The Rogue Not Taken (Scandal & Scoundrel #1)(84)

“Absolutely. You are better for every book you’ve read.”

She curled her hands around the lintel of the iron balustrade, leaning over to look down at him. “If you were a Dangerous Daughter, my mother would despair of you. It would be a miracle if we ever saw you married.”

“What nonsense,” he said, looking up at her. “You’re easily the most marriageable female I’ve ever met.”

She stilled. “You think so?”

“Certainly.” He took a bite of tart, as though the statement were utterly normal.

“Once one learns that I’m not attempting to dupe him into marriage, you mean.”

“Once that happens, yes,” he said with a smile.

Something had her feeling slightly light-headed. The ale.

Most definitely the ale.

Not him.

“Why?”

And it was the ale that had her asking that, the ale and the distance between them, which somehow made her more courageous than she had ever been.

“Why aren’t you marriageable?” She didn’t reply. “You’re intelligent, clever, brave, and honorable.”

Excellent, Sophie thought. Like a horse. Or a dog.

And then he said it. “Not to mention beautiful.”

“I’m not beautiful,” she said before she could take it back, instead wishing that she could disappear, simply fade into the books behind her and never be seen again.

No luck. “Yes, you are.”

She shook her head, hating the way her chest tightened with hot embarrassment at the question. She didn’t want to discuss her beauty or lack thereof. No plain woman wanted to, especially not with a man who was so very handsome.

Dear God. He’d heard her call him handsome.

She swallowed, desperate for an end to the moment.

“Sophie?”

She looked to him.

Don’t make me answer.

Don’t make me think about why you would never be for me.

It was the ale that had her thinking that. She didn’t care to have him.

Except, now and then, she thought about it. When he offered her strawberry tarts. And showed her his magical library. And called her beautiful.

And made her want to believe it.

Then she cared very much.

“These tarts are getting eaten. I feel honor-bound to tell you as much.”

Relief flared, replaced quickly with something much more dangerous. Something that made her wish that they were somewhere else. That they were someone else. That jests about strawberry tarts were all they had to think on.

She looked down at him sprawled in the leather armchair, lifting the plate up to her like an offering.

Perhaps tonight strawberry tarts could be enough.

Her eyes went wide. “You’ve eaten mine!”

“You didn’t seem to want it.”

“Of course I wanted it, you tart thief!”

He smirked. “Then why are you all the way up there?”

Why indeed.

She was down the steps in seconds, snatching the plate from his hand. “This is a half-eaten tart.”

“Better than all-eaten,” he said, making a show of opening the book on the table next to him.

“Stop!” she gasped.

He did, turning shocked eyes on her. “What is it?”

“Your fingers. They’re covered in tart. Don’t touch that book.”

“One might have thought I were about to murder someone.”

“Something,” she said. “The book would be tarted forever.”

He held his hands wide. “Fair enough. God forbid we should tart it.”

She sat in the chair across from him and took a bite of her remaining dessert, sighing her pleasure at the delicious fruit, cut perfectly with fresh cream. “This is exquisite,” she said, her gaze riveted on the sweet.

“It is, isn’t it?” His voice was lower than it had been, quieter. Darker.

She looked up to find him staring at her mouth, and gastronomic pleasure turned to a different kind of pleasure entirely. “Would you like it?”

“Very much.”

She was no longer certain that they were discussing dessert. She extended the plate to him, and he shook his head.

“You’re sure?”

“Why books?”

Her brows rose. “I beg your pardon?”

“Why are they your vice?”

She set her plate down and wiped her hand on her skirts before reaching for the top volume on a stack of small, leather-bound books nearby and extending it to him. “Go on.”

He took it. “Now what?”

“Smell it.” He tilted his head. She couldn’t help but smile. “Do it.”

He lifted it to his nose. Inhaled.

“Not like that,” she said. “Really give it a smell.”

He raised one brow, but did as he was told.

“What do you smell?” Sophie asked.

“Leather and ink?”

She shook her head. “Happiness. That’s what books smell like. Happiness. That’s why I always wanted to have a bookshop. What better life than to trade in happiness?”

He watched her for a long moment, longer than she was comfortable, until she returned to her tart. Once she had, he said, quietly, “You didn’t tell me if you forgive me.”