“That’s all?” Incredulity dripped from my voice.
“I suppose he aims quite high, doesn’t he? Duke and all… Though I cannot fault him for his choice. There is a certain appeal to a Hasket sibling…” He gave me one of his quarter smiles, an edge to his tone that I quite liked.
I indulged him with a put-upon sigh and crossed my legs at the knee in a way my governess would have screeched about. “Any other ideas?”
“A more blatant fraud. We would find a recently deceased, unmarried woman of marriageable age. Then we swear she and your brother were wed before the babe was born and she died in childbirth. Or we create a woman entirely—that would probably be best. She could be just unsuitable enough that society will assume he ran to Scotland because she wasn’t an appropriate choice. Then we simply explain to the clergyman that the mother passed when we have the lad baptized. We’ll need to find a way to forge the mother’s burial records, of course. But it shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“You were not in jest when you mentioned fraud.”
“I wasn’t,” he agreed, shaking his head simultaneously.
“Devious…” she teased, brow arched in appreciation. “Well, it’s better than the nothing I had thought up.”
“That is why your brother pays me so well.”
“Does he?”
He chuckled. “Oh yes, I get a bonus every time I rescue you from whatever mess you’ve gotten yourself into. I expect I’ll beable to live on what he gives me for this adventure until I die. Assuming, of course, that he doesn’t have me arrested instead.”
“I wouldn’t let him have you arrested.”
“That’s very kind of you.” His gaze flicked to my lips and I knew his thoughts were not far from my own. “We had another topic to cover?—”
“We were covering it quite well before you decided to be sensible.” His eyes slid shut on a single huff of laughter.
“Davina…” he growled, low and warning. “I cannot ravish you against a wall.”
“I think we just proved that you can. Quite well, in fact.”
A flush settled across his cheeks and rose up to his ears as he cleared his throat uncomfortably. “As gratifying as that is to hear… it won’t happen again.”
“Do you not wish to ravish me on this bed?”
His closed as he shook his head with a tiny smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “Very much, but I won’t.”
“Why not? Do you want me to do the ravishing?”
“Lord no.” My surprise must have been apparent because he continued. “It might actually kill me.”
“Well, I don’t understand what the problem is.”
“It was inappropriate. We’re not actually married.”
Ah, the honor was back, and the frown. Truly, Kit was much happier when he forgot the rules. I uncrossed my legs and pressed myself off the bed. “In the eyes of absolutely everyone here… we are married.”
At my first step toward him, he scrambled off the chair and backed away. “That’s not the point.”
“There’s absolutely no difference between our declaration and what Xander will do when we arrive.”
His back met a wall and he winced as I continued to advance, closing the gap in a few short steps. I caged him to the wall withmy hands on each side of him in precisely the same way he had me.
“There is one fundamental fact. And it is that you have no wish to be married to me.” There was a strained desperation in his tone that had me stilling my pursuit.
“No one need know. Gentlemen have dalliances all the time.”
“One, you are a lady, not a gentleman. A lady whose family has placed their trust in me time and time again. And two, gentlemen may have dalliances, but I’m not a gentleman.”
The last sentence tripped around in my head as I struggled to interpret it. “What does that mean?” His gaze lowered, likely aiming for the ground but they were distracted by my bosom on the way.
