Page 45 of Beyond Scandal and Desire
She shook her head. “I can’t give you only a quid. It doesn’t seem right.”
“I gave a crown to the lad who delivered them to Hedley Hall. You can reimburse me for that as well.”
Stubborn man. If he really paid a quid, she’d eat the hood of her pelisse. Opening her reticule, she scrounged through it until she located the two coins she needed. She placed them on the desk, took the leather box and dropped it into her bag.
He left the coins where they were, tipped his head toward the corner of his desk, grinned. “You can purchase the cameo for a shilling.”
She wasn’t half tempted. “You paid a good deal more for it than that. I, too, recognize quality. And don’t tell me the jeweler owes you his livelihood so he sold it to you on the cheap. It is frightfully pretty, though.”
“My mum always longed to have a cameo, thought it was something posh ladies wore.”
“You should give it to her, then.”
“I’ve given her a dozen by now. Anytime I see one that’s a little bit different, I pick it up for her. Makes it special that I was thinking of her when I bought it. I wasn’t thinking of her when I purchased this one.”
She felt her cheeks warm. He’d been thinking of her. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t known that fact. Still having it voiced made it seem all the more scandalous, especially because she found herself wondering exactly what visions of her might have been prancing through his head at that time. “I can’t accept it.”
“Not even as a betrothal gift?”
Her cheeks warmed further, and she was surprised they didn’t ignite. “That would be entirely inappropriate.”
“Pity.”
She glanced around the room, at the bookcase of ledgers, the one of books, a piece of wooden furniture that was naught but nooks, crannies and drawers in an assortment of sizes. In addition to the chair behind his desk, there were two in front of it. Black leather, thickly padded. Those who carried on business with him would be comfortable while doing it. The room was dimly lit, the only light coming from the lamp on his desk. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed before. He had seemed to loom within her vision, to absorb her entire focus. “You have a very nice office.” A corner one at that, with windows behind him and on the wall off to the side.
She wandered over to a side window and glanced out. It faced the street where the hansom had stopped. The driver was still waiting, even though she suspected twenty minutes had passed. Although he made not a sound, she was acutely aware of Mick coming to stand just behind her left shoulder. The room shrank with his nearness.
“That building across the street, on the corner, is that the one your sister wants for her bookshop?” Based on the windows, it was three stories in height and had a quaint appearance to it.
“It is.”
“Are you going to let her have it?”
“If she truly desires it.” His voice had gone lower, raspier, as though he were answering a different question entirely. His mouth was hovering extremely closely to the nape of her neck. She could feel his breath stirring loose tendrils of her hair.
Her mouth was suddenly dry. She couldn’t have swallowed if her life depended on it.
“Why are you truly here, Aslyn?”
No formality. His use of only her name created an intimacy that was thick with promise. She shouldn’t be here, and yet she seemed incapable of forcing herself to leave. Was this how Kip had felt at the table last night, when he’d been desperate for her pearls?
“You’ve been spending time with Kipwick.”
“On a couple of occasions, yes. He had an interest in the questionable parts of London.”
“I want you to dissuade him from traveling these paths that will lead him to ruin.”
Although she gazed out on the street, and he was behind her, she was very much aware of him going very still. “I cannot prevent a man from seeking what he desires, but I can see he comes to no harm in his pursuits.”
“You wield that much power within the darker realms of London?”
“They shaped me into what I am. Unlike Kipwick, I neither worship nor bow before them.”
“Yet you make use of them.”
“When it suits my purposes or the purposes of those who come to me seeking something that lies beyond their reach but is within my grasp to grant. Tell me, Aslyn, what do you desire?”
His low, mesmerizing voice shrouded her in a veil of trust. All the naughty images, the improper thoughts that plagued her when she let down her ladylike guard came rushing to the foreground. Images that inappropriately filled her mind when he was near. “Things to which I can give no voice.”
