Free Knaves' Wager by Loretta Chase Page B

The evening cools," he went on, gazing upwards, "and the heavens make a mighty struggle to clear. I discern one courageous star striving feverishly against the London smoke." Lilith looked up at the faint twinkle in the heavens. "I recommend you make your wish now, Mrs. Davenant, before the haze crushes it altogether. You will doubtless use the occasion to wish me to the Devil."
    "I hope," she said quietly, "I have wishes more worthy of a Christian than that."
    "Then what will it be? A cabinet post for Bexley? No, that is not altogether worthy, either. Too mercenary and selfish. Something for your niece, perhaps — but I will not press for details, or the wish is spoiled."
    They walked on for a while in silence. The air had cooled, as he'd said, but not uncomfortably so. Lilith felt warm enough. Her shawl was cashmere, after all, and exercise was known to aid circulation. The tall figure beside her could not be a source of warmth, unless it were the warmth of security. He was trim and strong, and he moved with the grace of complete assurance. She doubted any ruffian would have the temerity to attempt Lord Brandon. With him, she was safe from others.
    She wished she could feel as certain she was safe from him. She could not comprehend what he was about. Worse, she could not comprehend what she was about, to be ambling through the West End with an infamous libertine. But he had somehow goaded her into it, and now there was nothing she could do about it, except hope no one she knew saw her behaving so improperly. For a moment, Lilith almost resented the impropriety.
    She had never before walked about Town at night. Only gentlemen might wander as they pleased. Men had, perhaps, more freedom than was good for them — did not the living proof walk beside her? Nonetheless, she had always rather envied them… when she permitted herself such reflections. Thus, for the present moment at least, she revelled in this mild liberation.
    His low, lazy tones jerked her back to Reality.
    "You are exceedingly quiet," he said. "Are you tired? I am aware ladies are accustomed to traverse no distance greater than that between front door and carriage."
    "I am country-bred, my lord. Walking is not new to me."
    "That is a pity. I had hoped you would ask me to carry you."
    "Awhile ago, you hoped I would fly at you. You are either a poor judge of character or in the habit of absurdly fanciful thinking."
    "If you think I could not realise either of these hopes — if I truly set my mind to it — then you are a poor judge of character."
    "You need not war — remind me you are accustomed to do precisely as you please."
    "Yes, I am every bit as willful as yourself. I cannot deny that you have the greater self-restraint, but I have superior physical strength — which makes us even, you see."
    "You will please refrain from placing me in the same category as yourself," she said frigidly.
    "But you are willful, Mrs. Davenant. Your carriage alone proclaims it. That haughty lift of your chin, for instance — and one might use your spine as a scientifically exact measure of the perpendicular. It is in your voice as well, and in your terrifying eyes. I should be thoroughly cowed, of course, if I did not find the combined effect so utterly adorable."
    Some long-stifled feeling fluttered within her at the last words, but she quickly suffocated it, and iced over for good measure.
    "Yes, I am a great joke to you," she answered. "Do you mean to mock at me the entire way home? I ask only to be prepared. I know it is futile to hope you will stop."
    "Now I have hurt your feelings," he said, all contriteness. "Upon my honour, that is never what I meant. It was a compliment, Mrs. Davenant. I was flirting with you — albeit in my own clumsy, perverse way."
    "I do not wish to flirt with you, or be flirted with in any sort of way, my lord. I cannot think how I allowed myself to be goaded into this predicament. No more can I comprehend how any gentleman could stoop to