He didn’t mean to do it. He tried to resist. But still, when he spoke, he found that his hands were at her ribs, his palm spanning flesh and bone. “What do you mean?”
“You are decent. Self-sacrificing. Loyal and hardworking and kind.”
He almost laughed, so ludicrous did it seem. “Ah, pet.”
“Youare. Your crew came with you because they care for you, and because you deserve it. You held them together through sheer force of will. You found them a house. You built four hammocks for four boys because you could and because it was the right thing to do.”
“Ruby.” He could feel the ribbons at her waist, the seam of her bodice and, above it, the steep curve of her breast. In the dark, his face had come close to hers. He could almost taste the shape of her mouth. “Don’t. There’s no good that can come of this.”
“I see you,” she murmured. “I’ve always seen you.”
He felt run through, laid open. Cleaved by the ruthless clarity of her gaze.
She had. God grant him mercy. She had.
“I’m not a good man,” he said roughly.
He meant it. He wanted her to know the truth of his past, to be frightened of the consequences of honesty. He wanted her to tell him to go.
And—God. He wanted to have her right here in the dark. If they had only days or weeks to be together, he wanted them all with a hot selfish greed. He wanted to breathe the air from her lungs, let himself drown in the gluttony of his desire.
He spread his fingers. His thumb grazed the underside of her breast.
Her breath caught, and at the sound, Archer’s body surged beneath the furious check of his control.
Slowly, she dragged her nails up his back, and he shuddered at the touch, at the lush closeness of her body.
“Prove it,” she whispered. Her voice was low; her breath fluttered against his chest.
He fisted his hand in her skirt. His heart beat out a pained tattoo:I want you; I want you; I can’t.
“Show me,” she murmured. “Do your worst. I want to know what sort of villain you are, Malcolm Archer.”
“Yours,” he said hoarsely.
And then he went down on his knees and showed her.
Chapter 20
It was close inside the apothecary shop: hot, still, the summer air thick with lavender and sweet potent cordials. Ruby had already unfastened the top two buttons at her throat; as she passed by the small square window, she unfastened two more, and then gave in and pulled off her gloves.
Tamsin, Alice, and Princess Serafina had gone ahead to the village, an errand that Ruby suspected was going poorly. The fashionable princess evidently did not enjoy Tamsin’s attempts to disguise her in ill-fitting bonnets or frocks; she’d taken to snarling anytime Tamsin got too close.
Everyone else in the shop was busy with their purchases. The apothecary had gone out, his assistant was harried in the corner, and no one was watching Ruby. At the window, she leaned forward, pressed her palm to the glass, and sighed out her relief. Cool, blessedly cool and—
She looked out the window and her sigh transformed into a hastily stifled gasp.
There, in the shade behind the shop, stood Archer.
Or—leaned, rather. He lounged against the thick-mortared brick, his feet crossed at the ankles, his shirt dangling open at the neck, his eyes blue and hungry.
He saw her notice him. His mouth tipped up, and then he tilted his head, a slow invitation, all languor and syrup.
Come here to me.
Her skin went hotter—a flush of warmth, a flip in her belly. Shards of memories, all fractured by pleasure: his mouth on her skin, his fingers pressed deep inside her, the hot bite of his teeth high on her thigh.
Come here to me, Ruby Ballimore, he’d whispered to her in the dark, the night after the princess had arrived. The moon had been out, and he’d already pleasured her once that day, and she hadn’t cared, not a whit, that someone might see when she’d made her way to his chamber. She desired him; she ached for him. She wanted to show him how much.
