Page 45 of Engaging Sir Isaac

“What point, sir?” She kept the tremble from her voice. “Your behavior is too forward, Mr. Weston.” It was better to sound coy, to bat her lashes at him and smile.

His smirk grew until she saw the flash of his teeth. “Am I? You have made certain I am aware of your interest, Miss Wedgewood. Your attention has been mine since the moment we were introduced last evening. Every excuse to be near me has been made. I was rather surprised you did not manage to find a way into my coach.”

He came closer, lowering his voice. “Perhaps you might find your way into my quarters tonight.”

Millie’s head went back, her bonnet crushed against the stone. “You are mistaken, sir. My interest in you was not at all inappropriate—”

“What else would it be?” he asked, his much larger body growing closer to hers. “I could never court you. Everyone knows about your family. But if you wish for my favor—”

Millie was much smaller than he was. She often detested her stature, but it occurred to her to drop when he bent with the intention of kissing her. She did not even lose her balance, hardly having to duck to get beneath the cage of his arms.

Mr. Weston stumbled in his surprise, his face hitting the stone wall. He snarled, and Millie turned to flee, but he caught her arm. “Little vixen, full of tricks. That is what you remind me of, with that hair of yours. Shall we play at fox hunt?” He drew her against his chest, and Millie sucked in a breath in preparation to scream.

Would anyone hear her?

Would anyone bother to come if they did?

“I enjoy a good fox hunt.” The words, calmly spoken, came from behind Millie. But she recognized the voice. She knew it at once. That wry tone, the rich timbre. Sir Isaac Fox. “Of course, it is the wrong season for it.”

Mr. Weston slowly released Millie and stepped back, his eyes fixed on a point over her shoulder where Sir Isaac stood. “Have you a reason to skulk about here, Fox?”

“I do.” He paused, the silence heavy with unspoken words. Was he glaring at Mr. Weston as she imagined? Millie longed to turn, to rush directly into him, where she might tuck herself against his side and find safety. But she kept still. Like a true fox. No sudden movements.

Apparently, Mr. Weston took Isaac’s measure and determined he had no wish to test the baronet’s reasons for appearing so suddenly. His eyes flickered briefly to Millie’s, the heat in them greatly diminished. “Perhaps we will discuss medieval churches another time, Miss Wedgewood.”

Though she wished to slap his conceited face, to snarl at him, or to kick him as hard as possible upon his shins, Millie answered him with nothing more than a tight nod. He did not even bow before vanishing from her sight.

Millie shuddered and went to the wall again, leaning against it for support, and keeping her back to her rescuer. How humiliating, for him to find her in such a compromising position. For the second time in her life, Millie had faced the attack of a man and only escaped by someone else’s arrival in time to save her. The first time, when Lord Carning had come at her in anger, insisting she give him what her sister denied him, it had been Sarah who had saved her.

“Foolish,” she whispered, wiping the perspiration from her hairline with her glove.

“I agree,” Isaac said from behind her. “Completely foolish. What were you thinking, going off alone with a man of Weston’s reputation?”

Millie turned, her back against the stone. Isaac stood a handful of steps away and glared at her from beneath the brim of his hat, his jaw tight.

“I did not know his reputation,” she admitted. “And I had my reasons.”

“Did you? I am intensely curious as to what they could be.” She noted his hand had curled into a fist at his side, as though he still readied for a fight.

“It is none of your affair, Sir Isaac,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. Then Millie tipped her chin upward, tired of her place as victim. “I had the situation quite under control. The man only meant to take a kiss. Many a lady gives her kisses away without thought.”

“Are you such a lady?” he asked, one eyebrow arching upward.

“Have you ever stolen a kiss?”

A laugh escaped him, deep and short. “Never, Miss Wedgewood. Though I have accepted a few that were freely given. That did not appear to be the case here.”

“Perhaps it was,” she said airily, pushing herself from the wall. “Perhaps I meant to let him have the kiss, and I meant to make him think he must take it.”

Rather than appear frustrated, or defeated, Sir Isaac’s expression fell into something like sorrow. “Then you do not know the first thing about giving or receiving affection, Miss Wedgewood.”

Her throat closed, and it took Millie several swallows before she trusted herself to speak. “I know enough. I certainly know how to kiss.” She bit her tongue.

Sir Isaac’s lips quirked and he leaned closer to her to whisper, “‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’”

“You are a horrid man,” she whispered back, glaring at him.

“I thought we were friends.” He came closer, so the distance between them was less than what was acceptable in a ballroom. “But perhaps not. Perhaps, instead, I ought to join the fox hunt. Since you are so liberal with your kisses, Miss Wedgewood, might you give one to me?”