Giddiness made her reckless. She reached up a hand and pressed it to his cheek. He had shaved before the event, but there was already a telltale prickle of stubble against her palm.
Good. She liked the rasp of it.
“It’s extraordinarily funny,” she said. “You were very gallant, though. Thank you for defending me—even if I did not need it.”
“Defending?” he asked, pressing a hand against the door just next to her head. At this close distance, he didn’t look cold at all. His eyes sparked with heat. “I wasrescuingyou.”
She snickered just to see him grind his jaw about it. Gosh, he wassoeasy to wind up. She probably shouldn’t do it just because she could, but…
Well, again, she’d never beenterriblywell behaved.
“Rescuing me?” she asked tartly. “From what? A grouchy gentleman with a sharp tongue? If you think I need protection from that, I think you are going to bequitealarmed when I tell you about my husband…”
The part that she didn’t say was that she actually had been rather grateful for his timely arrival—though the rush of relief she’d felt at his approach had surprised her. But when had she last had someone come to her rescue? When was the last time someone had helped her? When was the last time she hadn’t had to handle everything herself?
This question turned out to be far less interesting than watching the muscles in her husband’s arm ripple as he clenched his fist.
“Don’t toy with me, Phoebe,” he warned.
He pinned her to the door by pressing a knee between her legs, using her skirts as an anchor to hold her against the hardwood.
Phoebe took it back. She absolutelyshouldwind him up at every possible opportunity.
Her hands rose to his shoulders, pulling him closer rather than pushing him away.
“But it’sfun,” she protested, unable to resist. Also, because she wanted to see what he would do.
She was not disappointed.
“Phoebe,” he growled at her.
“Aaron,” she said back, mimicking his tone. Really, if he thought getting all stern and rumbly with her was going to encourage her to behave, he had another thing coming.
“I’ve had enough of the secrets and the obfuscation, Phoebe,” he said, the hand that was pressed against the door coming to twine through the hair at the back of her head. Well, so much for the coiffure that her maid had spent positive ages putting together. “Tell me what’s going on.”
It was hard to think with his face so close to hers, close enough that she could, even in the dim light, see each of his individual eyelashes.
She decided that she was going to blame the distracting eyelash thing for why she told the truth. They were just so long. Surelya man oughtn’t have such pretty eyelashes, and certainly he oughtn’t get to have such piercing eyes. It wasn’t fair.
“I have possibly made a habit of sneaking out of my father’s house and going to… less than reputable places around the city,” she admitted, because evidently those eyes could mesmerize a person.
She was almost too mesmerized to enjoy the fact that this clearly took him aback.
“You,” he repeated very slowly, “have been sneaking out. Alone, I take it?”
“Generally,” she said. “Sometimes, though, I saw people I knew there, but Ariadne was with her husband, so I don’t think there’s anything you can say about that.”
“You went to disreputable places with my cousin Ariadne and her husband.” He had that same slow cadence, like he was doing an extremely complicated sum in his head.
“Well, at first we just happened upon one another. But after that, yes. Sometimes we arranged to go together.” And since she was admitting things, she added, “Sometimes wedidleave David at home.”
This seemed, somehow, to be the thing that surprised him the most.
“Before you get any bright ideas,” he said, “know for anabsolute factthat the next time that you go to any such place, you will betaking me with you.”
He said it like a threat, but it was, as far as Phoebe could tell, the best thing he could have said to her.
He hadn’t tried to stop her. He hadn’t even really admonished her for what was very obviously a threat to her reputation.
