Page 37 of A Lady’s Guide to Mystery and Mischief

In an instant, his mind emptied itself of all logical thought. Never mind Francis. Never mind the money. Right now, all that mattered was kissing Farah.

He bent, moving his face closer to hers, taking in the delicious scent of her—a scent that reminded him of his garden, his sanctuary at Montgomery House.

Farah didn’t move, her petal pink lips parted in invitation as she stared up at him, the light of the moon reflected in her dark eyes. And he must have looked into those eyes for a second too long, because whatever spell he’d been under shattered into a million pieces.

You can’t give her what she wants.

Grey wouldn’t be the one to give her the magic she was looking for. He was a hermit of a solicitor with a scar the size of a grown man’s palm on his side. He’d been a disgrace to his family, an embarrassment to his grandfather. Even if he knew Francis would never be enough for her, he wasn’t stupid. He knew he was no better.

As gently as he could muster, he removed his hand from beneath hers and stood up.

“Grey?”

In his desperation, he decided he wouldn’t correct her. If he couldn’t kiss her, he would at least allow himself this one harmless indulgence. He’d give into it like a man starved, if only to stop himself from doing something he’d later regret.

“Farah.”

Their names hung in the air, symbolic of the imaginary boundary they’d decided to cross.

The only boundary he’d allow himself to cross.

“Shall we go downstairs?” she asked. “I need to tell my aunt that I’ll be staying at Willow House.”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “I shouldn’t have kept you.”

She blinked at him as though he’d said something strange. “You didn’t keep me. I wanted to be here.”

All Grey did in response was give her a helpless shrug.

Closing the space between them, Farah placed her hand on his arm, leading him back into the candlelit hallway. “People want to be around you, Grey.”

He couldn’t stop his bitter response. “You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do,” she insisted. “And I’m going to prove it to you.”

“Will you now?”

“Yes, I will,” she said, bringing them to a stop at the landing. “I have a little less than a month, after all.”

So did he. And that was shaping up to be quite the problem.

Chapter Nine

Not a week later, Farah returned to Mrs. Ramsbury’s house, this time for what promised to be an energetic musicale. It had been a rather humdrum week, if one disregarded the wary hesitance that had been hanging around Grey since the night of the Flower Ball.

A wary hesitance that continued to persist, Farah noted. He was dressed in navy blue tonight, a color that brought out the stormy hue of his eyes. Striking and severely handsome, as always. Farah was his opposite in every way, her silver gown making her feel like a star very much lost in the midnight sky of his presence. Something had happened in the gallery the last time they were here—and while it tugged mercilessly at a deep, hidden part of her, she longed for the pleasant ease they’d started to share with one another. After all, no matter what tugged at her, she had made up her mind. She had a goal, and she intended to meet it.

It was as simple as that.

Kissing him would have been simple, too.

Farah shook her head with a vehemence that was no doubt noticed by a few of Mrs. Ramsbury’s guests. It would not have been simple. It would have been a disaster. She’d been taken with the darkness and the quiet and the low timbre of his voice and—and any woman would have been overcome with the desire to kiss him.

“Am I mistaken, or are there even more people here this time?”

Also, he was Francis’s cousin. Francis, to whom she was engaged! Unofficially, but still.

“Farah?”