Page 59 of Heartbreaker

Dangerous.She hedged. “I haven’t thought much about it.”

It was a lie. She’d loved the race. Could still feel the way her heart pounded when she’d realized he’d found her. Caught her.

His gaze narrowed, just barely, just fast enough for her to know he knew what she played at. “You liked it.”

She pretended to inspect the little tool. “Are you looking for praise for your carriage leaping and tavern brawling?”

“I was good at dockside brawling, as well, was I not?”

He had been.Too good.

Her gaze narrowed on his. “What kind of duke is good at brawling?”

“Tell me you liked it when I found you. When we raced.”

Truth for truth. What stupid rules.

When she did not reply, he set both hands to the edge of the bath and said, “Fair enough,” and before Adelaide could do a thing to stop him, he stood. Without shame.

Dear God.

Had she been prepared, she might not have looked. She might have turned away, avoided noticing the rivers of water sluicing down his body, over the ridges and angles of his muscles—muscles no aristocrat should have. She might have missed cataloguing the bruises along his torso—not just from the leap from his carriage, but remnants of the bout on the docks. The one he’d fought for her. To keep her from falling into the hands of The Bully Boys, just as he’d intended to keep her from Danny earlier, and then, from Billy, downstairs.

Bruises were not new to Adelaide. She’d spent a lifetime looking at them. Tending them. They were the way of the world on the South Bank.

So why did she itch to touch his bruises? To heal them?

Why did they feel like they belonged to her?

Why did she like it?

And why did shedislikeit so much when he reached for a towel and wrapped it about his hips, hiding the rest of him, the shadowed private places that she’d been unable to catalogue.

He stepped from the bath, the sound of the water interrupting her thoughts and summoning her attention from where his large, muscled hands tucked one corner of linen tightly against the corded sinew of his hip. Good lord he was handsome.

“Thank you.”

Her gaze flew to his, and he clarified, though not without a mysterious smile, as though he could read her thoughts. “For the bath. The oil—you were right. It helped.”

She waved off his words. “It was nothing. What wives do for husbands, no?”

What on earth? Where had that come from?

“I wouldn’t know. Likely not all wives.”

She looked to him then. “Only the fake ones.”

He laughed, and she liked it more than she cared to admit. “Puts the entire institution of marriage to shame.”

“Such as it is,” she intoned, immediately regretting the words when he looked to her, sharp and curious.

“You don’t care for the institution of marriage?”

She shrugged. “I am the Matchbreaker.”

“Why?” When her brow furrowed, he added, “Why do it?”

She thought for a long moment, and then said, “At the beginning, I did it because someone did it for me.”

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