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“Exactly so.”
She nodded and gave her shoulders a slow roll, settling into the new position. Valentine turned so that the stick was pointing to his back. Before she could blink, he waved his hands slightly in the air as if surrendering, then he stepped in, rotated, and snatched her wrist before breaking her hold on the makeshift weapon in a hard downward motion. “You’re smaller than I am, so put all your weight forward and slam downward as hard as you can. If his finger is in the trigger, you can break it by twisting the gun. Now you try.”
Watching her repeat the simple moves shouldn’t have made him aroused, but it did. Her slim fingers closed over his wrist with enough force to make his breath hiss through his teeth. She did everything with precision and she took his direction exceptionally well. Would she be as compliant and biddable in an actual bed? He snorted. She’d be a tigress in bed as she was with everything else, and he wouldn’t change a thing. Not that there was any intimate future for them in beds or otherwise. She’d turned his proposal down.
Whyhad she? The solution was both logical and pragmatic.
Matters of the heart are never pragmatic.
Was that it? Did she expect sonnets and odes of undying devotion? She didn’t seem like the type, but she’d spoken of a dream of a husband once. Then again, he didn’t really know Lady Bronwyn Chase. Had he truly ever known the real her?
“What if one of them shoots if I choose to run?” she asked.
“Chances are they will miss a moving target,” he said with a serious expression. “Another technique is to try to distract them before running. That was the reason I wiggled my hands before in a show of surrender. That second of distraction was critical. Throw anything you have at them. A reticule, a bonnet, anything, and then run.”
Though the image of her in mortal danger made him feel sick to his stomach, Valentine sucked in a breath. He wanted to treat her as though she were made of crystal, like every other lady in theton, but at every turn, Bronwyn showed that she was not breakable. That underneath all that softness, all that upper-crust decorum, she was made of forged steel.
“I won’t let you out of my sight, Bronwyn, or let it get to that point,” he vowed. “I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe.”
Her lips quirked. “No person can be everywhere at all times, but I am grateful that you’re here, Lord Spy.” She stared down at the ground and twirled the stick between her fingers.
“Why don’t you want to marry me?” he asked softly.
She glanced at him. “This again?”
“Answer,” he said. “Please.”
He saw her shoulders lift, the curve of her cheek as she took her lips between her teeth in aggravation. “Because it’s not for the right reasons.”
“You don’t care for your safety?”
A pair of luminous blue eyes met his when she turned to face him. “Now that you’ve not deemed me your foe for the moment, I know you will protect me, no matter what, Your Grace, whether I have the protection of your name or not. You just promised you would. For the sake of your friendship with my brother or perhaps the little that you care for me as a friend.”
“We are more than friends.”
“Are we?” she whispered, standing so close he could reach out and touch the silky brown curl that had slipped from her bun.
If you get arrested, as your husband, I cannot be used against you.
The words were on the tip of his tongue, but he did not say them. When the truth came out, once they were back in London, it could go any which way. If the handler in the British service was a turncoat, she would be guilty by association. If they weren’t and he had apprehended her, he would look the fool. He’d take the latter any day.
“I only want to protect you, Bronwyn,” he said in a low rasp when she closed the distance between them, the scent of her—cinnamon, apples, and forest air—crowding his nostrils and making his chest constrict. Then again, everything about her enticed him. The way she moved. The way she smiled. The way her sharp eyes stared him down as if they knew every one of his secrets.
So much so that he wanted to take her in his arms and show her without words how he felt. That his true reasons for marriage were the most selfish ones of all. He wanted her for himself, not in the arms of that ingratiating, knuckle-kissing marquis. Besides, as her husband, she would be bound to listen to him. The thought filled him with dry amusement. Who was he fooling? Bronwyn would do whatever Bronwyn wanted to do.
Her irises flared as her lips grazed his in the smallest, meanest of kisses.
God, he wanted to slip that kiss into her mouth. Take it deeper. Lose himself in the tart bite of her. But she pulled away, and he let her go.
“I can protect myself, Your Grace, and now you’ve made certain I’m as prepared as I can be.” She said it as if she had more to say, but then her lips firmed and her lashes dropped to hide her expression from him.
“Bronwyn.”
“Valentine,” she shot back mockingly and stared at him.
He stared into the blue fire of her gaze and let out an aggravated breath. God save him from headstrong women. This wasn’t a battle he would win right then, but he would do whatever was necessary to protect her from herself.
Eighteen
