“Knife fighting?”
She blinked. “I cannot imagine I would require such a skill.”
“Pistol shooting? Fisticuffs?” he carried on.
“Whatever you wish, Mr. Winter,” she relented, because she felt she owed him that much.
“Anything?”
There was a distinctively wicked note in his voice.
Everything, she longed to say.
More heat slid through her. She could not seem to keep her gaze from his lips. They were so full and thick. Tempting.
Nay!What was she thinking?
“Milady?”
His question sliced through her tumultuous thoughts. She forced her eyes away from his mouth. “Any skill you wish to teach me, Mr. Winter, as long as it is suitable for a lady.”
There. He could not misconstrue her words.
Even if she wanted him to.
He nodded. “An even exchange. Whittling. That is what I shall teach you, Lady Evangeline.”
For some reason, she wished he would call her Evie. But she wisely kept that thought to herself. They had crossed enough boundaries as it was this evening.
“Whittling, Mr. Winter?” she asked.
“I can carve almost anything you’d wish from a hunk of wood.”
“A snowflake?” she suggested.
“Aye.” He nodded. “I could make a snowflake with ease, and I can teach you to carve one as well, if you like.”
“Yes. I would like that very much, Mr. Winter.” She smiled at him. “You see? An even exchange.”
He shrugged and maintained his stony silence.
Leaving her with no recourse save to continue reading where she had left off. She took up the volume of Shakespeare once more. “O, I have bought the mansion of a love…”
Chapter Five
Lady Evangeline Saltisfordteaching him to read was Devil’s idea of hell.
She hovered at his elbow, her nearness filling his head with fire. The scent of ripe apple would forever give him a cockstand from this moment forward. Her finger traveled slowly over the page, moving beneath the letters he was supposed to be reading.
At the moment, he could not concentrate on a single bloody thing outside the tempting swell of her bosom, hovering perilously near. He was jealous of his own damned elbow, which was the closest portion of his anatomy to her breasts. Terrible travesty, that.
“Say the word with me, Mr. Winter,” she urged softly.
He could not force his attention to the page. Instead, he allowed himself the luxury of studying her profile. Her nose turned up ever so slightly at the end. A smattering of freckles was scattered on the elegant bridge. Her lashes were darker than her burnished curls.
“Romeo,” he guessed. That one appeared often enough on the page.
“Romeo starts with an R, Mr. Winter.” She glanced at him, and he realized her eyes were not brown at all. Rather, they were an exotic blend of gold and mahogany, with flecks of cinnamon.
