The mystery of his past was unfolding in the gentle twilight of her sleep—but the answers might be disturbing.
At some point, and soon, she’d have to tell Finn about the dreams.
After all, they were, in essence, his.
“I’m willing,” she said. But you may not be. Then she reached out, later she couldn’t have said why, brushing a strand of hair from his cheek. It was as silky as it looked, dark as coal, streaking amber in the sunlight, the ends curling slightly. She gave it a gentle tug before releasing it to the wind. His reaction would have been gratifying, the hushed intake of air, hand clenching into a fist at his hip, the subtle lean. If not for her own overriding it. Desire, blistering and heavy and terrifying, sending her heart to her knees. She shrugged, admitting, “I used to cut my brother’s hair so he could ride without it whipping in his eyes. I could do this for you, for your safety.”
“I’m willing,” Finn murmured, gaze fixed on her even as he took a halting step back, firmly out of reach. The air around them shimmered like waves of heat over a barren desert. One breath, two, then he strode to his mare and swung gracefully into the saddle without looking back.
She watched him ride away, wondering what they’d agreed to.
Wondering how in heaven she was going to survive a month of gazing into the saddest eyes in England.
The situation was beyond complicated.
Finn stacked his hands behind his head with a sigh that cut through the numbingly silent predawn. She was complicated, more so than any female to enter his life to date, even Piper. He slid deeper beneath the counterpane to escape his sudden unease and the chill in the air and ran his tongue over the chip in his tooth. No fire in the hearth, he noted. No pot of tea or warm cocoa waiting on the sideboard. The maid set to do those things could likely turn herself into a dog and fly over the estate or some such inspiring sorcery—but prepare a fire in an empty hearth, no thank you. Considering his preference for sleeping au naturel, maybe Harbingdon’s domestic disregard was a good thing.
I’m willing, he’d told her. A senseless declaration and they both knew it.
Of course, he was willing.
His compulsion was stronger than mere willingness, dominating his aimless norm of being swept along halfheartedly in a flood of debauchery and conceit.
Attracted.
He was attracted to Victoria Hamilton and then some. Profoundly. Incomprehensibly. When, despite his reputation, he rarely experienced honest longing. Most of his associations were a performance, that Blue Bastard fellow fulfilling expectation and nothing more. Not one step more.
Not one step.
Alone in the semi-darkness, he’d admit to being enthralled by her fiery temper, and what he suspected was a wholly generous heart, one she concealed almost as well as he concealed his. Enthralled by that willowy body and the raw intelligence shimmering behind spectacle glass. By the star-shaped freckle beside her lip. By the enchanting hoyden he imagined she’d been growing up, still showcased in the woman who didn’t care about getting dirt on her face or blood on her skirt. Someone he could teasingly roughhouse with before sliding inside her warm, welcoming body. Most of the women he’d tupped were temperamental and resentful, using him as revenge against a feckless husband or a world that seemed to be passing them by. Their attachment fragile as gossamer, he never really touched them. Not with his mind or his heart.
Fleeting in every way that mattered.
Victoria, ah, the fantasies centered on her were ones he’d never considered. He wanted to tangle his hands in her hair, destroy every weak coiffure that looked one breath away from detonating in a spill down her back. He wanted to record the sound she made when pleasure overtook her, only to call it forth later while pleasuring himself in his darkened bedchamber. He wanted to find out what she was afraid to ask for. What she craved. What would make her skin catch fire in seconds. He wanted to leave her so well-loved she wouldn’t be able to crawl from his bed for days.
He wanted to make love.
An act he never, ever thought he’d share with a woman.
But how could he ask this of her when he had no way to repay her for anything she shared with him? When she looked at the world from those amazing hazel eyes as if isolation was exactly what she expected to receive.
As if she didn’t deserve more.
As if she didn’t deserve love.
Dangerous, she was dangerous. And the first women in ages, maybe forever, who didn’t know it.
Any effort he made was much more than alleviating a tenacious erection, mild embarrassment every time he was within a hundred yards of her. The dilemma of a doggedly hard cock he could quickly solve on his own. In fact, he likely would before he climbed from this bed. Laughing at his idiocy, he watched the last vestiges of moonlight ripple across the ceiling, realizing it was anger coursing through him.
When he didn’t often allow himself to become angry—because the boy in the rookery had been nothing but.
Gross emotional displays weren’t his chosen method, too much loss of control. Why chance cracking his well-crafted façade? Still, it had been a long time since a woman had managed to unsettle him. Steal his breath with a single, unexpected tear coursing down her cheek. Dissolve the world around him, he suspected, should he give in to temptation and touch her.
“Tori,” he murmured, letting the name drop like a coin into the yawning depths of his soul. “What am I going to do about you, you troublesome package?”
Finn closed his eyes, coveting blessed calm for another moment. They were set to begin research into Victoria’s gift this morning at nine o’clock sharp. Unless he wanted to encounter the wrath of his brother, he’d best arrive at the library ten minutes early.
She thought she had him figured out when his experiences were changing him. Like clay being shaped into a different form, a cynical, temperamental man was emerging. Maybe he couldn’t escape his history after all. Those who crawled from the sewer eventually crawled back in.
He didn’t want to involve Victoria in his mess of a past. His mess of a future.
He kicked the sheet away with an oath. As if he could involve her.
Bastards were not an acceptable choice. Too, the League was going to need her if her gift was as powerful as Julian suspected, and Finn would never stand in the way of progress with the organization his brother had sacrificed his life to build. Victoria, in turn, would need their protection when it came to light a blocker existed in their world. And someday it would.
A romantic relationship that ended badly, when they always ended badly, would have her running—and he couldn’t risk her safety when he had nothing to offer. He grimaced in the darkness. Not when she had a baron, even one as loathsome as Rossby, on the hook.
Furthermore, and this is where it got tricky, he’d begun to talk to her. Unload the ballast of his life in minute chunks, lightening his burden, bringing about the unfortunate but irresistible desire to unload more. Worse, she’d begun to share her secrets with him.
He liked listening to her. He liked talking to her. Why it was…it sounded like…
Finn laughed and scrubbed his hand across his jaw. He and Victoria Hamilton were becoming friends.
Friendship. With a woman.
A beautiful, infuriating, insanely capricious woman whose mind he couldn’t read worth a tinker’s damn. What could go wrong with that?