Lottie batted away that unhelpful observation.
“Perhaps,” he said. “Though I am sure ye are aware that sugar is often produced on the backs of slave labor.”
“Of course. It is why I insist that we only purchase sugar that was grown and milled by freemen. Such things exist.”
“Too much sugar is not healthy for the body, particularly one’s teeth.” he countered.
“Excess of anything is not advisable, I agree. But surely between eating mountains of cakes and biscuits every day and never putting even a grain of sugar in your tea, there is a happily-lived middle place where sugar and health can reside in harmony?”
His smile broadened, as if he sensed she was prepared to press him further.
He was a wise man.
“Of course, the occasional wee bit of sugar doesnae a habit make, nor do I think it will adversely affect an otherwise healthy person.” He extended his braced leg, stretching it out and massaging the muscle in his thigh. “I wish I had a grand answer for ye, but the truth is banal—I stopped eating sugar years ago and have simply never reconsidered it.”
“You haveneverreconsidered it?”
“I hear the oblique censure in your words.” He laughed, hooking a nearby footstool with his good leg and tugging it under the table. He lifted his braced leg to rest on it. “Ye perhaps wonder if I shun anything that I find too enticing? That after the experience of my father and brother, that I fear losing any part of myself to appetites I cannot control?”
“Youdodeny yourself most of life’s pleasures.” The words fell from her lips before she could catch them.
Now she was censuring him in truth.
And perhaps reminding him of her own indiscretion in kissing him. After all, he had not sought a chance to revisit their kiss.
But if he found offense in her words, he did not show it.
“I have already asked Cook to make fairy cakes tomorrow,” she continued. “Will you accept a dare and eat one with me?”
Alex appeared to contemplate it.
He looked down at the table between them, a long finger idly tracing the wood grain. Lottie stared at the flexing tendon—extensor digitorum.
She laid her palm on the table just to be that much closer to him.
“I will accept your dare.” He lifted his eyes to hers, but not before they snagged on her hand resting beside his. “But I would ask for a truth in return.”
She stilled and then laughed. “You require a truth from me in order to perform a dare? I am not entirely sure you understand how the game works, Cousin Alex.”
He smiled, his eyes meeting hers with a peculiar sort of look. As if he found her wondrous.
“Have you never played Truth or Dare?” she continued.
“I am familiar with the game, yes.”
“Mmmm,” she mused. “If you have a question, you can simply ask it of me. No need to hide behind games.”
He went back to tracing a finger on the table, as if her reply left him vaguely nonplussed. Was his hand now wandering closer to hers? And how absurd that the very thought set a pulse drumming in her wrist.
“I have been wondering . . . and not to dredge up past, erhm,conversations—” He leaned on the word, giving it levels of meaning. “—but why when we, or rather, when you leaned in and—” He cleared his throat, as if unequal to saying the wordskissed me. “Why did ye say that your head was so heavy?”
Lottie could feel a blush creep up her cheeks as he spoke. Perhaps her earlier wordshadsparked his memory after all.
How to answer that question?
You deny yourself every sweet thing, but I clearly do not.
Your lips looked too delicious to resist.
