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“My mother—” she started.
“Say no more,” he replied. “I understand completely.”
But those words only loosened her tongue as she relaxed into his unexpected comradery. “She’s trying to marry me off to some unsuspecting lord and she was about to make an introduction. I just panicked.”
“You? Panicked? I don’t believe it. I thought you fearless.”
A small smile parted her lips. “I’m afraid it’s not true. I’ve had three unsuccessful seasons and now my mother has decided she’ll not allow me to remain unwed any longer. And I will confess to you that her plans fill me with fear and dread.”
“I see,” Alex answered, his tone as unreadable as his face. And then he took a step back.
She straightened, alarmed. “Are you leaving me?”
“Of course not,” he replied. “Jump down to me and I’ll catch you.”
“Jump?” she asked, a new fear making a lump rise in her throat. “Are you certain?”
“I am.” He raised his arms, spreading out his hands toward her. “I’ve got you.”
Drawing in a deep breath, she looked down at him for a moment. A more immediate fear making her breath catch. “I’m not sure I should.”
She’d prided herself on living her most realized life and this was the second time in recent memory that she’d allowed fear to hold her back.
Now she wondered if she was the brave and resourceful person she’d considered herself to be for most of her life.
Drawing in a large breath, she inched closer to the edge. He still looked quite far away. “There isn’t another way?”
“I could get a groom or a footman,” he said as he reached a little higher. “But I might be the tallest man here.”
He wasn’t wrong there. He’d always been tall. And even when he’d been a young man in his teens, he’d had broad shoulders. The sort that could catch a woman as she fell.
“I could hunt down a ladder.”
But that would mean alerting the staff…she’d rather her mother not learn of her adventure this evening.
Which was her last thought before she whispered. “All right. I’m ready.”
And then she let herself fall…
* * *
Tillie’ssoft curves were as unexpected as they were pleasant, Alex thought as her body careened into his, her hands landing on his shoulders a moment before he wrapped both his hands about her waist and pulled her against his front.
No, not pleasant, he corrected as her arms circled about his neck, her curves sliding down his front, her toes just touching the ground. Tillie had always been a force of nature.
Intelligent, witty, brave, and passionate, she’d managed to make him feel the fool on more than one occasion.
But with her body pressed to his, she was a force of a different kind. Molded to him, she fit him so perfectly that the air whooshed from his lungs.
She was thrilling to hold, he corrected as his arms tightened about her. “I’ve got you.”
“I…I’m aware,” she whispered back, her own voice sounding out of breath, her heart hammering against his chest.
Surely it was the fall that had her pulse accelerating, but the idea that it might be him settled deep in his chest, his own heart racing to meet hers.
Tillie.
She’d always upended him with her nearness and today was no exception. “Are you all right? Anything amiss?”
