Lessons from a Scandalous Bride (Forgotten Princesses #2)(16)

“Good morning, Miss Hadley.”

As the familiar Scottish voice ribboned its way through her, she questioned her sanity and whether she had conjured the words from memory. Surely he couldn’t be here of all places. Not in the one place in this city she considered hers.

Inhaling a bracing breath, she turned. Her ears had not deceived her. Her skin heated as she recalled their last encounter and his intimation that they were alike.

“Lord McKinney,” she murmured, pleased at the flatness of her voice. “What are you doing here?” Blunt to the point of rudeness perhaps, but she didn’t really care. After their last exchange, she needed to keep things aloof.

“It’s a bookshop. I’m looking for a book.” His gray eyes narrowed. “What? You don’t think I’m following you, do you?”

She lifted her chin. “Of course not.”

He nodded slowly, those gray eyes of his watching her closely as if he really believed she thought that.

She waved at the books. “You don’t strike me as much of a reader.”

“I don’t know whether to be offended or complimented.”

She frowned, wondering how he could have read a compliment in that.

He elaborated, “You either think me a dullard uninterested in books . . .”

“Or?” she prompted at his pause.

“Well, that you think of me at all to form any opinion is quite gratifying.”

She exhaled. “I assure you I don’t think of you.” Pulling her books close, she moved to walk past him. He stepped directly in her path, blocking her way. He stood so close she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze.

“Liar.” He breathed the word more than he actually said it. Her heart stuttered inside her chest.

“Now who’s laboring under delusions of grandeur?”

The flat line of his mouth curved ever so slightly. “It’s fair to say I’ve thought of you perhaps . . .” he tilted his head as though searching, “once. Oh, very well. Twice.”

She snorted. “Well, not me.”

He shrugged one broad shoulder. “I suppose I’m not such an enigma.” His gaze dropped from her face, eyeing the modest cut of her dress as if it were anything but modest. The flesh of her chest warmed beneath his perusal.

“I couldn’t say. Now if you’ll let me pass.”

Instead of obliging, he plucked the books from her hands. She protested and tried to reclaim the books, but he held them out of her reach, reading their covers.

“Poetry,” he mused, scanning the volume. He looked at her second selection. “Ah. And Mrs. Radcliffe.” He made a clucking sound. “I would never have suspected it of you.”

Her lips pursed as she fought back the urge to demand what he meant by that.

“Oh, you look like you’re sucking lemons. Go ahead, Miss Hadley. Ask before you explode. You know you want to.”

She shook her head, loathing that he should read her so clearly. “I have nothing to ask you.”

“You’re a stubborn chit.” He waved the books before her. “Very well. I’ll go ahead and enlighten you. This is not the reading material I would have credited as your preference.”

“And why is that?” she snapped.

“So . . . emotional. Romantic and fanciful.” He scanned her face as though committing her every feature to memory. “These are the books a young girl reads . . . a dreamer.” His words fanned her cheek in a warm breath. “Not someone who would commit herself to a doddering old man—”

“Enough,” she bit out. “I’ll not bear your scorn. Especially as you’re no different from me.”

His dark eyebrow winged high. “Oh, now we’re alike, are we?”

She closed her eyes. She hadn’t meant to admit that. Opening her eyes, she confessed, “Very well. We’re both great pretenders, fooling poor souls into thinking we care about them when we have our own agendas. Is that not so?”

A muscle feathered across his jaw and she surmised that her words hit a nerve. A surge of satisfaction wound through her.

“You opened my eyes to that,” she added.

He didn’t answer, simply continued to stare at her as if perhaps he didn’t know her quite so well after all.

This time he did not stop her as she swept past him. At the end of the aisle, she spotted her sister watching her avidly, her bright gaze rife with questions as it drifted from her to Lord McKinney.

“Who is that?”

Cleo looked over her shoulder where he stood, still watching her. “No one,” she murmured.

“He’s not looking at you as no one would,” Marguerite remarked.

No, he wasn’t. He was looking after her like he wished to strangle her. At least she thought that was what his intense expression meant. She was not entirely sure.

Overcome with the need to hasten away, she took her sister’s arm. “Come, let us go.”

Satisfied that she had put him in his place, she fell into step beside Marguerite.

“I’m not sure you should look so smug,” Marguerite interrupted her thoughts. “He’s staring daggers at you right now.”

A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed he had moved to the end of the aisle to watch her retreat. “Of course he is.” She shrugged. “We loathe each other.”