Page 7 of Forbidden Until Midnight

He rubbed at his temple with the thumb of the hand that held the glass of nearly finished whisky and Eleanor seemed to look a little more closely at him this time.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

‘Just a headache.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard that whisky is the best cure for that,’ Eleanor said tartly, and he couldn’t help it. He threw his head back and laughed.

She might be an innocent, and impossibly young, but that made it all the more delightful when she surprised him with her wry sense of humour. The slight curve to her tightly pressed lips was a sucker punch he wasn’t expecting though.

She rolled her eyes and looked away. And the moment she did, his gaze hungrily consumed her. The panels of the teal-coloured silk of her sleeveless dress clung to her body in a way that showed both her youth and her vitality as well as a promise of the woman to come. It was a heady combination for any man to see and she had no idea of the impact she made. None at all.

He pulled himself back from the brink of something monumentally stupid just as she returned her attention to him, castigating himself silently.

‘Is it about the olive groves? Were they badly damaged by the fires?’ Eleanor asked, wiping all trace of his immediate thoughts from his mind.

She knew about his business? He bit back his shock. All this time he’d been secretly keeping tabs on her it had not crossed his mind once that she might do the same to him.

‘A little,’ he admitted. ‘But we’ll survive.’

‘We?’ she asked, confused.

‘Yes, me. My staff.We,’ he clarified, and this time she seemed surprised. Knowing Carson, she’d probably only heard business discussed as to how it affected the singular, with no thought to the staff or the wider impact.

He watched her thoughts pass over her features, their expressiveness almost a wonder to see.

‘Do you want some?’ he asked, when he was able to regain his composure. ‘I’ll let you have some if you promise not to spill it over me,’ he teased gently, knowing that he should never have asked.

She looked over her shoulder and back at the crowds.

Go, the angel on his shoulder urged.While you still can.

While I’ll still let you, the devil whispered. A devil he ruthlessly pushed back to hell.

‘Will you stop being such an arse if I do?’ she asked, looking back at him.

‘Probably not,’ he replied, hiding the grin that tugged at his lips as he reached for the bottle on the floor beside him.

He stood up, surprised to hear a ‘Yes,’ come from where Eleanor had been standing.

‘We’ll have to share,’ he said of the glass he waved between them. ‘Still staying?’

She nodded, dropping her gaze, before closing the distance between them. For a moment he couldn’t work out her intention, his pulse reacting to the sudden new proximity to her. Until she came to stand beside him against the brick wall.

‘Wait—’ He stopped her before she could lean back as he had been doing. Shrugging off his jacket, he slipped it around her shoulders. The dust on the wall would have ruined her dress, but it also would have given her hiding place away. He’d witnessed the telltale signs of one not-so-secret assignation already and he had absolutely no intention of letting unfounded rumours damage Eleanor’s reputation.

She shrugged into it, the tuxedo jacket drowning her petite frame, and had to look away. Who would have thought the mere sight of her in an item of his clothing would make such an impact on him?

Bracing his body to ward off the unwanted arousal threatening to make itself known, he reached for the bottle of whisky and poured the sixteen-year-old Lagavulin Special Release into the glass before passing it to Eleanor.

‘So, what are you hiding from?’ he asked, genuinely curious.

‘It just got a little hot out there in the press of people,’ she said before taking a sip.

He wondered if that was all it had been, but had no intention of pressing further. His purpose here was to make sure she was safe, not monitor her for truths and falsehoods.

‘What’s your excuse?’ she asked, passing him the glass back.

He took a mouthful and relished the peat on his tongue and the burn on his throat, the way the alcohol filled the cave of his mouth, and as he looked at Eleanor he noticed that her cheeks had flushed from her own mouthful.

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