“Your head will be off your shoulders if you do!” She narrowed her eyes. “What did you intend to do with my attention, now that you have it?”
“Convince you to marry me, I suppose. I suspected kidnapping may be the necessary course.”
She struggled against his hands at her wrists. “You would not be the first man to attempt it. Let me go!”
The mirth drained from his eyes, though he did not release her. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me perfectly well. Now let go of me, you brute!”
It must be said—though perhaps the reader has already suspected—that Lottie had never quite told the full story of Marchmont. Indeed, she had gone to some lengths to persuade even herself that there was no story worth telling. But now was hardly the moment for revelations
Instead, Lottie did what any reasonable woman would do—as soon as he released her, she pushed him, rather hard.
Jasper stumbled back a step, more startled than injured, and looked at her with a mixture of confusion and wounded pride. “Miss Tolliver—”
“Do not ‘Miss Tolliver’ me,” she snapped, cheeks flushed. “If you have something to say, you may do so from a civilised distance.”
He raised his hands, palms open. “Very well. You have my distance.”
Lottie felt a stray breeze catch at the loose curls at her temple, and bristled once more, for Jasper had the audacity to look amused.
“Lottie,” he said softly.
She kept her arms firmly crossed. “You will kindly refrain from such familiarity.”
“I cannot. It is the only name that suits you.”
“Then invent another!”
When she made to step around him, he lifted a hand—not touching her this time. Only when she did not move away did he brush two fingers beneath her chin, inviting her to meet his gaze. “Look at me, Lottie.”
It was a most unwise thing to do, for Jasper’s eyes were not at all the proper shade for arguing. A sensible woman would have looked down at once—and indeed, an angry woman ought to have glared, or scolded, or at the very least remembered the speech she had been internally composing. Unfortunately, at that moment she could not have summoned a single coherent argument if her very life depended upon it.
Jasper’s thumb remained at her chin, and his voice dropped to a maddeningly soft register. “I should not have pounced upon you unaware.”
“No,” she said tightly, though her heart had begun a most inconvenient flutter. “You should not have.”
“Nor should I have provoked you before an audience.”
Her throat tightened. “You humiliated me, before a room full of peers, no less. You think everything a jest. You tease and laugh, and I—” she broke off, pressing her lips together before she could betray more. “You cannot charm your way out of this, Mr Deverell. I will not forgive you because you suddenly remember how to speak gently.”
“I only ask that you listen, Lottie.”
She wanted to scoff and tear her chin from his hand, but she did neither, for something in his tone and the look in his eyes made resistance far more difficult than it ought to have been. “What do you want from me?”
“Marry me,” he said softly, his thumb brushing the hollow of her throat in a touch so slight it might have been accidental—though she suspected, to her great discomposure, that it was not. “Let me save you. If you must marry, let it be me. Let it be by your own choosing.”
Lottie had the dreadful suspicion that he could feel the betraying flutter of her pulse beneath his thumb, or worse, the swallow she could not quite prevent.
“You do me a great injustice,” he continued, quieter now, “if you believe I should ever wish to cage you. I would have you marry me so that you might be free, Lottie—or as free as any woman in England may hope to be. You should have your own fortune, your own carriage, your own servants, your own time. You might travel, study, fence, read every improper book ever printed, and terrify half the Continent if it pleases you. No one should dictate your conduct.”
Lottie stared at him, her heart beating too high in her throat. “No one but you, I suppose.”
“Not even I.”
“You would forbid me nothing?”
“Nothing.”
