Instead, he spared another glance for the door. The sun behind him caught the reddish highlights in his light brown hair and accented the breadth of his shoulders.
Even without his dazzling smile, he was a striking man. His rampant popularity rested on the force of his poetry, to be sure. But some of it was tied, inextricably, to the power of his personal charisma.
Many compared Ethan Penn-Leith to Lord Byron. To Allie’s purview, they were not wrong.
He canted toward her, as if ready to impart a secret. “Now I have a pressing question for yourself.”
Unbidden, Allie matched his motion, angling her body toward his. He smelled intoxicating, something woodsy and exotic.
The birds in Allie’s stomach swooped.
“Yes?” she murmured, eagerly anticipating another flirtatious exchange.
He darted another look at the door and then asked on a whisper—
“Does Kendall truly keep ye prisoner?”
Allie froze, the sincerity in his gaze and unexpected question pinning her in place.
“You do realize this is one of the reasons I am refusing your friendship,” she said, sitting taller. “Acquaintances do not ask such impertinence.”
“Ye be avoiding my question,” Mr. Penn-Leith clicked his tongue, “which means that the answer isYes,Kendalldoeskeep ye a prisoner here.”
“Very well,” Allie huffed, relaxing back and running her hands down the red silk of her skirts. What information would satisfy the inquisitive Scot? She decided on, “I am a prisoner of a sort. Kendall wishes me to bow to his will. I refuse. He expects me to be an extension of his political power. I merely want my freedom.”
Mr. Penn-Leith stilled at her words, his very breath seizing. The charismatic fire in his eyes dimmed. His green eyes searched her face, expression solemn. Did his gaze drop to her mouth, too?
“Ah,” he finally breathed. “Kendall requires certain behaviors of you. And as I witnessed earlier, Fabrizio is now making demands, as well.”
“Precisely.”
He nodded, eyes going distant, shoulders slumping slightly. “I ken that.”
Abruptly, he appeared not as the lauded Highland Poet or the charismatic Ethan Penn-Leith.
But instead, merely a man . . . exhausted and lonely and too far from home.
A flash of understanding illuminated Allie’s mind.
Oh.
They were the same, the two of them. They each existed in a cage of a sort.
Hers was a literal cage of Kendall’s construction.
His cage was forged of expectations—overly-exuberant devotees, publishers, literary critics . . . even the Queen herself it was rumored. Mr. Penn-Leith couldn’t walk the streets of London without being mobbed.
A sense of kinship unfurled in her breast—a bright summer rose, sweet-smelling and dew-soft.
Was Ethan Penn-Leith ananima gemella,as the Italian’s called it?
A soul twin?
She liked him. The way his head tilted as he listened to her. The lopsided quirk of his lips when he smiled. The eager intensity in his person. His relentless hunger for life, as if he awoke each morning brimming with enthusiasm to think and explore.
In particular, she admired his physicality. The way she had fit against him during their brief kiss. The leashed power in his muscles—
No!
