“And you looked biddable.”
“I’m—”
He struggled to confirm this. She wanted to laugh. If her time in the study had not been so incredibly risky, and fraught, and fleeting, she would have laughed. But every moment in Lusk House was risky, fraught, and fleeting and there was no time for laughter. There was also no time for this conversation, and yet—
“Youthought I was stupid,” he realized.
“Your face did not have the look of inherent cruelness,” she corrected, speaking to the books. “You did not lookmean.”
“You thought you could manage me,” he corrected.
She looked up. “Icanmanage you.”
“You cannot,” he shot back. “And you should know that I am very . . .” he swallowed, “. . . mean.”
Now she did laugh, and they heard the duke stir. Helena clamped a hand over her mouth, looking at Shaw with wide eyes.
Shhh, he motioned, a finger to his lips. They leaned to see around the shelf. The duke rolled to his side, mashing his doughy face against the leather, and resumed snoring.
He whispered, “And I’m not a spy.”
“Then what are you?”
He paused, staring into her eyes. She stared back, relishing the opportunity to study the handsome symmetry of his face. His jaw was angled, his nose exactly the right size, his mouth full but wholly masculine. He looked confident and commanding but not petty. He did not look like he would take advantage of her simply because he was big and strong and was employed by her sworn enemy. It was something about his eyes, she thought.
She wondered where Girdleston had found him. Most of the Lusk House servants were stiff and sour and had worked for the family for their entire lives. Her impression on previous visits had been a sort of “stoic loyalty” among the staff. This man had the bearing of someone who... who might be only passing through.
Finally, Shaw spoke. “How about you tell me your purpose, and I’ll tell you mine.”
“I beg your pardon?” The wordsAbsolutely notshot immediately to the tip of her tongue. And yet—
And yet she could not seem to say the words. He stood very close. So close her skirts brushed against his boot. Close enough to see a scar below his ear. She had the vague instinct to take a step back.I should run,she thought. Instead, she licked her upper lip. He stared at her mouth.
Slowly, he repeated, “How about you tell me your—”
“You first,” she said.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I proposed the deal. My rules.”
“You are demanding,” she said, “for a groom.”
He flashed her a look:And?
And nothing, she thought. Everything about this exchange was inappropriate, the unconscious duke, the dim warren of shelves, the family elsewhere in the house. Years later, she would ask herself why. Why not flee the library? Why not ignore him and go about her business in silence?
Her reason, she thought, then and now, was that she was so very weary of fleeing and silence.
He ambled behind her, coming up close, closer than before. How close, she wondered, would he come?
Close enough to whisper his purpose?
Close enough to touch?
The thought of touching him, of glancing her hand on his arm, or shoulder, or broad back, became a mesmerizing distraction in an already distracting conversation.
