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She put up a palm. He hadn’t realized he was taking a step closer. He retreated.

“No matter how distasteful it may be for both of us,” she said, eyes blazing, “I am hoping you will agree to see me to Greenwich again. If I do not take the child’s wellbeing into my own hands, I fear no one will. That is simply not an option.”

“Of course I’ll take you, but what is it you intend to do?”

“I’m going to apply to the men in charge. I’d like to be Barnard’s guardian.”

His jaw slackened. “What?”

She grew taller, sharper, in both form and tone. “Why shouldn’t I? People exert their power for less noble means every day, and I’ll not have you making light of such a dire situation. I have put my mind to it and I will see it through. I’m ashamed to put the request to you, but I’m afraid I need your help.”

Rafe stepped toward her. Purposefully, this time. She retreated, once, twice, until her hands found the edge of the shelf. Her lips tightened.

“I have only one issue with the scheme. Why are you putting this to me as though I’m an unwilling villain?” He searched her face, inch after inch. Whatever this was, it felt like more than a scrap. He had given much of himself already, he realized. “You know I care for the child’s welfare. And I think you know, too, that I care for you. That means I’m forced to take a vested interest in all your schemes.”

“I don’t ordinarily scheme,” she said through clenched teeth, but her voice was growing soft about the edges, sonorous and penetrating. Her eyes momentarily dipped to his mouth.

“Really, now?” He raised a brow.

She frowned. “You’re a fine one to judge, Mr. Balfour, with that foul stunt you pulled yesterday.”

He closed the space. His legs brushed the length of hers. His head titled down, their mouths close enough to catch each other’s breaths. “That wasn’t a scheme. I hadn’t anything to do with it. You and me, in the hall, that was real. I’ll take ownership of that.”

“And I’m supposed to just believe you?” Her hands fidgeted, clenching and unclenching on the shelf edge. He took up the one that was still gloved, and plucked at the fabric covering her fingertips. The fifth tug bared her skin to him.

“Yes.” He lifted her fingers to his mouth, brushing a kiss over her knuckles.

She ripped her hand free and planted her feet on the ground, bringing her face an inch from his. “You infuriate me.”

“I’m growing familiar with the sensation myself.” He smiled in spite of himself. He expected her to push him away, to slip out on either side and vanish until her more practical purposes brought them together again.

But she stayed.

They locked eyes, and her brow smoothed. A dark look came over her face, almost akin to agony. “Confound you,” she bit out. “And confound and curse your eyes.”

He laughed, feeling suddenly like his stomach was full of bubbling champagne, and grazed her jaw with the back of his hand. “What’s wrong with my eyes?”

Her own eyes fluttered closed at his touch, dark lashes dusting skin. “They make excuses for you.”

“Sorry about that.”

Seconds passed, his knuckles brushing the prominences of her face—the arc of her brow, the plush of her cheek, the sweep of her jaw—while she remained perfectly still, drawing breath. The pattern melded into something slower, more at ease, and he put his thumb against her lower lip.

She opened her eyes. Not agony any longer, but its bedfellow: want. “I am asking you to tell me now, if you are promised to her, Rafe.”

“I am not.” He was studying her lips, and when they parted, he blocked her next question with his forefinger. “I’ve no intention to propose to her, Sophie. I mean it.”

It was the truth. A reckless declaration that set every other facet of his life on its head, dangerously out of orbit. But in this one regard, here, with what was developing between them … It made this easier. Honest. Earnest.

She stretched on her toes and kissed him. The world reduced to the sound of their sharp, twinned inhalations, the rustle of their clothes as he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her against himself.

Her hands came to his throat and tore at the knots of his neckcloth. “I told myself if this ever happened again, I’d see more of you.”

He wanted to make some smart quip, express a fragment of how delighted that made him—she had been imagining this, just as he had—but his cravat came away in her hand, and the feel of her hands on his skin stole his breath, his words, his sense.

She kissed the hollow at the base of his throat. Edged her way to the side of his neck, her hair tickling his ear, and ran her tongue against his thundering pulse. His hands found the swell of her backside and squeezed. A man could live all his days this way and never grow tired.

“Put me against the wall,” she whispered between kisses. Her teeth nipped at his earlobe.