While the Duke Was Sleeping (The Rogue Files #1)(32)

Chapter 12




Treacherous thoughts flitted across her mind. She batted them away, but still they hovered, threading their way under her skin and into her blood.

What would it feel like to have his fingers on her without the gloves? His mouth? She fought to swallow against her suddenly thick throat as she stared into Struan Mackenzie’s deep gaze.

She had allowed Edmond certain liberties. Oh, she was still a maid. Nothing too intimate had transpired between them, but she was no stranger to kisses or a man’s touch.

She had known Edmond all her life. It had seemed acceptable, on occasion, to indulge in a few kisses and caresses. She had thought they were to be married. She was her parents’ daughter, after all. Like them, she believed in passion and following one’s heart.

Over kisses and mild petting, Edmond had whispered fervent promises of marriage. Those words had persuaded her to shove aside her reservations. And yet in all their trysts, she had never felt this breathlessness. This pooling heat in her belly. It was a heady sensation.

She moistened her lips, trying not to notice the way his gaze followed the trail of her tongue along her bottom lip. “I’m not going to swoon if that’s what you’re so worried about. I’m not that manner of female,” she whispered.

“No?” His boot scraped against the ground as he stepped closer. “And what manner of female are you, Miss Fairchurch? I confess it has been a point of curiosity for me ever since we met.” The purr of his voice dragged over her skin.

She swallowed against the giant lump in her throat. “I’m not that squeamish.”

“No,” he agreed. “You are not.”

“Nor am I the sort of person to disarm a street ruffian with my bare hands.” She shook her head, her voice tight and breathy . . . still in awe of him. “But you, apparently, are. One moment you behaved as a coward and handed over our belongings with nary a blink, and then you did that trick with the knife. However did you do that?”

“Those two men?” He jerked his head toward where they’d disappeared, still keeping his gaze trained on her face. “I didn’t think they were truly dangerous.” He lifted one big shoulder in a scant semblance of a shrug. “And I was right.”

“Then why hand over your purse in the first place? And my ring?” She bristled, recalling that point with the most indignation.

“Because you were here.”

“Me?” She pulled back slightly. What did her presence have to do with anything?

He stared at her a long moment before elaborating. “I didn’t feel the need to risk your safety.”

She stared at him blankly, struggling to process his words.

He released an exasperated breath. “I was attempting to protect you. Not that you were any help in that endeavor, Miss Fairchurch. A paltry bauble isn’t anything to risk your neck over . . .”

“It wasn’t a mere bauble to me.” Her spine shot straight. “It was more than that to me.” Her father didn’t have much. As a tutor, he had scrimped and saved to buy her mother that ring. Their meager home and everything within it was gone, lost to them. All she possessed was that ring.

Suddenly she noticed the muscle ticcing madly in his cheek. He was angry, and that only discouraged her. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t. He was a man accustomed to having his way. He wouldn’t know what it felt like to be her . . . to have so little, to want to cling to what little was left to her.

“What were you thinking?” he bit out. The velocity of his words propelled her back a final step, forcing her against the wall of the alley. The scratchy brick scraped at her mother’s old cloak and she hoped it wasn’t snagging the already worn fabric.

She forgot about the cloak when his hands came up on either side of her head, caging her in. She gasped and looked left and right at the hard arms on either side of her head.

He continued, “A token from your lover isn’t worth calling attention to yourself . . . and that’s precisely what you did when you refused to give that ring up.”

“A token from my lover?” Is that what he thought? He was wrong. So wrong. Was that why he cared so little about giving away her ring? She longed to smack that smug condescension off his face. Her lips worked, but her outrage blocked anything coherent from forming on her lips.

“Am I incorrect? Did Autenberry not give you the ring?” he sneered as though he were deliberately trying to be cruel. As though he wanted to hurt her. Like the mean girls back home who took jabs at her once it became clear that her sister far outshone her. When Bryony was eleven years old her beauty was already glaringly obvious. “I admit it’s rather modest. I’d expect something more extravagant from him.” A certain thickness entered his voice as he demanded, “A different lover, then?” He leaned in, his breath on her cheek sending ripples of awareness through her.

“You cad,” she charged. “The ring was from no lover. It was my mother’s ring.”

He fell silent at that, just the fall of his breath so close on her skin.

“An apology would be the gentlemanly thing to do at this point,” she got out past her clogged throat.

One corner of his mouth curled. “I’m a bastard born to the streets of Glasgow. Never mistake me for a gentleman.”