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Danny.The man had been so familiar with her. There’d been something there. “Who is he to you?”
Her throat worked, and he willed her to speak, holding back what he suspected. What he knew.
Trust me.
“He is my father’s right hand.”
He waited for a long moment, wanting to ask a thousand questions. Finally, he let it go. “Is there a mirror?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
His brows rose. “That bad, is it?”
She smiled. “You shall mend.”
“Show me.”
While she considered the request, Adelaide worried the edge of her lower lip, and Henry resisted the urge to lean in and kiss her. Finally, she nodded, turning away to her bag, and after a lengthy search within, produced a pocket mirror, smaller than his palm.
It reflected well enough, however, and he grimaced at the wicked bruising where Billy had landed a decent blow. “Christ. That’s hideous.”
“Shh,” she said, and he found he liked the little laugh in her words.
He matched her smile. “All I can hope is that he looks worse than I do.”
“Oh, I’m sure he does,” she said. “Do not fret. In no time, the ladies of London will titter and swoon to see the stern Duke of Clayborn returned with a handsome bump in his nose.”
He lowered the looking glass, keenly aware of how fully unhandsome the bruising was. “Is that what women dream of? Broken bones?”
“It’s not the broken bone. It’s the idea that you might have gotten it—” She stopped as quickly as she’d started.
He tilted his head. “Go on.”
She shook her head.
He extended the mirror to her, and when she reached for it, pulled her close, to stand between his thighs. “Tell me. Tell me the secret ways of women.”
She laughed at the words, and reached out to push a lock of his hair behind his ear, almost absently, as though she didn’t even know she was doing it. The soft stroke of her fingertips along his temple set fire coursing through him, aching for that stroke in other places.
“It’s just... we wonder where the nose was broken. Under which circumstances. Were you hero of the play? Or villain? And if you were hero... were you fighting for another?”
The last question faded away, until it was more breath than sound.
He met her eyes. “I was.”
She nodded. “That break... it’s...”
Her hands were on his shoulders now, soft and warm, her touch a lick of temptation. She wasn’t moving, but God, he wanted her to. “What is it, Adelaide?”
“It’s not hideous,” she said. “It’s not. It’s...”
He would give his entire fortune for her to finish that sentence. He ran his hands over her sides, tracing over her curves, memorizing the feel of her. The shape of her. The way her breath came ragged in her chest like it betrayed her. “Tell me.”
“It’s mine.”
Yes. He was hers.
He would soon sort out how to make her his, but this was a start.
