His suggestion nearly stopped her heart. “No,” she answered, her voice half squeak, half whisper. “And you should not have kissed me in Templeton, either.”
“I like kissing beautiful women.”
She looked down at her lap. At a complete loss as to how to respond, she began removing specks of nothing from her skirts.
Roman quickly noted the crimson blush on her cheeks and the rapid pulse in her neck. Her acute sensitivity to his compliment made him suspect that no one had ever commented on her beauty before today.
What was wrong with those Bostonian men she kept company with? He understood they were her intellectual peers, but was her brainreallythe only thing they appreciated about her? If so, they were all a bunch of brilliant idiots. “Miss Worth?”
The softness in his deep voice set her to quivering, and she knew if she failed to find her poise immediately, she would freely stop struggling for it. Taking a deep breath, she hid her trembling hands within the folds of her peach skirts and forced herself to attend to the matter at hand. “Indeed Iamlooking for a bodyguard, Mr. Montana. What, may I ask, detained you from applying for the position? Had you delayed your arrival one more moment, that—thatlascivious malfeasantmight have succeeded in violating me!”
Her accusations quickly reminded him of just how irritating she could be. “If thelascivious malfeasantis the same slobbering son of a bitch I just pitched through the window, he didn’t violate you because I got here just before he did! Dammit, woman! Instead of thanking me, you’re bawling me out for—”
“I am not admonishing you but simply questioning your reasoning for postponing—”
“Myreasoning?” He jammed his fingers through his hair. “What aboutyours?If you hadn’t passed out that first flier, this never would have happened! And for your information I just got into town. I only saw your bodyguard ad ten minutes ago!”
She stood. Her eyes were level with his throat. She raised them and her chin as well. “There was nothing whatsoever wrong with my first circular. The men who answered it did not possess the intelligence to understand that they were ill-suited for the position.”
“And the woman who made it doesn’t have the common sense to understand that an ad like that is going to attract men who don’t give a damn about qualifications but care only about being paid in gold for somethingtheyusually have to pay to get!”
“If you truly believe me senseless, Mr. Montana, why are you applying for the position as my bodyguard?”
He thought about how he’d worried about her after having left her in Templeton. “I need the money,” he mumbled.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I need the blasted money!”
His shout hit her forehead, vibrating upon her skin. “My goodness, when you shout like that, I can see your uvula.”
More anger swayed through him. “Look, I don’t have the slightest inkling about what a uvula is, and I don’t give the slightest damn. You—”
“Your uvula is the fleshy lobe that hangs from the soft palate at the back of your mouth. When you shout, I can see it.”
“Oh, of all the stupid—”
“Your lip is bleeding. I’ve some salve in my bag. Would you allow me to tend to your cut?”
Her query sliced through the years, when as a boy he’d tended to all his injuries himself.
The women had always been too busy with other things.
Without thinking, he cupped Theodosia’s cheek and slid his thumb across the delicate skin beneath her eye.
“Mr. Montana?” she murmured, struck by the intensity of his gaze. “Is something the matter?”
“What? No.” He yanked his hand down. What the hellwasthe matter with him? “Nothing is the matter, and I don’t want you rubbing some sort of stinking grease all over my—”
“Very well, we shall allow your lip to bleed. It will most certainly swell, suppurate, and cause you a fair amount of pain. Lesions to the mouth are—”
“Never mind about the damned lesion on my damned lip, dammit! What about the—”
“The job is yours, Mr. Montana. As you know, the salary is one hundred dollars a month in gold. I shall be leaving Wild Winds early in the morning and would appreciate it if you would escort me to another town. I was sadly mistaken in my belief that there were intelligent men here. But the presence of the library induced me to—”
“That isn’t a library, Miss Worth. Madame Sophie had the word painted on the window so she and her girls wouldn’t be bothered by the fire-and-brimstone preacher who passed through town a few months back. It’s a whorehouse.”
She could tell by the twinkle in his clear blue eyes that he thoroughly enjoyed taunting her over her mistake. His amusement annoyed her, as did the fact that he knew about the bawdy house. “And how is it that you are so familiar with Madame Sophie and her…girls,Mr. Montana?”
