“We have each fulfilled our respective ends of the bargain.”
Cautiously, he watched for her reaction. Even in the half-lit darkness, he saw her posture go rigid. Fading fast was the openness of one minute ago, her face closing off to him with the beat of each consecutive second. Her tongue began worrying her one wayward tooth, and he tore his eyes away. A pang of loss pierced him for what he must release from his grasp.
“TheLondon Diarysituation will sort itself out, if we leave any concept ofuson this rooftop.”
He wouldn’t blame her if she slapped his face. In fact, he craved the contact, any contact, from her. But she didn’t. Her body held as still as the night surrounding them.
His very soul deflated like a sail that was at one moment sailing the boundless blue sea, the next, slack and limp, deprived of the breeze that gave it life seconds ago.
They’d gotten what they wanted out of each other. No, that wasn’t precisely true. They’d gotten what theyneededout of each other.
Yet he wanted her beyond the physical, which wasn’t at all what they needed. What they’d needed was simple and straightforward, a bargain struck and a bargain fulfilled.
He turned away and snapped a tiny branch off a potted dogwood. He’d deceived her. He’d used her. He’d fallen for her. An impossible situation, given the preceding two points.
“That is all?” she asked.
Through the fog of a nascent bitterness, he managed to reply, “I would say so.” He didn’t understand how his voice maintained its cool indifference when inside he felt neither cool nor indifferent.
“You do say so.” Her tone dissipated the fog. “You will, of course, understand when I don’t acknowledge you at the girls’ school or at the Duke’s mansion. We don’t want to promoteany concept of us, do we?”
“I’ve informed the Duke that I shall be discontinuing our meetings.”
He caught a flash of stormy azure eyes just before she pulled her shoulders back, adding a good two inches to her height, and strode toward the door. She grabbed the handle, twisted, and pulled. The door remained shut and unmoving.
She twisted and pulled again. Again, no movement, not even the slightest hint of a hinge turning. It refused to budge.
She gave it a testing jiggle, to no avail.
She began to appear comical in her struggle before going completely still. She was weighing her options. Namely, whether or not to request his assistance. When she began jiggling the handle with more purposeful ferocity, he realized she would rather walk across hot coals than ask him for help.
He stepped forward. “May I be of use?”
Again, her body stilled, her shoulders hunched in thwarted effort. Eyes wide with disbelief met his. “It’s, um, locked.”
“Locked?” He drew level with her, facing the obstinate door alongside her. “It must be stuck.”
She stepped left and away from him. “The wind must have blown it shut.”
“Won’t the key open it?” He watched her, waiting for her to produce the item.
“I believe the key is in the lock.” She stared at the deadbolt. “On the other side.”
Alarmed, he took the door handle in hand. He tried every angle with varying levels of force and gentleness in his efforts to alternately compel and coax the blasted door open. He shrugged off his overcoat and absently handed it to Olivia at one point in his struggle.
At long last, his hands dropped to his sides, and he gave up the battle. The door was well and truly locked.
He chanced a sideways glimpse of her, expecting to find her stewing in anger. Instead, he found a perverse little smile idling about her lips. That smile, at once playful and mocking, charmed him. “I thought you were angry.”
“It’s a trifle difficult to be angry with a man who is trying to save the day.” Her smile twisted in mischief, and she handed his coat back to him. “And one who looks ridiculous while doing so.”
He lifted his hands and shrugged. It wasn’t the first time this woman had called him ridiculous. He didn’t mind it in the least. He enjoyed pulling smiles from her.
Additionally, he wasn’t all that bothered by a situation that held a very real potential for calamity. If they were discovered and forced into a scenario where he would be compelled to do the right thing, well, he wasn’t certain he would mind all that much.
As if she could read his mind, the smile dropped from her lips, and she took a step backward. In a flurry of skirts, she swiveled around and began following the graveled path that wound tightly through the garden between potted trees, blossoming tulips, and classical statuary.
“I’d thought to be discreet,” she called over her shoulder, a languid fingertip brushing across a Venus’ cheek. “But apparently the gods have other plans for us.”
