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He reached out and skimmed his fingers down the bare flesh of her arm between her sleeve and her glove, wishing his hand was bare so that he might feel her skin. He’d guess that it was achingly soft.
“But you are a proper lady and I am not at all a proper lord and—” He’d expected her to look relieved. He was giving her a very good explanation of why he’d been quiet but she didn’t seem to enjoy his reassurances at all. In fact her features tightened, pain crinkling the corner of her eyes. “What are you thinking?”
“You don’t have to give me excuses. I know who I am and what men think of me.”
There it was again. Another assertion that she was inferior or unwanted.
“You’ve no idea what I think of you.”
Her eyes widened at that, those lush lips parting as she looked up at him.
“Foremost, I think you’re beautiful.”
Her mouth dropped open even wider, her body going very still.
He should stop. None of what he was about to say would help him. In fact, it would make the next steps with her brother far more difficult, but he couldn’t seem to make himself be quiet. That fact should have concerned him, control was his most reliable trait and he had too little in her company. In a matter of minutes, she’d worked past so many of his usual defenses. “I think you’re warm and sweet, and your back has the loveliest curve I’ve ever touched.”
Just when he thought her eyes couldn’t go any wider, she blinked them rapidly, suddenly looking away. “Do go on.”
He smiled at that. Just a small smile as he looked down at her. As much as he enjoyed saying the words, he realized she desperately needed to hear them, and he wished to make her happy. “I think I’d like to kiss you.”
Her breath caught and held, and for a moment he worried she might not breathe until she let it out all in a rush. “That is…”
“But I also think your brother would sooner hang me than allow me to court you. As I already have an entire family to care for, and as I’m not doing a particularly good job of it, I’d be foolish to start anything new.”
“Oh,” she said again, lower and flatter, her regret evident in the single word. Did she want him too? Damn, but that made the aching need to touch her back again even more difficult to resist.
But as the two matrons who’d caught the baron in conversation shuffled off, Ace realized this was his chance. Much as he’d like to talk with Emily all night, he had a mission to complete. And if there was one trait he liked about himself it was that he’d do nearly anything for his family.
