“A little, yes,” he said. “I first thought I had done something wrong.”
“No, no, you have done nothing wrong,” she said quickly, covering her face with her hands. “Nothing wrong at all, that is the problem.”
“What is the problem?” he asked. One of his hands took hold of her wrist and pulled it down a little, just enough so that she could look up at him again. The mere touch made her heartbeat thud even harder.
“I…” She alighted on the perfect excuse. She glanced around, checking there was no one else nearby, on the staircase, on the landing above, nor in the entrance hall below, before she fixed her attention on Hayward. “I am merely thinking of propriety.”
“Propriety? Everyone here thinks you are my cousin,” he pointed out. “Family.”
“Yes, but I am not, am I?” she said. “I think it best if I do not spend so much time in your company. If it ever got out that I was here, both of our reputations can be damaged by it.”
“Hmm, I see,” he said, releasing the gentle hold he had on her wrist and leaning more onto the banister. “So that is it? That is the reason you’re avoiding me?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing else?” he asked, a small smile playing upon his features.
“What else could it be?” she asked, pretending innocence.
“Ah, I see,” he said with a small laugh, before looking down at the landing of the stairs between them.
“You see what?”
“You wish to deny what just happened?”
“Happened? Nothing happened,” she said quickly.
“What? Learning to sword fight?” he asked, jesting with her once again.
“Your Grace,” she said, placing her hands on her hips. She tried to fight the battle of her smile but found she lost when he was smiling back at her. “You are being difficult on purpose.”
“Maybe a little,” he said with a nod. “But I wish to know the true reason you are running away from me, and I have a feeling that it has more to do with the way you were looking at me just now in the sports room –”
“I wasn’t looking at you in a particular way,” she said, trying to get him to stop talking and failing miserably.
“And also more to do with our riddles about kisses the other day –”
“Your Grace!” she cried his formal address in shock as she looked around the staircase again, but there was no one there to see them together, talking in such a way.
“I am merely checking those are the things you wish to deny happened?” he said.
“You have too much mischief in you for your own good,” she said, moving to walk around him. He laughed again, though this time, he let her go. At least, she thought he did, until she heard his footsteps on the stairs. At the top, she turned and found him standing just one two steps below her.
“Before you go, there is one more thing I need to say to you,” he said, his voice pleading with her to stay another minute.
“Which is?”
Chapter 12
Francis realized that their positions had brought them nearly level in head height. With him two steps down on the staircase and Lady Ridlington on the top step, he could look her directly in the eye.
She was staring at him, waiting for him to say what he had pleaded with her to stay and hear, but now he was about to say it, the words faltered. He was distracted once again by how close they were, thinking of a kiss, something that was so out of bounds.
He looked away, far from those green eyes and down at the floorboards of the stairs between them. He took a couple of deep breaths, trying to quell the fluttering in his stomach.
It had been sometime since his head had been turned by any woman, let alone someone whose life was as complicated as Lady Ridlington’s was. Giving into this bond between them…this flirtation, that was yet also filled with admiration for her, well, it could hardly end well.
She is married to another for starters.
