Fuck.
What was wrong with him?
“Juliet,” he guessed next.
Her lips pursed. It required all the restraint he possessed to keep from kissing her.
“There is no letter J in the word,” she said softly. “If you truly wish to learn to read, you must at least try.”
That was the crux of the matter. He did not want to learn to read. What he wanted to do was hoist her over his shoulder and carry her away to his chamber. Then, he would take those soft lips for his own and get her out of that pale-pink gown.
“Where is your lady’s maid?” he asked.
“Smithson has the afternoon to herself today,” she said.
How the hell was he expected to keep his hands to himself with temptation a hair’s breadth away and no damned lady’s maid presiding over these lessons?
“Isn’t proper,” he growled, irritated with her for continually appearing in his presence, unchaperoned.
She blinked. Then blinked again. Finally, her lips curved into a smile. And then she laughed.
Warmth trickled through his chest. My God, the throaty sound of Lady Evangeline’s laughter stole his breath. And ability to think. Longing slammed into him, fierce and intense.
He swallowed past the steadily rising knot in his throat. “What is so bloody funny?”
“You fretting over propriety.”
“Why shouldn’t I? I’m here to protect you.” Including from himself, which was apparently growing more and more necessary.
She stared at him, her expression turning pensive. “You seem rather stiff today, Mr. Winter.”
She had no bloody idea.
He bit the inside of his lip and said nothing.
“Is something amiss?” she pressed.
He forced himself to look away from her lovely face. To the book that was open on the desk before them. To the word her forefinger still rested beneath. But even then, he could not concentrate on the typeset word, the ink printed upon paper. All he could look at washer.
Even her nails were elegant. Smooth and rounded, with a sheen no woman who worked with her hands could ever manage, the nails long rather than cropped short. They were not roughened and reddened like the hands of the other women he had known.
He should not be thinking of that lone finger trailing down his chest. Or her dainty hand wrapped around his cock. But there was something about Lady Evangeline Saltisford that made him think about everything he should not.
And then think about it some more.
“Are you ashamed?”
Her query startled his attention back to her. She was watching him with an expression that was part curious, part sympathetic.
His lip curled, because he would not be pitied. Not by her. Not by anyone.
He raised a brow, as if he had not a care in the world. “Ought I to be?”
“Of course not.” She paused, seeming to search for the right words, mayhap realizing there were none. “Forgive me, Mr. Winter. I am going about these lessons all wrong, I fear.”
Yes. Yes, she was. For one thing, she needed to be on the opposite end of the room. For another, she needed to wear a gown that buttoned to her chin. She also needed to stop smelling of fresh, ripe fruit. And looking at him with those big, brown-gold eyes. And to never touch him.By God, also to never again utter the wordstiffin his presence…
“The lessons are perfectly fine,” he gritted. “The problem is me. My mind. It does not comprehend reading.”
