Page 14 of Again, Scoundrel

Violet’s eyes flew open, and they stared at each other for a long, charged moment before he took hold of his cravat in both hands and ripped it. The sound of the rending fabric was startling in the quiet of the library.

“Silk,” he said brusquely and held the torn piece out to her, before moving back to the desk all the way across the room and resuming his lean.

“Tell me, Miss Goodwin,” he said out of nowhere. “What do you know of bullet wounds?”

“My lord?” She was thoroughly discombobulated by the sudden shift in his mood. He was too close one moment and too far away the next. She felt like a plaything, a mouse Raspberry might toy with for his own amusement.

“You said earlier that your scratch was not a bullet wound. Was it a manner of speech, or do you know something about bullet wounds?”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

Not this conversation again.

“I am a nurse,” she said and waited for the response she knew was coming. Confusion at first, then perhaps a jest, as if she couldn’t be serious, followed by thinly veiled derision, or sometimes anger.

“Why nursing?”

“Why not? Because my family is wealthy? Or because women should not practice medicine?” Her short laugh was cold and hard. “I’ve heard all the reasons, my lord. None of them signify.”

Alistair arched that single eyebrow at her. “I was asking what appeals to you about nursing. It’s not something you have to do. Ergo, it’s something you want to do. And I’d like to know why.”

“Is this an interrogation?”

He shook his head again. “No.” For a moment he looked chagrined. “Forgive me. My manners have fallen into disrepair.”

Violet felt as if her mind had been thoroughly tousled, tossed around like a heap of laundry. She couldn’t understand how he switched from hot to cold so quickly, a different man with a different meaning from one sentence to the next. From one moment to the next.

She needed to put an end to this conversation, and fortunately, she knew exactly how to do that.

“I want to be a nurse because someone I loved died. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get back before I am missed.”

“Violet,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“How could you? You would need a constancy of attention, my lord, to learn anything about another human being. And if there is any descriptor for you, constancy is not it.”

“No,” he admitted, and she would have sworn hurt flashed in his eyes. “It certainly is not.” But then he gave a hearty laugh as if the whole interlude had been nothing but a joke.

“If you’ll excuse me,” she muttered and left the room.

Chapter

5

Alistair left the Somerville dinner immediately after Violet had run from him. He didn’t blame her. He’d acted like a complete Bedlamite. Pulling her into the darkened library was his first mistake. And then, before he knew it, he was cradling her hand in his. And even through the haze of too much drink, he’d felt the thump of his heart when he touched her.

His thumb had brushed her palm when he was cleaning her wounds, and Lord help him, he was stunned to find the skin there rough and callused. The discovery made his groin tighten, which stunned him even more. She used those hands, unlike the other too delicate ladies of the ton, who could not be bothered to so much as lift a finger except to embroider. Violet Goodwin worked. She knew about bullet wounds. And when he’d questioned her about her choices, she’d dressed him down in exactly the way he deserved.

He didn’t know what to make of her or the strange pang he’d felt in his chest when she’d called him inconstant. And while he might like to think it was the whisky or the run-in with his father that had rattled him, he knew it wasn’t true. It was Violet. She’d done something to him.

He hailed a hack to carry him into London’s center, unnerved. He’d almost kissed her again. He’d looked into her bright blue eyes and seen them change to a dark sapphire that told him she was aroused. He wanted to know what color they were when she orgasmed. He wanted to know what those clever working fingers could do. He’d wanted to understand why she had become a nurse of all things when there was no reason for it.

Worst of all, he wanted to kiss her in a way that he’d never before wanted to kiss a female of the beaumonde, because the ladies of the ton were not for him. He would not become a part of their world; that much had been clear to him when he’d fled at the age of fifteen. And it was only that knowledge that had caused him to step back from her. To deny them both what they’d wanted. Because in that moment before she’d closed her sapphire eyes, he’d seen the desire in her face.

Violet Goodwin would have let him kiss her. She would have welcomed that kiss.

He growled deep in his throat. He couldn’t afford that kind of distraction now. He needed to concentrate on finding capital as soon as possible. He’d been in town a month already and had shown nothing for his efforts but a rapidly dwindling bank account and a burgeoning issue with drink. He couldn’t stay in London a moment longer than he had to. Tonight would be the last night. He’d find some doxy to slake his desires, and come tomorrow, he’d press harder in his campaign to win his father’s investment.

He passed his usual gentleman’s club and burrowed deeper into the seedier parts of London. The last thing he wanted was to spend the remainder of his evening with gentlemen from the ton. It was other kinds of company he desired now. Bawdy sailors, off-duty flash gentry, a willing lady. Those who wouldn’t look twice at his rumpled, torn, and hastily re-knotted remainder of a cravat that smelled of whisky and of Violet. The scent of her wafting up from his neck to his nostrils was driving him to distraction. Every time he caught a breath of it, his body reacted.