Page 79 of A Scot Is Not Enough
“Ah, the costume ball at Swynford House.”
She was adorably surly. “I’ve carried on well enough without a man’s help. I’m sure I can muddle through where the costume ball is concerned.”
“No doubt your fortitude is iron-clad, but it is the nature of human beings to need each other—regardless of their sex.”
She unpinned a red earbob and dropped it on the washstand. “As only a man would say.”
“There is no battle between us. I freely admit I need you.”
Her hand reaching for the second earbob froze. Sadness etched her features.
“Don’t—don’t say things like that.”
He was mercenary, dipping his hand into his coat pocket to withdraw two tickets. “If you don’t need me, perhaps I should toss these into the fire?”
“You got the tickets to Swynford House?”
“I did.” He fanned the tickets.
She reached for them, but he jerked his hand back.
“I want to hear you say that we make a fair partnership.”
Her eyes narrowed, catlike and vexed. “A fair partnership?”
He raised his arm. “On second thought, an excellent partnership. The two of us . . . together.”
“It’s a costume ball. One night, Mr. Sloane.”
“Alexander,” he corrected.
Her lips curled inwardly. Anger was her shield against the intimacy growing between them and the demands of her league. She stood on her toes, reaching for the tickets, bumping into him.
He stretched his arm above his head and wound the other around her waist. “You and I are more than one night. And you know it.”
A prism of emotions flared behind wisps of hair falling across her face. Affection and heart-aching sadness shined brightest. She was warm and right, her body slanted against his, silk rubbing wool, the hush intoxicating. He desired her body, but the deeper craving, the better one, was wanting her mind, her wit, her spirit joined with his.
Eyes locked and bodies touching, he lowered his arm and offered the tickets.
“We can get on well by our own faculties,” he said as one heartbeat passed onto another. “But how much better would our lives be if we were together?”
Her lips softened. Hewasbreaking down unseen barriers the secretive woman had erected. First with honest words, then with tickets delivered as promised (more words, he supposed, but a gentleman was defined by his words). He clasped her hand and turned it palm up. Pink and white flesh, life lines, love lines, her flesh. He kissed her palm and set the tickets on top of his kiss.
“You have earned my trust and my utmost respect,” he said. “I hope to someday earn yours.”
Her eyes pinched sadly.
She folded her fingers over the tickets. “Everyone has a tale. Some complex. Others dirty. Mine is both.” Her voice was fragile. “I am not yet twenty-five but I’ve already lived two lifetimes. And I am so, so tired. My burdens are too great and too messy to put on someone else.”
“Try me.”
Her mouth twisted a wobbled line. She was graceful, slipping away and tucking the tickets in her wardrobe. She shut the wardrobe door and leaned back, tucking her hands behind her.
“You ask too much.”
Her voice was the distant sound of a lost soul.
“And you give too little. We both know I could marshal the crown’s considerable resources and hunt down whatever else you’re not telling me—about you and your league.”
