“I’m terrified,” she said, “and you have nothing to fear. It’s not fair.”
Across the cobblestones and ten yards up, Lydia and Marybeth were placing handbills in a methodical way.
“Well?” she demanded, shaking a handbill at him. “Don’t waste time. I need paste.”
“Miss Pursling,” he said formally, “I do apologize.”
He’d worn darker, rougher clothing for this outing—trousers of gray wool and a matching coat, the fabric coarse but the cut still perfect. Around his neck, he’d wound a soft, maroon scarf. His garb made him look not like a duke, but like some towheaded scoundrel—roguish, and maybe a little wicked. The kind of man who’d tempt a girl to walk outside with him at night, and who’d sneak her sips of heady spirits from a flask. It would be all too easy to become tipsy around him.
He sounded sincere and she wanted to believe him. “You’re sorry for endangering me?”
He looked sincere, too, with that slightly embarrassed smile. Then he looked up at her. He swirled the stick in the pot, then brought up the wooden stick, a big glob of paste stuck to the end.
“No.” His words were mournful, but there was a twinkle in his eye. “Not for that. For this.”
So saying, he flicked the stick at her midsection. She barely had the chance to lower the handbill in defense. The edge caught the glob of flying paste, breaking it in midair, spattering paste all over.
She stared at him in disbelief. “I had not realized,” she said frostily, “that we were allowing twelve-year-old boys to take seats in the House of Lords.”
He winked at her, then turned to the women on the other side of the street and waved. “We’ll be at the pump through the alley there,” he called out. “We’ve had a bit of a paste emergency over here.”
“A paste emergency!” she huffed. “A paste assault, that’s what we had.”
But he was already taking her arm, leading her down a narrow gap between two buildings, into a dingy courtyard where a pump stood. He took off his jacket before working the pump handle; she could see the form of his muscles through his shirtsleeves. She was terrified, and he was showing off.
“For the record,” he said, as he worked the pump, “I am twenty-eight, not twelve.”
“Congratulations.”
“Indeed. I’ve got you all alone after all.”
He smiled at her again, and she felt speared by lightning. Minnie looked away. The pump let out a hollow whistle, signifying that the water had almost arrived.
“It’s a messy business, flirting with you.”
As he spoke, water gushed out of the pump head. He caught it in the bucket that was chained to the pump.
“Well?” He raised an eyebrow. “You wanted to yell at me. I figured I would give you a solid chance at doing so without causing a scene. Go ahead.”
“Why did you use my words? Were you trying to endanger my reputation on purpose? Did you think that if I were blamed for it, you might escape all censure?”
He simply shook his head. “I should have known you wouldn’t shriek.” He shrugged and unwound his scarf from his neck and dipped it in the bucket. “To answer your question, no, I didn’t intend any of that. I might have been a little thoughtless, but not malicious.” To her surprise, he knelt in front of her, and dabbed at a spot of paste on her skirt with his scarf. “It was simply this,” he said, his attention seemingly fixed on the paste. “You’ve made an impression on me. If you could recognize your words in what I said, it was because my thoughts have been on you.” He looked up at her. “Often.”
It wasn’t fair that he could rob her heart of anger and her lungs of air with just one word. His gaze held hers overlong.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Here he was, on his knees before her, and yet she was the one slipping under his spell.
Minnie looked away. “That doesn’t change anything. It’s still put me in an untenable position. I don’t know what to do. You can’t just apologize and expect me to smile at you.”
He dropped his eyes from hers—not in surrender, but with a nonchalant air, as if to say he couldn’t be bothered—and dabbed at another spot of paste.
She couldn’t even feel his hands through her skirt. And yet she could imagine them, imagine that the slight pressure he exerted on her skirts transmitted itself to her petticoats, and from there to her drawers, her stockings, her legs. She shut her eyes as he worked his way upward.
The higher he got, the more she could feel it. When he got to the last bit of paste, there was nothing but the truth. He was touching her stomach. Through layers of cloth and corset, yes—but that was his hand against her belly. She sucked in a breath.
“I can’t believe you threw paste at me,” she muttered. “That has to be the stupidest thing—”
“Of course it was stupid.” He looked at the damp end of his scarf and then shrugged and tossed it over his shoulder. “That’s just the way these things go.” He stood as he spoke, leaving Minnie looking down—directly at the buttons on his vest.
“That’s the way things go?” she echoed dubiously. “Are you claiming to be a fool, Your Grace?”
“Under certain circumstances.” His voice dropped to a low murmur, and he leaned down so that he was almost whispering in her ear. “You see, there’s this woman.”
She wasn’t going to look at him. She wasn’t.
“Normally, one might say that there was a beautiful woman—but I don’t think she qualifies as a classical beauty. Still, I find that when she’s around, I’d rather look at her than anyone else.”
He set two fingers against her cheek, and Minnie sucked in a breath. She was not going to look at him. He’d see the longing in her eyes, and then…
“There’s something about her that draws my eye. Something that defies words. Maybe it’s her hair, but I tried to tell her that, and she told me I was being ridiculous. I suppose I was. Maybe it’s her lips. Maybe it’s her eyes, although she so rarely looks at me.”
Those fingers on her cheek trailed down to her jaw. Minnie felt frozen in place.
“She’s clever,” he murmured. “Every time I see her I discover that I’ve underestimated her prowess. She ties me in knots.”
They were just words—words that any man would say if he wanted to turn a lady’s head. Just words. They didn’t mean anything, not really.