Page 35 of Tempting Fate
“He can’t help how he looks,” she defended the man, though her fingers were pressed to her throat in a gesture of aversion. “And it’s not so bad as all that. I thought he had kind eyes, and we shared the most diverting conversation. He’s a true gentleman, they say. No vices or villainy. He’s studious and methodical and I found him indulgent and interesting.”
“Be that as it may, a woman as handsome as you should take a handsome husband.”
Her lashes swept down over cheeks tinged with peach. “You think I’m handsome?”
“Don’t be coy,” he said with a droll sniff.
“No one has ever called me coy before,” she informed him, turning back to study Kessinger. “Handsome isn’t so important to me in a husband. Not if he is good and gentle and kind.”
Good, gentle, and kind. That was all she required, and he still didn’t fit the bill. Something dark and wretched twisted in his chest. “Don’t you see it would be heartless to select him? People would speculate. They would be cruel to him, insinuate you were with him for any of the ugly reasons people marry for. Desperation. Power. Titles. Indulgences. They’d expect you to cuckold him. They’d count the months in between your wedding and an heir and speculate as to whom the child belongs.”
Aghast, she lifted a hand to her lips. “You don’t really think—”
“He would resent you, in the end.”
The shadows in her eyes became bruises as she contemplated this, then the liquid blue hardened to chips of ice as she scowled up at him. “How would you know anything about it? Someone with your attractions, your masculine allure, could never hope to empathize with poor Mr. Kessinger.”
“Nowwho is being cruel?” he sneered.
“What?” Her glare gave way to several confounded blinks. “How might a compliment be cruel?”
“When it is so blatantly for the sake of kindness,” he pointed out the bloody obvious. “Such as calling a portly person thin, or someone like me attractive.”
“But—”
“Miss Goode, I believe I am next on your card.” One of the wolves, a fair-haired fellow blessed with almost symmetrical perfection, sidled up to her with a gallant hand outreached in offering.
Fumbling a bit, Felicity checked the card on her wrist. “So you are, Lord Melton.” She slid her hand into his and allowed him to lead her to the floor, only frowning back at Gabriel the once.
His blood heated to a degree that could surely smelt metal. Sweat bloomed on his flesh just as a dull, cold pit developed in his chest.
Masculine allure.
Was that what sent handkerchiefs fluttering to his feet, and jaded, middle-aged women swooning into his arms?
Posh birds love a bit of rough, Raphael had once said to him on his way to a night of debauchery.
His eyes devoured Felicity as she seemed to melt into Lord Melton’s arms.
Would she?
Not bloody likely. Gabriel wasn’ta bit of rough, he was an entire mountain of it. His hands, his body, his heart, his vocabulary and comportment.
His need.
This was fucking torture.
The sight of Melton’s hand on the curve of her back. His arms directing her this way and that as they floated over the dance floor. Their bodies a whisper away from each other, her skirt comingling with his legs.
That should be me.
The thought clawed its way through his head, and he grappled the beast back into its cage.
No.It should not.
What sort of offer could he make a woman like her? What did he havetooffer her? His past and his sins and the blood on his hands? The money he’d amassed by pilfering from her fellow nobles, or doing their dirty work?
Enemies that would seek to crush her. That might already be trying to do so.
