Page 159 of The Siren of Sussex

“So am I,” he said. “Sorry to come here so early, and for such a reason. I shouldn’t be burdening you with this.”

“You have nothing to apologize for. I would have seen it myself soon enough.” She angled herself on the sofa to face him. “I usually read the paper at breakfast, but after last night, I feared the society page would contain something awful about me.”

“We can thank Lady Heatherton for that much, at least.”

“Was this her doing?”

“I suspect so. Although . . . I suppose it might have been Madame Elise. I’ve taken some of her customers.”

“And two of her seamstresses,” Evelyn reminded him.

He smiled wryly. “Yes. And that.”

She gave him a searching look. “What happened between you and Lady Heatherton?”

The question shouldn’t have startled him, but it did. He hesitated before answering it. “Nothing happened.”

“It didn’t look that way. Indeed, she seemed to be rather angry with you.”

“She is angry,” he said. “Because nothing happened.” He was reluctant to explain the sordid matter in any detail. But there was no avoiding it. “That’s why she sent back her dress. I rejected her advances.”

An expression of dawning understanding came over Evelyn’s face. It was followed by a blush. “I see.”

He began to feel a little like blushing himself. This wasn’t the conversation he’d envisioned having with her this morning. Or ever, if he was honest.

“Does this kind of thing happen often?” she asked.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Sometimes. With certain women.”

“Who?”

“Shall I make a list?”

She looked both fascinated and appalled. “Have there been so many?”

“A few,” he admitted.

“And . . . do you always reject them?”

“Always. I don’t mix business with pleasure.” As soon as he said it, he could see the wheels turning in her head. The conclusions she must be drawing.

“How do you account for me?” she asked.

“You were different. Unexpected. The way you came into the shop that evening. How you spoke to me and shook my hand. You took me by surprise.”

“Undoubtedly,” she said. “You must have been horrified when I kissed you that day in the fitting room.”

He was startled into a husky laugh. “Hardly. I kissed you back, didn’t I?”

“Did you? I’ve never been certain.”

“I did,” he assured her. “And very nearly said something stupid.”

Her mouth tilted up at one corner. “What?”

“Something about how beautiful you are, probably.” He took her hand and held it warmly in his, bare skin to bare skin. The same jolt of connection crackled between them as on the day they’d first met, warming his blood and quickening his pulse. “Or about how much I admire you. Something that would have put us both to the blush.”

“Shocking,” she murmured.