t keep up?”
“Doubt me at your peril, my lady.”
She chuckled and waved a hand to shoo him off.
But he caught the tell-tale yearning in her eyes. “I long to hold you in my arms.”
Her cheeks turned a hot pink. “I’d thwart you and skate on your toes.”
“Do so then.” She could do anything to him. Take any part of him. As she’d taken his heart. His breath. “But then you’d have to nurse me.”
“I’m a terrible nurse,” she added with a note that sounded sad.
“How do you know?”
Her full lips firmed and her expression darkened. “My last husband told me so. Often.”
His heart went out to her. “Was he horrible?”
“Only as he lay dying. Other than that, he was a sweet man.”
“Were the previous two?” He had to learn.
“Yes.” The word was a barrier, a warning for him not to continue. Tomorrow, he’d ask more. And reveal his own experience with marriage.
Chapter 4
Penn shuffled her cards, sitting alone at one table. She glanced out the window where snow still fell in huge lacy flakes. The ice skating party had been canceled due to the storm so gaming and reading had become the new order of the day. Disappointment filled her. She had longed to skate with Theo, to move with him in a rhythm that denoted grace and…yes…affection.
A dangerous change of mind.
She’d arrived early to the card room after lunch. At that meal, she’d torn her attention time and again from Theo who’d sat between the Earl of Leith’s vivacious daughter and an older lady who loved her wine far too much. But Penn had not seen him for the past few hours. And she grew more downhearted by the minute that she did not have his uplifting company. His charming attention.
She sighed. More than half an hour ago, her three companions had retired to their rooms for an afternoon alone. Perhaps she should do the same. Other company did not compare to Theo’s. But for appearances, she remained where she was. Yearning for him. Just as moths desired flame.
And I am a moth. A creature needing what I’ve had so little of. Charm. Seduction.
