“Possibly.” She kept her gaze fixed on the Pope as if riveted. Nothing could be further from the truth.
“Why does the Duke keep calling me ‘the dashing viscount’?”
Her eyes flew up to meet his bemused gaze, and a surprised chirrup of laughter escaped her. “I take it you don’t read theLondon Diary.”
“Never heard of it.”
“You may want to acquaint yourself with its pages. According to theLondon Diary, you are the most dashing viscount in all of London this Season. I suspect its readership agrees.”
“And are you counted amongst its readership?” he asked, his sharp focus pinning her into place.
“To my everlasting shame, I am,” Olivia said and stopped dead. She’d stumbled neck-deep into that one. Her cheeks flamed with sudden heat.
He cocked his head, and amusement warmed his pale, glacier blue eyes. “I must admit you fascinate me more with each passing day. Yet I know so little about you or your past.”
“My past has naught to do with you.”
He took a step closer, and she instinctively pressed back against the bookcase. She inhaled the huff of pique that wanted release. Such a reaction was so very silly of her. The man was all the way across the room.
“Perhaps,” he began, drawing out the word, “but I can’t help wondering what is true and what is false. Or should I look to the pages of theLondon Diaryfor my answer?”
“You will find no truth in those pages.”
“Then tell me the truth from your own lips.”
He was pushing her . . . why? She cleared her throat. “My past is just that . . . thepast.” It was a weak response, but it would have to do. A stronger defense might further provoke his curiosity.
He nodded his acceptance, even though she sensed he wasn’t satisfied by her answer. He stepped forward, and her heart pitter-pattered in her chest. He was coming to join her at the bookcase. He moved with a fluidity unusual for a man of such great height, his body a vertical line of power and grace, mayhap a product of his years spent at sea.
“From what I’ve gathered,” he said, stopping one row of bookcases removed from her, “you’ve had two marriages?”
He’d drawn near, too near, and was distracting her from her purpose, which was to busily feign indifference to him “I can see how you might reach that conclusion, but, no, I’ve had only the one marriage.”
His brows creased together as he surely added one and one together and calculated two. “How is it possible? You are a widow and a divorcée.”
“I divorced the man who first made me a widow,” she replied in a matter-of-fact tone, thoroughly unmoved by the observation that his voice had become very like the consistency of crushed velvet.
“That seems . . . improbable.”
“Indeed.”
The silence that followed pulled taut, and he began scanning the book titles at his eye level before reaching up and running his fingertips across embossed leather spines. She followed their unhurried progress, and her mouth went dry as Saharan sand.
His hands were . . . gorgeous . . . and large. But it wasn’t just the size of them, it was the sheer capability of them. They’d saved her life. What more were they capable of?
Her body heated up by a degree.
His fingers hesitated on a title, tilted it, and slid it out. She watched, transfixed, as his forefinger rose to his lips and he touched tongue to its calloused tip. It dropped to the book and began ruffling through its pages. When had she last blinked?
By sheer strength of will, she tore her gaze away from him and swiveled around on a deep inhalation. How long had it been since she’d last drawn breath?
She’d allowed him to get too close to her. Close enough that she noticed his scent of cloves blending with the study’s aroma of cigar and earth. They combined to add a sweetness to the air. It was nice, if she was being honest.
Honesty was an overrated virtue.
She pretended indifference and meandered away from him, her heartbeat present and insistent. She’d never really noticed her heartbeat. A simple function that she took for granted every day, every moment of her life. Yet she was so very aware of its ceaseless pounding.
Because of him.
