Page 3 of Lady Guinevere & the Rogue with a Brogue
“Fine. Elizabeth was a willing participant in your scandalous liaison,” Guinevere amended.
She could swear she heard him sliding his teeth back and forth. Perhaps, he’d crack one. The thought turned up her lips.
After a moment, silence fell, and then he said, “It’s interesting how ye choose to twist the truth about what happened. I suppose it would be too difficult to face yerself in the looking glass if ye admitted the actual facts.”
Her brows dipped together. Did he mean Elizabeth had pursuedhim? Even if that was true, it changed nothing. He had used Guinevere in his personal vendetta against his father, a fact he likely did not realize she knew. But she’d eat a mud pie before telling him and allowing him to comprehend the depth of her humiliation.
A sudden pain pierced her head and neck. Whether from the conversation or the fall, she was not certain. She reached up and slid a hand over her cramping muscles.
“Did ye injure yerself?”
He could have been an actor for how sincere his concern sounded.
“Certainly not,” she snapped. “Do you think me the sort of woman to be injured from a small fall?”
“Nay, Guin. I think it would take much more than that to injure the likes of ye.”
The likes of me?
She frowned. What did he mean by that? No. No, she would not allow herself to wonder or to care about anything Asher did or said. She drew herself up to her full height, which irritatingly only put her head level with his shoulders. “Lady Guinevere, if you please.”
“As ye wish it,Lady Guinevere.”
Gawds.Why did the way he said her name still have to sound so enticing?
“If you’re endeavoring to be accommodating, perhaps you would depart now and find your way back to the ballroom that you never should have left.”
“If ye remember, the uninteresting and the vain drove me out here.”
“All the way to my bedchamber window?” she demanded. “Why not just retreat to the pleasure gardens? This seems an unnecessarily long way to come to get away from those who annoy you.”
“Well, Iwasin the pleasure gardens, but I saw something that interested me. Care to know what the something was, or are ye afraid to find out?”
For better or worse, she’d never been one to retreat from someone questioning her mettle. “You have me on tenterhooks,” she said, making sure her voice was as blasé as possible. “Do scandalize me.”
“It was the strangest sight.” His voice dipped low, mesmerizing. He always had been an excellent storyteller. Apparently, his knack for drawing a listener in had not dulled a bit over the years.
Pity, that.She’d prefer him to be as dull as the pianoforte lessons her mother still forced her to sit through, though everyone, including God, knew no amount of lessons would ever make her accomplished at such a thing. She was not a proper lady in most ways.
“What did you see?” she demanded, truly interested now. Mama often accused her of being like a cat: too curious for her own good.
“I saw ye, Lady Guinevere, running with little decorum and much abandon at the edge of the woods.”
“You couldn’t have.” She pressed a hand to her chest where her heart fluttered. She should have denied it outright. Was it too late? She bit her lip. Yes, she supposed it was, drat it all.
“I assure ye, I did see ye. I’ve keen eyesight.” He tapped his temple.
“But it’s dark,” she insisted, wincing at how foolish she sounded.
“Do the Bow Street Runners come around much for yer services?” he quipped.
“You are an odious man,” she snapped.
“Such cruel words from such beautiful lips,” he replied, managing to sound both chastising and oddly admiring at once. “I wonder where ye learned such language. From one of the men ye meet in the dark, perhaps?”
“I do not meet men in the dark,” she bit out.
He tsked at her, exactly as her mother would. “Let me remind ye that I saw ye. That white gown ye’re wearing is not verra stealthy.”
