She pressed her lips together. Now that she’d bumbled out such foolishness out loud, she didn’t want to say more. Not with him standing so close.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Yes you do. Go on, tell me.” He folded his arms, eyebrows lifted, waiting.
She huffed out her breath. “I suppose I have always seen you as a…golden child. You can do no wrong, everyone loves you, you’ve never had to work for anything. Obviously you are a decent sort or you wouldn’t have such leeway, but I admit you never struck me as a…studious person.”
“A golden child who never had to work for anything,” he repeated. “You almost couldn’t have gotten it more wrong.” He smiled, but it wasn’t like his earlier expressions at the ball. This was tight and humorless. Pained.
“I’m…sorry,” she said softly. “I do not like to be judged by others and I see that I did just that to you. It wasn’t fair.”
His expression softened a fraction and he reached out to take her hand. Neither of them wore gloves, so just like in the garden his skin brushed hers, and she barely held back a shuddering sigh of pleasure at the sensation.
“Apology accepted,” he said softly. “And I hope you’ll find I’m full of surprises the longer we know each other.”
He was leaning closer now and her heart began to pound. She felt hot and cold all at once. This was out of control.
She jerked back a step and stammered, “T-terms. We were meant to discuss terms of our agreement. What were they?”
He watched her for a beat and then nodded. “Quite right. Straight to business.” He motioned toward two chairs set toward the fire. She took one, smoothing her skirts around her reflexively as she watched him take his own.
“What did you have in mind?” she asked.
He glanced at her. “We’ll have to be careful, of course. Our courtship cannot seem too serious or else it will serve neither of us. But we will chat in front of others, flirtation is the name of the game.”
She shifted. “I’m afraid I’m not very well versed in flirtation.”
He leaned in. “No? Why is that?”
“I-I’ve never had need for it, I suppose. No one ever…wanted me.”
“I very much doubt that,” he said, a gravelly tone to his voice that made her toes curl in her slippers. “But flirtation is not difficult. You smile, you laugh, perhaps you make an effort to touch me.”
“Touch you?” she repeated, her errant mind flying back to their earlier kiss.
“Not intimately,” he said slowly. “I meant a touch on the arm. On the hand. While we’re talking.”
She shivered. “I can…try.”
“Touching me makes you nervous?” he asked.
She felt blood rushing to her cheeks and reached up to cover them with her cool hands. “Yes,” she admitted when it was clear he expected an answer. “Yes, it makes me nervous.”
“Why?” he asked.
She bent her head. So many inappropriate answers swirled through her mind. None of them were something she could say out loud. Not to him. God, not to anyone.
He slid forward on his chair and reached out. He touched her chin and forced her to look at him. “Are you nervous because we kissed?”
She nodded. “No one has ever…done that before. And I…I just…”
His lips pressed together and he looked displeased. Her heart leapt. Probably she had entirely mucked this up. He would think her an idiot now and walk away. That was probably for the best, despite how he believed he could help her. But for the best or not, she found she didn’t want him to reject her.
“You are so innocent,” he said softly. “So sheltered.”
She blinked as he slowly dropped to his knees on the fancy rug before the fire and inched over to her. He was so tall that even up on his knees he was even with her face as she sat in the chair. He moved in, placing one hand on either armrest, and lifted up.
Their lips were now a hair apart and she began to shake. “What are you doing?”
