Page 5 of In Pursuit of a Christmas Bride
She shut her eyes and inhaled again slowly. If she tossed up her accounts all over this stranger, she would be mortified.
A very handsome stranger she couldn’t keep her thoughts away from.
His fingers scraped against her skin as he gently slid her glove down the length of her arm, stopping short where the glass had pierced her. How perfectly intimate.
How scandalous to have his fingers caressing her bare skin here at Vauxhall Gardens, alone and in the dark.
No, no scandal.
She swallowed her silly fantasy of him removing the entire glove and dropping a kiss in her palm, though that would be perfectly romantic. This was not the time to let the champagne go to her head. Tilly could muster up some composure.
“You’re sighing.”
“Hmm?”
“You are sighing. Please refrain as I try to remove this piece of glass.”
Tilly winced, instantly understanding. “You can’t remove a piece of glass if I sigh?”
His head was tucked close to hers. She could smell the lemon and sage notes of his cologne and feel the heat of his body against hers.
“I am not a surgeon by profession, and the lighting here is terrible. I don’t wish to make this worse.”
“We could have fetched help.”
He grunted, and she laughed.
“Right, no sighing. I will refrain from breathing as well, yes? Wouldn’t want to trouble you too much?—”
With a quick pull, the glass slipped from her wrist, and his hand quickly circled around her arm to pull the fabric tight over her wound.
“This will help but don’t look now.”
Tilly had experienced a lot, but she hadn’t ever almost fainted from the sight of her own blood.
“Have I ruined your breeches?”
“They were ruined the moment you collided into me, and I was smashed into a tree.”
Very well. Her stranger was like that. “Sorry, I know how you Mayfair boys are.”
It was impossible to tell with the mask covering his face, but she was near certain he arched his brows in a challenge. “Oh? How’s that?”
“Particular.”
The man brushed at the grass stain at his knee before glancing up in her direction with a smug smile on his face. “Interesting conclusion, however incorrect. I don’t live in Mayfair.”
“Well, that’s very fine for you, then. Never mind.”
“You’ve caught my interest now. You might as well explain your theory.”
“Only that men who hail from Mayfair either have no respect for the rules of thetonand are the worst kind of rakes and scoundrels, or they are attached to their mother’s hip and eat and breathe etiquette so that they may remain in the good graces of society.”
“My mother still resides in Wales and will likely remain there until the day she dies.”
Tilly’s heart sank. Humility was not a virtue of hers, much to her mother’s disappointment. “So not attached at the hip?”
“No.”
