He smiled down at her, his eyes glinting. “He had me quivering in my boots this morn, hinting of pistols at dawn.” The gleam in his eyes intensified, and Jessie cast him a dubious glance, for it was impossible to believe the man before her had ever quivered before anything, or anyone.
Ever.
He was jesting with her, she thought... though she couldn’t be certain. “Really, my lord,” she countered, “you mustn’t take my brother’s mettle too much to heart. The truth is he trusts no one.” She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze. “He must have determined you were quite harmless, as well, or he would never have directed you here to me, I’m certain.”
The chit was too trusting by far, Christian decided.
Didn’t she realize he might have said anything to gain her trust, including the truth?
Then again, wasn’t that what he wanted? To gain her faith. Certainly it would make his task here go all the easier. Why should he care whether she was easily duped?
He didn’t, he assured himself.
His jaw clenched as she lifted her gaze fully to his, and he spied the uncertainty she tried so hard to conceal. It gave him a heavy feeling in his chest. “’Tis only fitting a brother should be mindful of his sister,” he told her. “Not all men are so honorable, you realize?”
She peered up at him, arching a brow in challenge. “Nor are they all such terrible lechers as my brother would have me believe,” she surprised him by saying.
Christian lifted a dubious brow.
“I do not believe they are,” she asserted, and blushed profusely.
“Really?”
She nodded, a little less certain now. “Truly,” she persisted.
He watched her flush creep lower, to the region of her décolletage, and his gaze lingered upon the square-cut neckline of her rose colored gown. Subconsciously her hand fluttered to her throat—an alluring gesture—and he compelled himself not to think of what it might feel like to press his lips to that burning flesh.
Heaven; it would feel like heaven.
The only sort of heaven he was ever like to know.
“Well, I… I really should go,” she declared once more, and again moved toward the bank, backing away slowly, as though she were no longer quite certain whether to flee or to stay, to trust him or nay. He found he didn’t wish her to leave so soon, and so he allowed her the comfort of distance between them.
He waited until she was seated high upon the bank, beneath the old elm, and was well on her way to replacing her slippers to her feet, and then he spurred his mount after her.
4
Jessie watched him guardedly as he hobbled his mount, trying to convince herself she really should go. Instead, she sat upon her blanket, berating herself for her foolish fancies. She snatched up her silk stockings, knowing there wasn’t time to don them before he turned from tending his mount, and hid them beneath her dress, keeping an eye to his back, lest he spy her and she be mortified once more.
“Won’t you sit?” she asked a little breathlessly, when he turned to face her at last.
She needed his help, she reminded herself, and wouldn’t get it by scurrying home with her tail tucked between her legs.
Hidden though they were, she felt her stockings beneath her limbs like smoldering embers against her bare flesh.
This was no good—this was not right! She prayed fervently he would refuse her, for she seemed to have lost the good sense to ask him to leave.
“It would be my pleasure,” he said, and sat dutifully upon the blanket beside her. Jessie was both relieved and mortified at once.
What would she say now?
Whatever would they speak of?
He plucked a pale blade to worry between his teeth, and Jessie smiled, fighting the urge to bound to her feet and hie away like a timid schoolgirl.
God’s truth, but his face was arresting up close—startlingly so, with those deep-set blue eyes. His jaw was thick but lean, his cheekbones high, and against his swarthy coloring, his face was shadowed by a day’s growth of whiskers. Yet it was the intense, fiery burn of his cobalt blue eyes that made her shiver and drew her gaze.
Propping up a knee, he leaned backward upon one arm and began to suckle the tender blade. Jessie watched him, feeling both encouraged and titillated by his presence when she knew she should be heedful instead.
