She pursed her lips and bobbed her head in a single brisk nod, and Callum felt a measure of peace return to his body. He had far too much to worry about beyond this woman and her woes. “I will be certain to keep you and your cousin away from my destruction.” She brushed off her hands and picked her shawl off her chair, shaking it and sending a cloud of dust into the air as she swept past him towards the door. “I won’t bother you again.”
His brows furrowed. “Where are ye going?”
“I need to find another option,” she tossed over her shoulder. “My time is running out.”
Panic burst through the ice in his chest. Never be bothered by her again?Other options? “What are ye going to do?”
She paused in the doorway and looked at him as though he were simple. “I’m going to be ruined.”
The panic nearly erupted. “By who?”
Her brows knit together. “Valebrook’s nephews would probably be amenable. Or Pennington, he seemed eager enough. Or perhaps—”
“No, ye won’t!” He punctuated his words with a slash of his hand and stormed towards her, coming within reach before he realized that he was moving. “Those bastards willnae treat ye with any respect.”
The corner of her lip tilted up. “I’m not looking to be treated with respect.”
“Ye’d willingly put yerself in their hands without trusting them?”
“I haven’t much of a choice, do I? With James I could pretend, but now…” Her nose wrinkled with distaste, and his horrid, logical brain completed the sentence for her.
Whomever she chose to enact this foolish plan, she would have to take him to bed. The thought made the edge of his vision blur, his hands clench until his fingernails bit into the skin of his palm. His need to protect surged forward, knocking aside all remnants of common sense.
While his mind raced, she’d tugged the door open and was in the process of slipping out when his hand caught her arm, pulling her back and slapping the door shut behind her. “Ye won’t take any of those bastards to bed.”
Her amber eyes flashed. “You can’t tell me—”
He swallowed around the lump in his throat and spat out the words before he could reconsider. “I’ll do it.”
The three syllables hung in the air for a long moment. “You’ll… what?”
“I’ll be the one to ruin ye.”
Her berry lips parted as she dropped her shawl. “You?You? Why?”
Because he recognized the ache she carried in her breast. He may not be able to name it, but the set of her shoulders, the determination in her voice, the haunted look that spoke of tremendous loss—they were kindred spirits of a sort. “Because ye shouldnae hurt any more.”
Over his years in trade, he’d learned to recognize when he’d won. The grim clench of an opponent’s jaw, or the drop in their shoulders when they’d acquiesce to his demands. Her body wavered the slightest bit towards him, and he couldn’t determine if she was accepting his offer or simply too exhausted to fight any further.
Why was he doing this? Was it because she was a woman in need, and his aunt had taught him well? Because he wanted to keep his cousin as far from scandal as possible?
No, he could acknowledge what it truly was, name the jealousy that flared in his gut at the thought of her with another man. He wanted an excuse to be close to her, perhaps only as an antidote to the toxic boredom of this house party, but more likely because…
She was enchanting.Christ, he felt like the worst of green lads, pining over an impossible girl. Because if she was going through this much trouble to avoid a marriage, she wasn’t about to give herself to a man bound for the wilds of South America, a manso coarse he didn’t know if he was capable of courting a woman properly.
“I understand how it feels to be desperate to escape,” he managed, the words taking a piece of his chest as he said each one, leaving him a bit more hollow than he’d been a moment before.
Her eyes widened, then dropped closed. “Fine.”
He wouldn’t allow his pride to be wounded too badly by her comment, not now. Not when he’d won the negotiation. “What do we do next?”
She seemed unsettled, as though her mind was racing to catch up with the rapid change in circumstances. “I need to think, plan.” Suddenly, her eyes lit up. “Meet me in the east wing of the old building after luncheon by that awful family portrait.”
Callum winced. “The one where the wee baby looks like he’s had the head of an auld man plopped on a bairn’s body?”
Her nose wrinkled. “That’s the one. I know a place we can go to talk privately.”
“And then what will we do?”
