Page 48 of The Lady’s Deception

Paris supposed she meant it as a compliment. She still had no idea the danger he posed. The heartbreaking trust she’d shown in him tonight, trust he had in no way earned…

“Did he hurt you?” he demanded. “Dashfort, I mean.” The damage her brother had done was evident.

She flinched. “No.”

“When you first came to Merrion Square, you told me the gentleman had taken certain liberties—”

Her hand slipped away from his face, and her steady blue gaze with it. “He kissed me. Or tried to.”

“Ah.” As he feared, he’d behaved as badly as Dashfort. Or worse. “Perhaps I didn’t deserve to be slapped tonight,” he told her. “Last week, however…” Her chin jerked up again, but he kept speaking, forestalling her protest. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. Forgive me.” It was his turn to cut his gaze away. “And I suppose when my gifts arrived—intended, please believe me, only to make amends for my boorishness—you must have thought—” He shook his head. “No wonder you left.”

“It would take more than a bonnet and a pair of shoes to drive me away,” she said, sounding bemused. Perhaps even amused. Once more she held him prisoner with those eyes. “And also more than a kiss.”

Swiftly, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.

This time, however, she wisely pulled away before he could kiss her back. “You taste sweet,” she said, running her tongue over her lips. “Like tea.”

“When I don’t taste sour,” he reminded her gruffly. “Like whiskey. What exactly is it you want, Rosamund?”

A nervous laugh rippled through her as she tipped her head to the side. Her hair tumbled over her shoulder, and the firelight transformed it into a cascade of gold that rivaled the beams of the midday sun. He wanted to lose himself in its depths, no matter if he got burned. Desperately, he tried to replace the image before him with the memory of her on a previous night, when she’d worn her hair in a prim, neat braid.

It made no difference at all.

“No one in my life has ever asked me that question,” she marveled, her voice soft. “Except you.”

No. Not soft. Prickly. Aristocratic. English, for God’s sake.

“Then you ought to consider carefully before you answer it.” His own voice was little more than a growl. “Go to bed, Rosamund.” He jerked his chin toward the screen. “Over there.”

“Have you ever tried to sleep in a bed with two young children and a kitten, Paris?”

It was an argument he knew he was unlikely to win, not least because he could think of no way to make the circumstances she described sound appealing. So he changed tactics. Leaning toward her, gentling his voice, he said, “You’re in shock, I think, my dear. You don’t want me.”

She appeared to consider his words for a long moment. And when she at last nodded and said, “I think you’re right,” he told himself he had no cause to feel hurt. Then she added, “Right about the shock, I mean. I’m so cold. And I—I can’t seem to… I need…” The room’s shadows were deep, but he could nonetheless see the pain in her eyes.

“Aren’t you the slightest bit worried I might be overcome with passion and ravish you?” he asked—intending the words as a teasing reminder that they were on the verge of dangerous territory here. A warning he promptly undercut by glancing toward the screen, behind which slept his sisters. Soundly, he hoped.

Her gaze followed his and the corners of her lips turned up. “On the floor of this shabby posting in? No. I trust nothing untoward will happen here tonight. But you did ask me what I wanted,” she repeated, smoothing her palm over the hearthrug, “and my answer is—”

He reached out to brush a fingertip across her lips. “Shh. Save those words. Think longer on my question. One day you will realize you want something, someone other than…”

She looked up at him, unblinking. Unpersuaded.

He lifted away his hand. “All right,” he whispered, resigned. “Lie down.”

The better part of him hoped that when it came to it, her senses would return and she would refuse. But the rest of him wanted to roar with satisfaction when she smiled a wicked little smile of triumph and stretched out obligingly on the floor, one arm tucked beneath her head. He covered her with the blanket.

After banking the fire, he tugged off his boots and lay down beneath his greatcoat, farther away from the hearth and what he hoped might pass for a respectable distance from her. At least he’d be close at hand, if there were any trouble—

Every attempt at rationalizing his decision scattered when she scooted closer, closer, until the curve of her backside was pressed against his groin. This was an entirely different kind of trouble. He willed his heart to stop pounding, to stop driving blood into his cock, where it most emphatically was not needed.

“That’s better,” she muttered. “Warmer.”

Much warmer. “Roisín,” he sighed against her hair.

She stiffened slightly in his arms, then tested the unfamiliar word. “Roisín. What does it mean?”

“Little rose,” he said simply, wondering whether she knew he’d borrowed the name from his sister’s book.