Page 46 of Seducing the Knave

Despite how easily his obvious desire drew on inclinations she desperately wanted to keep dormant, she managed to school her expression into one of firm resolve. “You’re not to...attempt to seduce me. In any way,” she declared, her voice steady and confident though everything inside her swirled about like a storm in a jar.

A smirk hovered at the corner of his mouth and his eyes glittered with amusement. “’S that so?”

“It is,” she insisted.

His chuckle grated on her nerves.

“Laugh all you want,” she retorted. “But you won’t touch me again.”

Rather than refute her right away, he tipped his head back to down what gin remained in his glass. His eyes never left hers. After lowering his empty glass, he noted with quiet assurance, “If I want ye, princess, I’ll have ye. With yer full and enthusiastic consent.”

Trembling heat blasted through her core.

She firmly ignored it.

If he wanted her, he’d said, which obviously meant he didn’t.

And that was just fine with her.

“Your ego is astounding,” she countered.

His reply to that was a low, rumbling chuckle and another flash of teeth. Then he leaned forward to rest his forearms on the table. His eyes were dark and flinty and the whispered flow of his words drifted like tendrils of smoke through the tension between them. “I’ll agree to yer terms, but I’ve a couple conditions of me own.”

She tensed. “Such as?”

Holding her gaze, he replied, “Ye need to tell me who’s after ye and what they want.”

“Is that really nec—?”

“Tell me.”

He was right. She’d have to tell him. She just didn’t relish having to endure his amusement over the plight of a spoiled and pampered princess.

After another sip of wine, she took a fortifying breath and straightened her shoulders. When she looked across the table, she was surprised to realize that despite his annoying lack of reverence, she’d somehow come to trust Max as she trusted no one else in her life at the moment. He might tease her mercilessly and taunt her beyond her endurance, but he’d also proven that he could and would keep her safe—with the right incentive, of course.

Looking into his silent but surprisingly patient stare, she sighed.

“My full name is Lady Elvina Fowler. When my parents died two years ago, the title and estate of the Marquess of Ilsworth passed to my cousin, Jasper Fenning, who, by all accounts, utterly charmed the haute ton while simultaneously laying waste to the family fortune in a shockingly brief amount of time.” She couldn’t keep the anger from her voice as she continued. “In desperate need of funds to continue his secret dissolute lifestyle, he decided to marry me for my inheritance. When I vehemently refused him, he locked me in my room with the intention of forcing me down the aisle.”

“So ye ran away.”

She nodded. “I thought that if I could reach London and enlist the support and protection of my mother’s dearest friend, I might be able to find a way to claim independence from Jasper, who is also my legal guardian.” She stiffened, still feeling the sting of the Gilchrists’ betrayal. “But he somehow deduced where I was going and got there first. He managed to convince them I was hysterical—that I’d lost touch with reality after losing my parents. Apparently, it was a tale he’d been spreading about town for some time. They wanted nothing to do with me, and despite my rather fervent protests, neither of them did a thing when Jasper dragged me to his carriage.”

Though Max’s expression didn’t change, the restraint in his manner fled in an instant. There was suddenly something very different in his presence. It was sharper, keener. As though the man who was already quite intense became even more so.

“Did he hurt ye?” His voice was hard as stone.

Elle instinctively lifted her fingers to her swollen lip.

Max stood in a rush and rounded the table to Elle’s side in one large step. A barely contained suggestion of violence seemed to vibrate within him.

Elle stiffened and sat straighter in the chair as her heart thundered with uncertainty. When he gently lowered the hood of her cloak then brushed his finger along her jaw to her chin where he exerted a gentle pressure to angle her face up toward his, her breath stopped.

She probably looked a fright. Her throat still ached a bit from Jasper’s punishing grip and her bottom lip was puffy. When she explored the spot with her tongue, she could feel a crust of dried blood where her lip had split against her teeth.

As he intently perused her features, Max’s eyes shifted from dark and subtly threatening to something else.

“He struck ye?”

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