The Perfect Scandal. Delilah Marvelle
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you here? Are you in some sort of peril? Answer me. I want to know.”
He really was rather serious and imposing in nature, wasn’t he? She couldn’t decide if he tried to be or simply was. “Peril? No. Not likely. Otherwise I would have been assigned guards, as opposed to annoying servants. As for why I am here …?”
She shrugged against her crutches. “The saints above are only privy to that. Since the passing of my mother four years ago, I have been the victim of broken half truths spooned to me by my overly patriotic cousin. At first, I was told I needed to escape an impending uprising, only to arrive in London and discover I am being forced to wed instead. Though I sought to oppose it, my cousin threatened by courier that I would be escorted to France by summer’s end if I did not cooperate. And so here I am, cooperating.”
He hesitated. “And what in France are you so opposed to?”
She sighed, dreading the thought of it. “There is a convent in Amiens. Karol wishes to place a habit upon me.”
“A habit?” He eyed her. “That is preposterous. A beautiful woman such as yourself deserves to be admired by far more than God.”
Zosia let out an astonished laugh, amused by the dry deliverance of his flattery. Usually men offered a cocky stance, a smile or a twinkle of the eye to go along with flattery, but he tossed it at her as if he had just read it in the newspaper. “That sounded rather blasphemous. Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
He held her gaze and purposefully lowered his voice. “Take it to mean whatever you wish.”
Her stomach flipped at the simmering heat lacing those words. Why was it that whenever he was around, she wanted to crawl inside his head and understand him in a way she didn’t usually care to know a man?
He tossed his top hat off to the side, causing it to roll toward one of the walls. “I cannot have you standing about like this. Come.” He slipped his arm around her corseted waist, yanking her toward himself, and then pried her crutches from her fingers, sending each clattering to the marble floor at their feet.
She grabbed hold of the lapels on his morning coat, balancing herself on her one leg and froze, realizing her breasts and her body were pressing against his hard, broad frame in a very provocative manner.
His other hand slid around her waist, holding her more firmly against him as strands of his auburn hair fell into his eyes. “There. Better?”
She dared not move or look up into his eyes, lest she forget the words she needed to speak. She hated how vulnerable he was making her feel. “Better for you, I suppose. I am the one at a disadvantage. I am asking you to return my crutches to me at once, if you please.”
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