Free Sweet Enemy by Heather Snow

listen to your offer of contrition.”
     
    Geoffrey choked.
     
    Liliana tilted her head, giving him a smile that was both irritation and condescension yet fell short of actually being rude. Just.
     
    Firming his jaw, he took a sharp breath through his nostrils. Had he lost his brass? Twice in two days he’d let a woman turn the tables on him.
     
    He eyed Liliana for a moment, noticing the stiffnesswith which she held herself, the rapid rise and fall of her breasts with each breath, the flurried irregular blinking of her eyes. The vision calmed him. He recognized bravado when he saw it.
     
    She actually wanted to retreat. His every instinct told him so. Could she have been telling the truth when she’d insisted she had no designs on him? She wasn’t acting like a woman who wanted his attentions. Not like…
     
    He glanced around the park, eyeing the legions of women and their mothers who were also eyeing him—and all but salivating and licking their lips. Geoffrey made a decision.
     
    “Quite so, Miss Claremont,” he said, smoothly recapturing her arm and settling it again on his as they resumed walking. “I do owe you my deepest regrets. That is precisely why I requested this stroll. In fact, as an olive branch of sorts, I insist you accompany me for the rest of the afternoon activities.”
     
    She blanched. “Accompany you?” Liliana gave a quick shake of her head. “Thank you, my lord, but that’s quite unnecessary. Your apology will suffice.”
     
    Geoffrey gave her his best smile. “Oh, but I insist. It will give us a chance to start our friendship anew.” He patted her hand where it rested on his arm, gratified to elicit another shiver, to see her curtain of insouciance slip a bit. “Come,” he said as he led her toward the open field where the afternoon games were ready to commence.
     
    He looked out over the grassy green field, which had been staked out in a rather large rectangle. He shook his head at the festooned ribbons looped through the posts. His mother had coined the afternoon festivities “A Return to Chivalry.” Each contestant was to choose a lady to champion, whom he would later escort to dinner and a supper ball. He knew she expected him to squire either Lady Emily Morton or Lady Jane Northumb, two of the most eligible debutantes in attendance. Geoffrey had been furious at first. But now he smiled to himself.Mother would be the furious one when she saw his selected companion.
     
    He cut his eyes to Liliana. She was tugging her lower lip between her teeth, likely trying to think of a way out of his company.
     
    Why? Spending the afternoon with him wouldn’t hurt her. Besides, she’d pricked his pride, and the strictly male part of him couldn’t let that stand.
     
    Geoffrey knew he would acquit himself well on the field. His years spent in the military gave him a distinct advantage over the country gentlemen he’d be competing against. In his experience, women were drawn to that prowess, and he was fairly certain he could remember how to turn on the charm.
     
    He’d be damned if by the end of this night Liliana Claremont would still be claiming indifference to him.
     
    “Newton’s apple,” Liliana muttered, the curse falling from her lips as naturally as said fruit fell to the earth when dropped. She considered it almost blasphemous to use Newton’s name as a curse, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to take the Lord’s name in vain, and to her, Sir Isaac was the next best thing.
    Stratford led her to the front of the crowd and deposited her on a chair nearest the field of play. Brows around them rose, and envious glares speared her when he lifted her hand to his lips, making the tips of her ears burn.
     
    Or perhaps it was the way Stratford wickedly caressed the underside of her wrist beneath her glove as he bowed.
     
    “I do hope you enjoy the exhibition,” he murmured low, so only she could hear. A benign statement, but the way he said it sent a hot shiver