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“It’s been known to happen,” he goaded, in order to watch the color heighten in her cheeks.
“Allow me to assure you that I have never swooned, not once in my life, and I don’t intend to begin now just because you’ll be a duke and you’re almost stupidly handsome and your buckskin breeches are tight enough to—” She bit her lower lip, her cheeks flushing, as if she hadn’t meant to say all of that out loud.
“Please, by all means, finish your sentence,” Nick drawled.
Miss Tombs turned her back on him and gazed out the window.
“My breeches are tight enough to...” he prompted, moving closer. “Turn a girl’s head? Give a lady ideas?”
She wheeled around, swirling the lace of her hem into motion. “Cause permanent damage.”
Nick chuckled appreciatively.
He was beginning to like her unusually bawdy sense of humor. She certainly talked about a man’s private parts more than your ordinary young miss.
If he had to be locked in a library with a lady, she might as well make him laugh.
And he might as well make her blush.
He was beginning to enjoy making her blush.
Drawing the edges of his cutaway coat back even further with his fists, and drawing her gaze right where he wanted it, he struck a wide-legged stance.
“You seem to have quite a fascination with my... anatomy, Miss Tombs. That’s the second time you’ve mentioned the subject today.”
She jerked her gaze away from his crotch, her cheeks nearly a match for her dress.
“You’re insufferably arrogant. Not all young ladies are fascinated by your anatomy or your title.”
“More’s the pity. And here I was beginning to think we might suit after all.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh no. We don’t suit. Not at all. A wife would be a dreadful impediment to your aimless life of debauchery.”
“An impediment, Miss Tombs?” His gaze lingered on her cupid’s bow of a mouth. Had she ever been kissed? She set her lips into a thin line and glared at him. Probably not, he decided. “Or an enhancement.”
Maybe it was the lingering effects of last night’s brandy, or the two hours of sleep, but a reckless idea occurred to him.
Reckless, amoral, and probably extremely ill-advised.
Like all his best ideas.
Maybe the pretty-yet-prickly Miss Tombs was the solution.
A temporary engagement could buy Nick the time he needed to find Stubbs and determine the truth of this situation. There had to be a way out of this predicament that allowed Nick to keep both Sunderland and his freedom.
Engagements were broken regularly in the haut ton. As evidenced by what had happened with his friend James, Duke of Harland. He’d left his pedigreed bride at the altar and married her illegitimate half sister. Now the two ladies were, improbably, the best of friends.
Nick didn’t want to hurt Miss Tombs, of course.
He’d end it well before the altar.
The more he thought about it, and the more sherry he drank, the more a temporary engagement seemed like just the thing.
Now... to convince Miss Tombs to see things his way.
He’d never had any difficult convincing women to do exactly what he required of them.
He gave her one of his patented slow-burning smiles.
