Page 12 of Again, Scoundrel

Is he foxed?

He wasn’t making sense. She eyed him and sniffed again. He certainly seemed to be foxed from the smell of him.

Violet wondered for a moment if she should be afraid. Was he erratic from the alcohol, or had he lost his wits since she’d last seen him?

Or perhaps he’d always been this way. That would explain the intensity of his attention and then his rapid disappearance from the balcony three years ago. She frowned at the memory, more annoyed than frightened.

“If you’ll excuse me,” she said briskly and took a step toward the door.

It was time for her to leave before they were discovered. Unfortunately, her movements awakened a fluffy white cat from its nap on a nearby settee. The animal jumped down and wound himself around her legs, halting her exit lest she kick the poor thing.

“That’s Raspberry,” Alistair said. “You’ve interrupted his sleep. Be aware, he will demand his remuneration.”

Violet leaned down to pet the fluffball, who had laid on the floor and rolled over, showing her his belly. “I apologize for waking you, Raspberry.”

The cat mewled loudly, an invitation for her to sink her fingers into the offered expanse of white fur and scratch.

“Be careful,” Alistair warned as Violet placed her hand on the cat’s exposed midsection. “He’s definitely an arsehead.”

Violet rubbed the tempting belly anyway, and out of nowhere, Raspberry’s four paws encircled her wrist and scratched. Hard.

“Ow!” Violet pulled her hand back to examine her wounds. “He did that on purpose!”

“I told you to watch out.” Alistair held out his hand for her scratched wrist. “He always demands his payment in blood. Let me see.”

“No,” Violet turned her hand over to examine the wound herself. “No need to concern yourself. Although some whisky to clean it off and a strip of linen to cover it would be appreciated. It’s no bullet wound, but we must be vigilant against infection.”

Alistair looked at her curiously, which she didn’t care for. “You’re staring, my lord.”

“I apologize.”

“Fine.” She gave a short, curt nod. “The linen and whisky, then, if you please.”

Alistair went to the sidebar and poured a glass of whisky, then reached up and removed his cravat, giving Violet a glimpse of his bronzed neck and chest where the material had just been. An untoward heat rushed through her at the sight.

“What are you doing?” she asked, averting her eyes and trying to suppress her body’s reaction to him. She knew the reaction for what it was—purely biological and nothing more.

Nothing I can’t handle.

Alistair held up one hand with his cravat in it and the other with the whisky bottle. “Linen and whisky, as my lady requested. Or rather silk and whisky. It will do, I presume?”

Violet harrumphed at him, still rather unnerved by his sudden state of undress.

He cocked that eyebrow at her. “Would you rather I wander out into the hallway and let them know we’ve been in here for several minutes alone and unchaperoned before I ask for a strip of linen?”

“I am one and twenty,” Violet said. “And here as a companion. I don’t need a chaperone.”

“I’m not so sure about that, Miss Goodwin. Left to your own devices, you have a way of finding yourself alone with me.”

Violet let loose another irritated huff of breath. “I may remind you, sir, that it is you who has endeavored to be alone with me and not the other way around.”

He gazed at her with those intense, dark eyes for a beat too long. “Perhaps I cannot help myself,” he said, causing Violet to shake her head.

The drink was obviously making him erratic. Ignoring her one moment, flirting the next. But then she realized he couldn’t really be flirting with her. He was making fun of her. Because of her dress and her hair and her comments about infection.

She’d recognized the strange look he’d given her; it was the same she’d encountered from countless numbers of New York’s society when she broached the subject of medicine.

“Come, let me help you,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “It will be easier with two hands.”