Page 20 of Reclaimed By Her Scottish Duke

“No.” She said it fast, before the thing in her chest could answer for her. “No. Absolutely not. That is precisely what I cannot do.”

“Cannot.” He paused. “Nae will not. Cannot. There’s a difference, and ye chose it carefully.”

“Do not do that.” Her hands stilled on the cloth. “Do not read me. You do not know the first thing about me.”

“Then tell me one true thing.” His voice gentled. “Ye owe me nothin’. But I’d sooner have one honest word from ye than a hundred pretty lies from every soul on that lawn.”

Rosaline turned back to the washstand, to her ruined skirt, to anything but those eyes reading her the way she read a difficult page.

“I must find a husband,” she said to the wall, and the plainness of it startled her. “A sensible one. A respectable, unremarkable, safe man with a safe name, who will lift my family a little and never once give this town a reason to laugh. I have two younger sisters, Your Grace, and every door that opens for them opens through me. So, whatever this is, whatever you imagine we left off, it cannot happen. I have nothing to spend on wanting things. I spent it all a long time ago.”

The room went quiet behind her.

For a moment, he said nothing at all, and she thought perhaps she had finally driven him out. She told herself the hollow thing that opened inside her at the thought was relief.

“A safe man with a safe name,” the Duke said slowly, and there was something new and unreadable underneath it now. “Aye, I ken exactly the sort ye mean.”

She did not turn around. She could not have said just then which of them the words had wounded more.

CHAPTER 9

“Ye want them to hang on yer every word. That’s the whole of it, aye? Ye want to walk into a room and have the men in it lean toward ye instead of straight past.”

Rosaline did not answer, which was answer enough.

Magnus leaned a shoulder against the doorframe and let himself look at her properly, now that the worst of her temper had banked.

She was a wreck, and she was worth looking at anyway, which struck him as a fact worth turning over in his mind.

Mud to the wrist on one hand, a smear of it dried along her jaw, her hair coming loose at one temple where she had shoved at it. And under all of that, still smoldering, was the thing that had flared up when she rounded on him a moment ago and called him arrogant to his face.

He had spent a fortnight among people made entirely of surface. Here was a woman with a banked fire in her, hidden so far down that half of London had decided she was made of marble, and the puzzle of that pulled at him more than any pretty face on the lawn outside.

That was all it was. A pull. He was not foolish enough to name it anything grander.

“You know nothing about what I want,” she scoffed.

“I ken ye read that whole maze by the roots of its hedges when a garden of clever men couldnae find the center. I ken ye cut me down to size in a corridor with three sentences. And I ken that the moment there’s an audience, all of that goes and hides.” He tilted his head. “It’s nae that ye’ve nothin’ to say, lass. It’s that ye’ve never once been taught how to say it where they can hear ye.”

Her chin lifted a fraction. He had her attention now, whatever she meant to do with it.

“And I suppose you mean to teach me.”

“I mean to strike a bargain with ye.” He pushed off the doorframe. “Here’s me trouble, and I’ll give it to ye plain, since ye gave me yers: I say the true thing when the room wants the smooth one, I insult an earl before the soup’s gone cold, and every misstep costs me somethin’ I cannae afford to lose. I need to learn this town. Its rules. The wee coded nonsense the rest of ye drink in with yer maithers’ milk that marks a man an outsider the moment he gets it wrong.” He spread his hands. “And ye ken all of it. Ye’ve spent three Seasons watchin’ from the wall, and I’d wager there’s nae a rule in that garden ye couldnae recite in yer sleep.”

“Watching is not the same as⁠—”

“So teach me the watchin’. The rules, the ranks, the whole daft dance.” He held her eyes. “And I’ll teach ye the other half. How to hold a man’s attention a beat past comfortable. How to say less and make him lean in for more. How to walk into a room and have every one of those fools forget their own name. Ye want their attention, Rosaline. I can put it in yer hand. That’s me offer. Yer polish for mine.”

For a moment, she only stared at him, and he watched the whole proposal work through her, watched the clever part of her turn it over even as the proper part reared back.

Then the proper part won, as he had known it would, at least to start.

“Lessons.” She said the word as though it tasted of something spoiled. “You are proposing that I take lessons. From you. Have you lost your senses entirely, or do you simply assume every woman you corner is desperate enough to be ruined by a man like—” She stopped, her color rising. “I will not. I have no intention of letting you ruin me, Your Grace, for sport or for anything else.”

Magnus laughed; he could not help it, and the sound of it filled the small room.

“Ruin ye?” He shook his head. “Lass, I’ve no intention of ruinin’ anyone. Ye’ve me word on that, same as the rest. I’ll nae lay a finger on ye that ye daenae ask me to.” He let a beat pass, deliberate. “And if ye ever do ask, I’ll want it in plain words, so there’s no mistakin’ the matter.”