Victoria rocked back on her haunches, tossing his arm aside, irritated to the soles of her leather slippers. Indeed, he’d chipped the edge of his front tooth, a minor imperfection, the first she’d found on the man aside from his unaffected arrogance, his lackadaisical indifference to everything. She was finished with men who gave less than a farthing about their futures, less than a farthing about their families. Rising to her feet, she wiped his blood on her skirt. “They’re right, Blue, you don’t care what happens to you. Go to it, then.”
He blinked hard and elbowed to a wobbly sit. “What the hell does that mean? And who, exactly, is they?”
She shook her head, thoughts piling up on each other like mud sliding down a slope. All that came out was an aggravated oath as she turned and marched back to the house, the opera glasses beating a rhythm against her hip. Imprudent, conceited toad…
He was beside her in three strides, out of breath, disheveled, dogged, blood dotting his lip and cheek. “Explain that comment to me, will you, my lady?”
Oh, would she. She halted so suddenly he had to skip back to reach her. His gaze, when it hit hers, was running as hot as hers felt. “Have you considered what it would do to those who love you should something dreadful happen? The carriage races, the brawls, the slums. Second story windows, gaming hells. Where is the care for your family, your future?” Her brother had lost his wife and infant son to illness, and he’d given up. Victoria had tried, but she’d been unable to save him. Now she was left with nothing, alone without her closest ally. She wasn’t walking that joyless path again, not even for the enticing man standing before her.
“The women,” he snarled, the first time she’d seen him act anything but bored. “You forgot about the women. The lightskirts, the demimondaines, the jaded widows. I’m jumping out of those windows for a reason, my dear.”
She tapped his chest, right above a rip in his shirt and on the edge of that wicked scar, tears of sorrow and frustration pricking her lids. He was so tall she had to stretch to reach him, and the fingertip she trailed across his bare skin burned. “You forget yourself, Mr. Alexander. The women don’t matter, the slums and the faro tables don’t matter. The clubs and the fisticuffs are meaningless. Your family—” Her words dissolved, and she turned away from him.
Or tried to.
He seized her chin, his fingers trembling against her jaw. “What is this?” he asked, a soothing tone ironing out his earlier ire, a cloud of heat and recognition unfurling around them. He tipped her gaze high, his regard penetrating. “Did this little tumble of mine truly upset you?”
She pressed her lips tight, a tear she couldn’t contain spilling free. His fingers were scalding her skin. Add to that the glorious pain of being able to, for the first time in forever, talk to someone about something real. Even as she knew talking about real things brought her closer to Finn—when being closer was a danger to her future and her heart. Swallowing, she whispered, “My brother, Charles. He reacted thusly, caring nothing for life after his wife and child died of scarlet fever. I couldn’t save him from himself, although I tried. At least, I think I did.” She shook her head as if she could shake away the memory. “He died in a riding accident.”
Finn stepped back, gradually relinquishing his hold as if he’d rather step in, comfort she feared she’d gladly accept in her fragile state. “You’re quite adept, in the most unsophisticated way, at making me feel a cad. I’ve never known a woman to be candid and gain so much through such a lack of artifice. A solitary tear enough to rip my heart from my chest.” He fingered a gash in his trousers and exhaled, gazed across the distance, then, finally, back at her.
Yanking a stalk of grass from his hair, he said softly, “I don’t ride often, or as often as I’d like due to the persistent drumbeat of thoughts in my head. It makes for a distracted trek, I realize, even though I love it. Dangerous not only for myself but the mount, a risk with a beloved beast I wouldn’t take. But you’ve been blocking, clear across the lawn, across every sitting room we’ve shared, the breakfast parlor this morning. Even from another floor in the main house, the whispers in my bedchamber are muted. I’ve been testing distances, making notes. Today, for instance, a hundred yards, maybe one-twenty. I reached the edge of the pine thicket before the voices started flowing back in. But something happened, you got sidetracked, or I did, and a thought shot right through my skull. I tried to cut it off, which is quite shocking for the person whose mind I’ve entered, hence her dropping the pan…me misjudging the height of the hedge. Bad timing all the way around.”
“There was a kitchen maid quite taken with you upon our arrival. Was she daydreaming, I wonder, while you were riding? Shocking you when you received her lurid thought—shocking her when you tried to give it back. It’s possible that I was far enough away from you for them to enter your mind.”
His lips tilted, a confession in dazzling sunlight. “If I said yes, I don’t think it will further our friendship. So I shall remain mum on the subject.”
He was so bloody gorgeous standing there, mussed and apologetic, shuffling from one glossy boot to the other, covered in dirt and blood and ignominy, that chip in his formerly flawless smile winking at her. How could she renounce a lovesick girl, right now cleaning up whatever she’d dumped out of that pan when Victoria wasn’t thinking about the man in strictly polite terms herself? “Are these the start of our experiments then?” she asked and blew a lock of hair from her face, exasperated with him and herself.
He shook his head, his lips falling open. “Pardon?”
She dropped her gaze to the opera glasses dangling from her wrist, sunlight bouncing off the gilded metal and throwing glints at their feet. She’d have given a gold sovereign to know what he was thinking, a clue to how she’d managed to disconcert the Blue Bastard when most failed. With ‘unsophisticated candor’, no doubt. Her lack of charm. “My parlor trick. The testing of distances. Your promise to enlighten me, Blue. The chronology, the League. The danger surrounding me. Is this where my education starts?”
He walked back a distancing step, tugged another reed of grass from his hair. “Are you willing?”
It depends on the request, she wanted to say with an adoring look. Artifice in spades, a playful glance fired through what she’d been told were fetching eyelashes. She knew how to flirt, how to captivate. She’d kissed three of the most eligible men in the ton, at their request, although she hadn’t enjoyed it. They were destitute, unable to assist with her financial predicament, and she unable to assist with theirs. But she hadn’t wanted to waste everything on her intended when she and Rossby created less spark than a damp fire.
Anyway, she’d be damned if she cried again if it caused this exquisite mindreading goat to look at her with pity. She wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of anything but admiration herself, she’d love to tell him.
“That dark look has me almost frightened, but I must ask about the dreams. Tori, I need to know about the dreams.”
She found his gaze, an opaque flood as vibrant as the sky. She wondered if Julian Alexander had attempted to capture the color on canvas. Unique. And familiar. Even before she’d met him, a secret she wasn’t sure she should divulge.