The Scoundrel and I - Katharine Ashe Page 0,11

knew it.”

“What would be easier?”

“Helping you out of this bind.”

“No.” She backed away. “I told you last night that I do not need your help.”

He watched as she retreated another step.

“You know,” he said, “you needn’t always be running away from me. I won’t bite. And I’m dashed sorry to disagree with you, but it seems you do need help.”

But she did not believe that he would not bite. Men always bit when they discovered a woman unprotected and alone. From the moment her father had sold her mother’s leather tooled Holy Bible to buy gin, to the day Jo Junior reappeared in London with a wife, all Elle had ever known of men were lies. Except her grandfather, but he had been a man of letters.

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “What do you hope to gain from it?”

“What—Why—” he began twice, then more slowly, seriously: “Your continued future employment in this shop, of course. That is what you want, isn’t it?”

“That is all? You do not want anything else?”

For a moment the ship captain was silent. Then he said, “No. I want nothing else.” With a tilt of his head forward and a very slight upturning of the corner of his lips, he added, “Miss . . . ?”

She did not believe him. But he believed himself, and that was better than nothing. Also, he was correct: she did need help.

“Miss Flood,” she said.

He smiled with such clear contentment that she wished she believed him too.

“Great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Flood.” He bowed. Today he had left off his uniform and wore instead a coat that fit his broad shoulders to perfection, dark breeches, and well-used although perfectly polished boots. If not for his tan she would have assumed him merely an aristocrat, a man perhaps more comfortable in the country than town, but wealthy and elite nonetheless. She must be mad to have imagined he wanted anything from her—anything of the sort that Jo Junior wanted. A man like this did not need to go trawling among the common class; he could have any woman among the glittering beau monde that he liked. She need not have worried.

Then his gaze dipped to her lips and destroyed her certainty about that.

“No,” she said flatly. “This is a mistake. I can see to this myself.” She went to the door, opened it to the rain, and gestured him out. “Please go, Captain.”

“Charming enactment of déjà vu, ma’am. But I’d rather drown in the indoor flood than the outdoor one.”

“Captain, please.”

“Miss Flood—”

“No. No and no. I have thought it all out, you see. Every possible solution. And unless you plan on petitioning the city to drill through the concrete to wrest that drainage grate from the street, you can offer no solution that will serve. Anyway, today’s rain has blocked even that far-fetched avenue of hope, for if any pieces had fallen into that drain, with this deluge they have surely been washed further down the pipes, perhaps even to the Thames already. So you see, Captain, there is no need for you to—”

He was upon her so swiftly she hadn’t even time to protest. Grabbing the door with one hand he swung it shut. Then both of her hands were in his, entirely encompassed in warm strength, and, despite the shock of it, not at all uncomfortable.

“Miss Flood,” he said very soberly, “resolve yourself to my assistance in this matter. And then, if you could see your way to sharing with me your given name, I would account myself the most fortunate of men. That, and it’d make this whole thing a lot less formal.” He smiled. “What say you?”

She was a fool to allow it. But she would be a bigger fool to reject help.

“You will not go away, even if I demand it?” she tried a final time.

“Given who’s at fault here, I truly would be a scoundrel to desert you now.”

“My name is Gabrielle.”

“Gabrielle.” Upon his tongue it sounded like a caress, deep and seductive. “Lovely name, like the lady who bears it.” Abruptly he released her and backed away, disposing himself once again quite comfortably on the surface of Jo Junior’s desk. “Now, as to my idea, me and you will—”

“You and I.”

“Precisely. Me and you—”

“You and I. Not me and you.”

“What in the devil? It’s the same two people.”

“I am not a ‘two people’ with you, Captain.” Moving around his outrageously muscular outstretched legs, she removed him from her sightline. It