Page 17 of For a Scot's Heart Only
“It goes to the feelings I want to create.”
“What feelings?”
She blinked twice. No one had ever asked her to put emotions to words, especially with her business. Commerce was an unsentimental topic, judged unsuitable for women by most, yet the shop was her life.
“It’s hard to explain,” she hedged.
“Try me.”
Mr. West was not taking the polite route and letting this go. His directness, his self-possession in facing her, gave ample opportunity to put an end to the morning’s riddle, that, yes, his eyes were a vivid, weatherworn green.
She rolled a silken rose petal between her fingers; how loose and soft its feel.
“I—I suppose I want to impart a sense of splendor and elegance. Every woman deserves to feel beautiful.”
“Like you.”
A flutter lifted in her chest.
“Mr. West,” she whisper-hissed. “This is a place of business.”
“What? A man cannot flirt with a woman in a shop?”
She answered with a reproachful eye, which fed his pirate’s glee.
“Not in mine.”
“You set the standard of honest conversation between us, Miss Fletcher. I’m merely following your lead.”
She tried holding back the nervous laugh that wanted out. “And we can’t let our standards slip, can we?”
The scarred side of his mouth quirked with approval.
“There’s the Scotswoman who gives as good as she gets.”
Mr. West’s subtle smile gave her an inkling to what he was about.
“While nothing might alarm all six feet and”—she batted a hand at him—“excess inches of you, I, however, must guard my shop’s reputation.”
“In that, you would be incorrect.”
Eyeing him warily, she pulled a rag from her apron pocket and began to dust the spotless table.
“What do you mean?”
His chest swelled from an inhale. “Of all the women in London, you alarm me.”
The tenderest shiver pooled at the base of her spine.
Was Mr. West declaring himself?
Handsome, approachable, with a hint of peril, he smelled divine. She longed to revisit last night’sdelicious flirtation, but Fletcher’s House of Corsets and Stays wasn’t fertile ground for such things, and she was too blunt to be a coquette. Or too rusty. Yet, Mr. West provoked the oddest reactions—as if her body wasn’t entirely hers anymore. All the more reason to give him a polite send-off.
The door opened and three giggling women entered. Maids on their half day, browsing the shops. Mary migrated to a quiet corner with a display of silk corsets. Mr. West followed, hat in hand.
“You must admit, our evening together was revelatory,” he murmured.
“With interesting entertainments.”
