“It was perfect,” she said, feeling a little breathless. “That lesser-royal accent really leaves me feeling a little weak in the knees.”
He stopped suddenly and looked at her in surprise. “Does it?”
“A little.”
He drew her out of the main current of businesspeople. She leaned quite happily back against the wall to catch her breath. He put his hand on the wall next to her head.
“If that makes you a little weak in the knees, what does the native Scottish business do for you?”
“I generally need to find somewhere to sit down at that point.”
He considered. “What would happen, do you suppose, if I dispensed with accents and went straight for a discreet kiss?”
“Here?” she squeaked.
“It’s a nice hallway.”
She was beginning to wonder if the day could become any more filled with ridiculous things.
“I could hold you up,” he offered. “In deference to your knees.”
She attempted a scowl, but it was difficult in the face of all that charm. Well, and that accent. “I think you are far too convinced of your own impossibly irresistible appeal,” she said, grasping for the only reasonable thing she could think of.
He leaned closer. “It’s all an act,” he whispered. “I’m trying to make up for how off-balance you’ve left me from the first moment I sat down at your breakfast table.”
“That’s because of Lord Patrick’s excellent eggs.”
“Nay, darling, it’s because of your excellent self.”
She looked up at him standing there with his mouth approximately three inches from hers and tried not to swoon. “I should remind you that you quite recently wanted to get rid of me.”
“I wanted to keep yousafe,” he said. “Different thing entirely.”
“Are you telling me you don’t want to keep me safe any longer?”
“I want to keep you safe, kiss you, and hopefully do both for an extended period of time, in that order—”
“Emmaline!”
She closed her eyes briefly, then looked at Nathaniel. “Can you kill both of them and make it look like they fell and bludgeoned themselves on the drinking fountain?”
“’Tis a bit crowded for that sort of thing, but I’m willing to try. As long as it doesn’t interfere with my plan to kiss you.”
She laughed a little, because she wasn’t quite sure if he was serious or not. Unfortunately, she realized she wasn’t going to have the chance to figure out which it was before their escape was thwarted. She wouldn’t have argued if Nathaniel had taken her hand and run, but apparently he was trying to be polite. He leaned his shoulder against the wall and looked at Sheldon, who had blocked his way and was currently babbling about what was probably one of his current investment projects. Nathaniel wore a slightly perplexed frown. She understood. That was the look most people generally got within three minutes of meeting the man.
Her father, though, was a different story entirely. She looked his way to find that he wasn’t watching Sheldon, nor was he looking Nathaniel over for weaknesses.
He was watching her.
She wanted to lay into him for possibly helping Sheldon find her in Scotland, then decided that when it came right down to it, she just didn’t care. She suppressed a yawn, then looked at her escort, who had been buttonholed by her former boyfriend.
“Do youevershut up?” Nathaniel asked in exasperation.
Sheldon looked horribly offended. “Everything I say is of great interest to those around me.”
Nathaniel shook his head in disgust, then looked at her father. “If you’ll excuse us, we’re still late for an appointment.”
“Just one minute,” Frank said. “What is it you’re doing with my daughter?”
