For all his composure, there was something in his eyes that unsettled her more than the rumors ever could.
“You look nervous,” he observed.
“No,” she said quickly. “I am merely tired.”
He lifted his glass. “Then let us wake you. I propose a game.”
“A game?”
“A simple one.” He leaned back, his tone casual. “You will answer my questions. If you decline, I am permitted to touch you once. Nothing improper, unless you choose to lie.”
Her breath caught. “That is absurd.”
“Perhaps. But not dull.” His eyes gleamed with quiet amusement. “And since you wish to earn your purse, I suggest you do not bore me.”
He was challenging her again. Testing the strength of the steel beneath her composure. If she refused, he would call her cowardly. If she agreed, she would be trapped by her own pride. He knew it, and she knew it.
“What sort of questions?” she asked.
“Anything I please,” he replied. “I am curious about my conspirator in sin.”
Her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass. “Very well. I will play your game.”
He smiled, and the candlelight caught the edge of his teeth. “I thought you might.”
As he poured her wine, she watched how his hands moved. They were steady and precise, as if he handled danger every day and was bored with it.
The stories her stepfather, Arabella, and Eleanor had told echoed faintly in her head. Yet nothing about the man before her seemed brutal. He was control made flesh. And perhaps that was the most dangerous thing.
They began with harmless questions. Her favorite color. Her least favorite season. Whether she preferred the sea or the country. Gwen answered, “Country,” without hesitation, and he rewarded her with mild laughter and another question.
At first, it felt almost ordinary. But each answer seemed to bring him closer, until the space between them was no longer appropriate. The air had shifted, heavy with attention that made her pulse quicken.
He lifted his glass, studied the reflection of the candle in it, and asked, “Has any man ever touched you before?”
The question struck through her calm like an arrow through silk. “That is hardly appropriate.”
“It is a question,” he said softly. “You may answer or decline to do so, as are the rules.”
She hesitated, then lifted her chin. “No. No man has ever touched me.”
His gaze did not waver from her. “Honest. Good. Now, your turn. Ask what you will.”
She stared at him for a moment, trying to find the balance between retaliation and composure. “How many women have you…touched, Your Grace?”
He smiled faintly, as if she had met him stroke for stroke. “I decline.”
“Then by your own rule,” she reasoned, “you forfeit your right to distance.”
He moved closer, his chair scraping lightly across the rug. The space between them vanished like mist. “Touch me, then,” he murmured. “Since it pleases you to claim the penalty.”
Did it please me?
Gwen reached up and brushed her fingers against his cheek. The warmth of his skin startled her. It was human, not the cold marble she had imagined. His stubble grazed her fingertips.
He laughed quietly. “That is all?”
“I am not in the habit of touching men,” she said.
