One Magic Moment(26)
Author: Lynn Kurland

 

Tess almost felt sorry for him. Maybe he’d never come that close before to looking at his past while witnesses watched.

 

“I called your sister to find out where you were staying,” he said.

 

“Did you?” she asked in surprise. “She doesn’t have a listed number.”

 

“Your business does, though, and she was good enough to answer the phone.”

 

She shook her head with a weary smile. “Sorry. I’m not all here today.”

 

He took a deep breath, then clasped his hands behind his back. “Might I take you to dinner?”

 

“Is this another non-date?”

 

He started to speak, then shut his mouth and simply looked down at her.

 

“Am I bothering you again?” she asked. She wasn’t sure why she was so hell-bent on pushing him. There was just something terrible about knowing such a devastating secret about someone else yet keeping it to oneself. She wanted to blurt out that she knew it all, that he was no longer alone.

 

But she imagined if she did, he would hightail it out of there and she would never see him again. If there was one thing she was utterly certain of, it was that John de Piaget would never willingly divulge his secrets.

 

At the moment, she wasn’t sure she wanted him to.

 

She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. You drove a very long way to do something nice for me. I would love to come on a non-date with you tonight, but I already have plans.”

 

“Do you?”

 

“With the Viscount Haulton,” she said with as little emotion as she could possibly put into her words. She should have left it at that, but she found that she just couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if we made it a trio.”

 

John wasn’t biting. “How about breakfast?” he countered.

 

“I have a lecture to give.”

 

“Lunch tomorrow, then.”

 

“I have a train to catch.”

 

“I’ll drive you home.”

 

She looked at him seriously. “I thought we weren’t going to do this.”

 

“We aren’t doing anything—”

 

She might have felt sorry for him that his life was full of nothing but his ridiculously expensive rocket on wheels, his unpleasant gig at a major recording studio, and his appalling good looks that no doubt felled every breathing female within a fifty-mile radius of himself at any moment, but she’d had enough of being good enough to take to lunch and for a ride in his car only so long as she knew her place.

 

Damn him to hell.

 

“Good-bye, John,” she said curtly.

 

He caught her as she brushed past him.

 

She supposed there had been a few things in her life that had just about done her in. Pippa’s leaving. The first time she’d put the key in the door of her very own great hall. Seeing John de Piaget on the street in her village.

 

Having him touch her hand.

 

Again.

 

“I’m . . . uncomfortable around nobility,” he said, finally.

 

She just bet he was. She also imagined she could make a very long list of other things that he was uncomfortable around, beginning and ending with committing for any length of time to the same woman. She didn’t look at him.

 

“Stephen and I were going to see a film. Too dark and public for any noble conversation.” She paused. “You could take a date. I’m sure you wouldn’t have any trouble digging one up.”

 

He didn’t move, but he rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand.

 

Just once.

 

“No,” he said finally.

 

“No to the film, or no to taking a date?” she asked, because she was an idiot.

 

“No to taking a date,” he said very quietly.

 

She pulled her hand away, though that about killed her, too. “I gave my word to him, and I don’t break my word.”

 

He took a deep breath. “Breakfast, then—nay, you have class. Lunch, then.”

 

She turned to look at him, then. “Just lunch?”

 

He shot her a look. “A lunch date, Tess.”

 

She discovered abruptly that it was much easier to deal with him when he was snarling at her. “That’s Dr. Alexander to you, buster,” she managed.

 

He looked at her in surprise, then seemed to realize she was teasing him. Some of the tension went out of him. “As you will, then, Dr. Alexander. I’ll come listen in on your class, then we’ll go find sustenance.”

 

“I don’t date students.”

 

His mouth fell open, then he shut it with a snap and his eyes narrowed. “I’m about to let you take the train home.”

 

“I’ve done it before.”

 

He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I know, but you won’t tomorrow. I’ll find you tomorrow after your class. And I’ll wait now until you are safely inside. And tell that bloody friend of yours to pick you up and drop you off right here at your door else he’ll answer to me.”

 

“He’s a gentleman.”

 

“I imagine he is, damn him to hell,” he muttered. He looked at her, then made shooing motions. “Go on, woman. Go inside.”

 

“Are you always this bossy?”

 

“I’m protective.”

 

“Awfully protective of someone you don’t like.”

 

He looked at her evenly. “I never said I didn’t like you, Tess.”

 

“You said I bothered you.”

 

“Two entirely different things, love.”

 

She was tempted to call Stephen and tell him to get lost, but she was afraid if she did, she would do something stupid, like throw herself in John de Piaget’s arms and tell him that she now understood why her sister had fallen so hard for his brother in such a short time.

 

“Be nicer to me tomorrow,” she advised.

 

He lifted an eyebrow. “I haven’t begun to be nice to you.”

 

And that, she could safely say, was one of the more terrifying things he’d ever said to her. She walked away while she still could, though she made the mistake of turning and looking before she shut the door. John was leaning against the wrought-iron fence with his arms folded over his chest, watching her.