Page 13 of The Lord Meets His Lady
“And you’re convinced I’m in some kind of trouble.”
“You are, aren’t you?”
“Thank you for your concern, but I’m doing fine, milord.” She sat back in her chair, breaking their intense gaze. “But about this friendship you’re wanting…”
He smoothed his waistcoat, his attention drifting to the kitchen window. “Our acquaintance will last longer that way. I’ve already mastered shallow and short-lived with women.”
Warmth bloomed in her chest. He held a better place in this world and had to be nine or ten years older than her, yet in a way, he needed her.
“Friendship with a man. That’d be a first for me.”
“As friendship with a woman is for me,” he said quietly.
Him? Friends with a woman like her? She never walked in his lofty circles, nor would she ever. More like he roamed less reputable places and left when it suited, but they were far from London.
Did Cornhill-on-Tweed change their circumstances?
She couldn’t imagine Lord Bowles making the same request in London, much less at the Golden Goose. This call to friendship had to do with him coming north. There had to be more to what happened at the Cocoa Tree. Was he paying a personal cost that went beyond the expense of replacing pieces of furniture?
“Very well.” Her eyes narrowed on him. “Friends share secrets, don’t they?”
“They do.”
She dragged a bowl of turnips in need of slicing across the table and picked up a root vegetable in one hand, her paring knife in the other. “Tell me something most people don’t know about you.”
He blinked at her. “Like a rite of initiation.”
She cut a blighted spot off the turnip and let the damaged chunk drop to the table. “Something like that.”
These friendship waters needed testing. Why not let him dive in first?
He chuckled, the raspy sound prying open closed places inside her. “Sounds like a soldiers’ drinking game.”
“And you’re going first.”
He scraped back his chair, his fine mouth curving in the roguish smile she’d seen him wear in London. “Oh, Miss Turner, challenge accepted.”
Lord Bowles stretched free of his brown velvet coat, the brass buttons knocking the table. Bare of his coat, he laid his right arm across the pine surface and began tugging up his sleeve.
She scooted back in her chair. “What are you doing?”
“Showing you this.”
His white sleeve slid back in small increments. Brown hair scattered across his forearm. Veins and sinew twisted under his skin. The telling lines spoke of a man who exerted himself physically from time to time. With the sleeve tucked in his elbow, Lord Bowles flipped over his forearm.
Black ink marked his pale underarm. A tattoo.
Genevieve dropped the knife and turnip in the bowl and angled herself for a better look. The outline of a galloping horse, mane and tail flying, had been etched on his skin with words. Her brows puckered and her lips moved silently, trying to form the words, but she dared not read them aloud. The letter combinations looked like nothing she’d seen before.
Lord Bowles tapped his arm. “It’s Latin.Cum fremitu eum, exaltatus fueris ut.” His eyes sparkled, at once lively and intense. “It says ‘When I bestride him, I soar.’ The only Shakespeare I remember in an otherwise dull litany of boyhood lessons.”
His graveled voice tickled her nape. She’d heard of Latin. None of it made sense. Her brain lost the translation when her fingertips slid over black lines, the inked creature a picture of freedom. A blue-green vein pulsed beneath her hand. Lord Bowles’s forearm was nicely shaped like his calf, the flesh cut with furrows of lean muscle rather than thick bulk.
She skimmed the pale flesh, his breath warming her ear. Pebbled skin trailed after her fingers wherever she touched. The tiny bumps on his lordship’s arm snared her as much as the horse etched on his skin.
“It’s pretty,” she whispered, tracing the Latin.
His quick intake of breath was a warning. Their heads almost touched. Her lashes hovered low, saving her from eye contact. To be this close… It wasn’t wise.
