Page 67 of My Rogue, My Ruin
He had no choice but to go along with this farce now, or risk looking like a liar to Thomson. And as stunned as he’d been when she had burst in here before, unannounced, he’d also known denying her claims or disagreeing with the lady would have been unforgivably offensive. So now here he was—engaged to a virtual innocent via an offer of marriage he had not extended.
Well and truly ensnared.
Archer cursed under his breath. It was a damn sticky turn of events. He had to hand it to her, though—she was either a brilliant schemer, or she had the luck of the devil himself. He couldn’t extricate himself if he tried, not without damaging her reputation and dragging more attention to himself in the process.
He was willing to bet Brynn knew it, as well.
Archer reached for her cloak clasps. She jerked away, but his hands were faster. They closed around the buttons.
“What are you doing?”
“Helping you out of your cloak,” he replied, slipping the first of the four clasps free. “Something Heed would have done had you entered my home through the front door and not, where? The kitchens?”
She lifted her chin again, holding still this time, though more out of annoyance than gratitude.
“The ballroom,” she answered. “Eloise saw me in.”
She glanced toward the doors, the very ones she had closed. Hoping for Eloise’s return, he was sure. His sister would not come, though. Instinct would keep her away. Archer worked the next three buttons quickly and then walked behind Brynn to pull the cloak from her shoulders. As the velvet slid away, her clean, fresh spring scent hit him. The confusion and irritation of the last several minutes cleared, and all he could focus on was the exposed skin along the slope of her neck. Her sunset gold hair had been coiled up high, a few loose tendrils left to tickle the tops of her shoulders. Archer came back to stand in front of her.
“Thank you,” she whispered and began to step away.
His hand moved of its own volition, capturing her fingers with his. She stilled with a small, sharp breath as he raised her hand. Before she could speak, he gently tugged the tip of one gloved finger. The dark gray silk slipped like butter, loosening around her other fingers. He pinched the tip of another finger and tugged again. He wanted to see her hands. Wanted to slide his palm against hers.
Her chest heaved. “Please, sir, this is highly—”
“Sir?” Archer echoed. He wouldn’t let himself be swayed by her guileless innocence. It had to be an act. Enough women had thrown themselves at him over the years for him to recognize chicanery when it was being flaunted in his face. No one could be as innocent as she pretended to be and manage to arouse this kind of inebriating lust inside him.No one.
“This is hardly a proper time or place,” Brynn said, her breath coming shorter as he finished sliding her silk glove from her hand. He laid it upon the closest surface—the back of a chair—and lifted her bared hand to his mouth, turning it palm up at the last moment.
He watched her closely as he pressed his lips to the inside of her wrist. Her eyes stared in shocked wonder at his mouth as it caressed the petal-soft skin there. Her lips parted as he touched his tongue to her pulse, but the intake of breath he heard was not one of revulsion.
“My lord, you cannot,” she protested, but there was none of her usual strength behind the half-formed command.
“Can’t a man kiss his betrothed?” he asked.
Or at least sample what he’d been inadvertently coerced into.
“You may not.” She stepped backward, pulling her hand from his as if sensing the leashed anger that snaked beneath the surface of his outwardly calm exterior.
He followed her movement, keeping a thin amount of space between them. A hot rush of color bloomed in her cheeks as she shifted one more desperate look to the door. Archer advanced, and she retreated again, until she had backed up against the wall. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips at the irony of it.
“Tell me, my lady, how does it feel to be trapped?”
“Whatever do you mean? I have not trapped you in any way.” Brynn’s flush deepened, and Archer almost smiled—she truly was a magnificent actress.
“If that is the game you want to play,” he said, drawing ever closer. “I am willing to match it.”
Her lip trembled. “Lord Hawksfield…Your Grace, you must not…we mustn’t. You cannot.”
“Cannot what?” He braced his hands against the wall at either side of her head.
“Look at me like that,” she said.
“And how is that?”
She raised limpid eyes to his, making him want to eliminate the remaining space and the pretense between them. “Like you want indecent things.”
She licked her lips, drawing his gaze there.
