Just not Flowerpot. Or any other man, for that matter. The notion of anyone else making Lady Violet his rather set Griffin’s teeth on edge. Which was good. He would need bloodlust this night.
“There was not time for knocking,” she said, her voice hushed. “I was nearly caught by one of the guards.”
“What if I were not properly clothed?” he prodded, testing the sharpness of the makeshift blade with the fleshy pad of his forefinger. “What would you have done, Lady Violet?”
Her cheeks went pink just as he had hoped they would. What fun he would have charming the flushes out of her. It would be a new sport, like shooting pheasants but making Violet blush instead. And then he could remove all the articles of her clothing that acted as impediments, to see just how far her adorable embarrassment traveled.
“I would have closed my eyes,” she said primly.
“Liar.” He winked. “You would have looked, and you know it.”
A fresh wave of color blossomed in her cheeks. She was shy, but daring. A delectable combination.
“Do not be such a rogue, Strathmore. If we mean to do it this evening, we haven’t much time.” Her glinting gaze fell to the blade in his hands. “That looks quite dangerous. You won’t cut me with it, will you?”
“I would not hurt you for the world, Lady Violet,” he promised her solemnly, surprised at how deeply he meant it. The rightness of it traveled through his bones, all the way to the marrow. “It looks far more deadly than it is.”
That, however, was a lie. Any object at all could become a deadly weapon in the right hands, and his were most assuredly the right hands. All the same, she need not ever fear him. He only did harm when defending his life, even after Paris.
“I could have stolen a knife for you,” she argued once more.
“But if you stole a knife for me, it would be apparent to Arden that someone within his household was complicit in my crimes,” he reminded her. “This way is best. If I am stopped, you will not be implicated.”
The flush he found so deuced compelling fled her skin, and she went pale, her eyes wide. “If you are stopped?”
He detected the faint note of trepidation in her voice, the flicker of fear. He had always been confident with her thus far in their plotting and planning. Griffin had learned long ago, when beginning an endeavor of questionable success, it was always prudent to feign great assuredness.
“IfI am stopped,” he repeated, closing the distance to her, as much drawn to her—needing to be near her—as attempting to give her some reassurance. “It is highly unlikely, but it is nevertheless a reality we must face. If I fail, you must not confess. You will act as if you are in shock, as if you had no knowledge of my dastardly plot. If I am caught, the first and last time we ever spoke was the day you tripped me with your knitting. Understood?”
She frowned at him. “It was crocheting, but I refuse to allow you to be marched away to prison while I pretend I had no hand in this. If we are caught, I shall go alongside you, where I belong.”
Where I belong.
Her words should not have had such a tremendous effect upon him, but they did. They hummed through him with energy and heat and a great, thrilling pang of longing. The notion of any woman belonging at his side had never even occurred to him. He had not imagined he would ever wed or wish to shackle himself to one woman forever. But though his circumstances were undeniably desperate, he could not help but to feel an unfurling blossom of pleasure when Lady Violet West said she belonged at his side.
And he wholeheartedly agreed.
Just not in the instance of his future incarceration.
He traced the silken curve of her jaw with a fleeting touch that was enough to send a bolt of awareness straight through him. He knew she felt it too, for he absorbed her slight tremble, saw her pupils dilate and her full lips part on a soft exclamation of surprise.
“None of your brother’s hired dogs will be able to stop me,” he promised her. “You worry for naught, my dear. But before we leave this chamber, I will have your promise that in the rare, almost impossible event of my capture this evening, you will maintain your innocence and not allow your reputation to become darkened by me.”
Despite his words, she worried her lower lip. “I wish there was a way to reason with Lucien.”
He ground his teeth at the mention of the Duke of Arsehole. “There is none, my lady. Your brother has convinced himself of my guilt and has already tried me in his mind. If you wish to forego the plan, I completely understand. You may leave this chamber unimportuned, and I will never breathe a word of this to anyone.”
“No.” She shook her head quickly. “I have made up my mind. My brother thinks to live my life for me and make all my choices. This choice is mine, and I choose you.”
He swallowed against a sudden, stinging, and altogether unwanted tide of emotion, knocked loose by her words. “Thank you, my lady. I promise to do everything in my power to prove to you that your confidence is not misplaced.” He took one of her hands in his, raising it to his lips for a kiss.
Her fingers were cold in his grip, small and elegant. Though she was taller than most other ladies of his acquaintance, everything about her was feminine and lovely. She was a wild rose blooming amongst a world of cultivated hothouse roses that all looked and smelled the same.
“I choose you in return,” he told her at last in a voice gone so thick with emotion, he scarcely recognized it as his own.
Sodding hell.He had been imprisoned and tortured in a besieged city, and he had never once gone maudlin. He had to keep his mind under control. The task at hand was all he could think, see, and do, until he and Lady Violet were beyond the reach of Arden and any of his men.
Lady Violet seemed to sense his shift of mood without him needing to give it voice, for she withdrew her hand, her shoulders going back stiff and straight, chin tipping up in that defiant pose of hers. “Good. But for now, let us get the details out of the way. Lucien left about an hour ago. He told me not to expect him back for supper this evening. Aunt Hortense is having a nap. Pye believes I am looking for some string in the shade of cerulean for the stripe about the edge of the scarf I am making him.”
