Page 29 of The Lady’s No Angel

“I have no idea,” she retorted. “But I presume they were the two men who were watching us earlier.”

“I presume likewise,” he replied, pushing off the door and moving into the room.

A little unsettled, Angel took a step backward.

“I would also like to know,” he asked, oh, so politely, “why a respectable young lady is travelling with a pistol and is ready, able, and willing to fire it.”

Angel bristled. “I believe what you mean to say is ‘thank you, Miss Baxter, for so kindly saving my life. If not for you, I would have been spitted like a suckling pig.’”

He winced a little at the crude picture she painted, and Angel rather regretted saying such a thing. Her stomach—still in a knot of terror that had yet to unravel—roiled.

“I do thank you,” he said, his voice softer now as he took another step towards her. Angel took another step back, only to discover she had walked into the heavy wooden bedframe and there was nowhere else to go. “It was brave of you and nicely done.”

Oh.

Angel had not been expecting that and was suddenly all at sea. The truth was, she’d been terrified. That this man—so big and handsome and so vividly alive—might have been killed, murdered, possibly even because of her. It made her sick. It made her want to curl up in a ball and cry.

“However,” he went on, a steelier note to his voice now. “I have a strong suspicion that those men know something I don’t. I don’t like that, Miss Baxter. I’m willing to fight—happy to do so, actually—but I’d like to know what it is I’m fighting for.”

Angel shook her head.

“Oh, I think you can,” he told her, and Angel found she could not tear her eyes away from his, from the implacable certainty of his words. “I think you know exactly what this is about and I want to know why people are trying to kill me.”

“I-I can’t—” she said, the words quavering and breathless.

He closed the distance between them, his powerful frame so close she could feel the heat radiating from it. For a moment she wanted nothing more than to curl herself around him and let that delicious warmth envelop her, just like Toby, who slept so peacefully before the fire.

She stared up at him, finding his hazel eyes unreadable.

“Can’t. Or won’t?”

“Both,” she said, putting up her chin.

He let out a breath that fluttered over her, the faint scent of a fine cigar lingering. “Ah, well. It was worth a try.”

Angel’s eyes widened. “You… You aren’t going to interrogate me?”

“Interrogate? Oh, no. Far too much bother,” he said lazily.

She watched, senses on alert, as his large hand lifted to her cheek, the back of his fingers stroking gently.

“So soft,” he murmured, reaching for the lock of hair that had escaped and twining it around his fingers. “I love your hair. Black as a crow’s wing. Like silk.”

Angel swallowed, her heart doing a wild dance in her chest. Yes, yes, yes, the wicked little thing said excitedly, as heat bloomed low in her belly.

Aware that she was going to get no help from her own feeble sense of self-preservation because she had clearly inherited her grandfather’s lack of morals, Angel glanced anxiously towards Toby.

“Oh, you’ll get no help from that quarter, love,” he said, his low laugh doing dreadful things to her pulse. “He sleeps like the dead. There’s only one thing that can save you.”

“Wh-What is it?” she asked, though she was not at all certain she cared.

“One word,” he whispered, leaning in and nuzzling her ear. “Stop.”

Stop. The word buzzed about in Angel’s brain like a drunken bee, but that useless organ had melted into nothing more than warm honey, and the word slowed and got stuck and finally sank into the quagmire along with her wits.

His fingers settled beneath her chin, raising it and her breath hitched as he brushed his lips over hers.

Angel lit up. Every nerve, every fibre of her being attuned to the place where his mouth touched hers, so… so gently. Only the flutter of a butterfly’s wing, but the exquisite brush of his lips was followed by another, and another. One kiss became the next, and the one after, until a thousand kisses became one long, drugging kiss that surged through her veins, more potent than brandy, more dangerous than opium.