Page 38 of A Winter Scandal

He roared with laughter.

“Oh!” Thea clapped a hand to her mouth. “I should not have said that. It was most … most …”

“Inappropriate? It was clever, my dear girl.” He picked up one of her hands and brought it to his lips. “And that is exactly why I find it so enjoyable to talk to you.”

She could not really feel his lips; after all, a glove was between his mouth and her skin. But her hand tingled nevertheless. Thea pulled her hand back and folded it with her other in her lap. She should really make a protestation against his familiar gesture. She should explain that her wit had carried her away, that she had never kissed other men, as her tart retort had implied.

Instead she said only, “You do?”

“Enjoy talking with you? Of course. I would not, otherwise. You are quite right in what you thought of me from the beginning. I am a thoroughly selfish man, and I am given to my pleasures. I rarely do anything that does not please me.”

“I do not think that is true.” Thea met his gaze. “If you were a selfish man, you would not be driving through the cold, trying to discover who left a baby at the church.”

He looked at her oddly. “In what way do I not act in my own interest? It may be my sister’s child.”

“There are a number of men who would not try to find their sister in this instance, knowing the possibility of scandal it could bring. Who would not want the child.”

“No, I am not one of those men. If that raises me in your estimation, then I am fortunate.” He paused, then his mouth quirked up again. “Has it raised me enough to call me Gabriel?”

Thea could not help but chuckle. “You are a most persistent man. It would be terribly forward for me to call you by your given name. I have known you less than a week.”

“Not true. Not true at all. By your own admission, you have known me for over ten years. It seems to me that I should be considered an old friend.”

Thea rolled her eyes. “What a complete hand you are! We met almost eleven years ago and have not spoken since. Scarcely a friend.”

“A family friend, then. I have been friends with your cousin since we were boys.”

“My second cousin. Whom I have seen only little more often than I have seen you the past ten years.”

“You are a most difficult woman. Call me Lord Morecombe, then, if you must. But I shall call you Althea.”

“Pray, do not. No one calls me Althea except for older ladies who have known me my whole life and do not know me at all.”

“Ah. Well, I shouldn’t like to belong to that category. So what should I call you? Let me think …” He studied her for a moment.

Thea shifted under his scrutiny and turned her face away, aware of a vague fear that he would somehow see too much in her.

“I think I shall call you Thea.”

She whipped back around to gape at him. “How did you know?”

“Is that what you are called?” He smiled. “’Twas only a guess. But it seemed to suit you better.”

She shrugged. “It is what my brother and sister call me.”

“Thea.” He tried the name again. “I like it.”

She should not warm to the sound of her name on his tongue, Thea knew, but she did. How could her name seem so different when he said it? So warm and intimate? And why was it that all the inappropriate things Morecombe did were enjoyable?

“So when I say, ‘Thea,’ will you reply, ‘Lord Morecombe’?”

“You are being absurd.”

“Not I. I think it is the Lord Morecombe that will be absurd.”

“Perhaps I shall endeavor simply not to call you anything.”

“Clearly you haven’t the least concern about wounding my feelings.”