Page 38
James lifted his eyes. “I won’t shoot him. But I will ensure he walks away from our encounter a repentant man.”
“You can make him repent without a pistol.”
“And how’s that?” Both his brows climbed his forehead, exaggeratedly quizzical.
“Tell him what you think, how you feel.”
He looked unimpressed. “Cold steel is more effective than hot air.”
“Tell him . . . Tell him you’re engaged, to me.” She bit her lip, hard, appalled she’d uttered the notion aloud.
As for James, he started. The mattress dipped as his whole body went rigid. His gaze drilled into her.
She wanted to pull the sheet over her head. But she forced herself to continue, brightly.
“What could be worse? His son and heir pledged to a peasant. Everything in him will revolt. You’d have demonstrated the folly of an unsuitable attachment.”
James’s face was darkening. Clearly, he was revolted.
“You wouldn’t marry me, of course.” A sudden lump in her voice made speaking difficult. “You’d simply use the threat to force him to quit his mistress.” She faltered. He looked stricken.
The silence in the room thickened, became unbearable.
“Never mind,” she murmured.
“We are well-matched.” He spoke with clipped syllables. “You said it. I agree. We are well-matched in our faults, in our understanding, in our feelings.”
Her brow furrowed.
“Therefore,” he continued sternly, and observed another pause. “I do not consider our attachment unsuitable.”
“Our attachment?” Now she was gawping. “If there were an attachment, of course, it would be unsuitable. It would be infamous. I milk cows.”
“Noble creatures.”
She detected the hint of a smile. He’d gone barmy.
“James. I shovel their shite. With a pitchfork. Have you ever picked up a pitchfork? No, for you, it’s those tiny little forks made of silver especially for cake. You are the heir to a dukedom.”
“And you are who I hold dear.” He leaned toward her and touched her hair, all snarled by wind and sea. Surely, his mistresses had worn their hair in ladylike ringlets. But he worked his fingers gently in the knots, and his expression was reverent.
He held her dear. He gazed upon her as though she were more precious than gold.
She couldn’t remember her objections. Why couldn’t they marry, if mutual inclination compelled them? He filled her vision. His warmth and his scent overwhelmed her senses. She made one last attempt to cling to reason. Ah, yes, they weren’t social equals. That was the problem. But what did that matter when two hearts had been shaped from the dust of the same star?
Reunited, how their hearts would shine.
They’d always felt it, this magnetic pull. They’d been attracted and antagonized from the very beginning, by an inexorable force.
“I want you,” he said gruffly. “I want you to plague and goad me. To inspire me to new heights. I want to tease and treasure you, and comfort and challenge you, show you my world from twenty thousand feet in the air and from the vantage of the armchair in my drawing room, the window seat in my library . . .” His voice grew even huskier. “From my bed.”
Her breath hitched. Her heart was thudding, and there was a pulse between her legs that made her slide her naked thighs together.
He hadn’t finished. “I want to discover new worlds together. I want to follow your map to wondrous places. I want to know all of your stories, to learn the names of all the selkies and fairies and mermaids and wizards and outlaws and flying chickens. I want to read the tale in which no one slays the dragon—the dragon lives happily ever after. I want to eat bannocks with you and sponge cakes, and dine on every delicacy. But if anyone tries to make us sit at opposite ends of a very long table, I’ll saw the table into pieces and put it back together so we’re side-by-side.” He heaved a breath. “If I have to prove myself by mucking out a stable, so be it. Set me Herculean labors.”
“Now you’re Hercules?” Her chest rose on a laugh, but she could make no sound. His eyes were locked on hers, needful and bright. Their look was a provocation, and a plea.
She gasped a breath. “You’d muck a stable, to prove yourself?”
