The Scoundrel and I - Katharine Ashe Page 0,5

pardon, miss?” His voice was entirely unlike two nights earlier, not booming or commanding, but deep and pleasing in a warm-basket-of-freshly-baked-muffins sort of way. So pleasing that she blinked in surprise.

That surprise overcame her for a only moment.

“Now you beg my pardon? Now? When two nights ago, if you had had any consideration for anybody other than yourself, I would not even be here to see you stroll leisurely down this alley now.”

“Miss, are you perfectly—” Abruptly he tilted his head forward and his very finely shaped lips parted. “Good God,” he uttered. “I nearly ran you over two nights ago. Right here. Entirely forgot till this moment.” A furrow creased his handsome brow. “Have you been standing here since then?”

The woman’s eyes, full of blazing disdain, went round as capstans—soft little brown capstans surmounted by twinkling candles.

“You—You—You,” she stuttered, her pretty pink lips pursing in an O upon each syllable. “You, sir, are a scoundrel.”

Tony had no doubt of that.

“Now, it was an honest mistake,” he said nevertheless. “You’re clearly whole and hale and—”

“A mistake? You sink a person into ruin and call it a mistake?”

“Royal Navy, miss. With all due respect, sinking people is what I do best.” Tony dismounted. He wasn’t in any humor for a harangue. But by damn, with color staining her cheeks and her eyes lit with feeling, this girl was the prettiest thing he’d seen in weeks. Months. He needed to examine her more closely. And he was entirely guilty as accused. “I’d no notion you were there and I happened to be in something of a hurry.” He took a step toward the girl.

She jerked backward. “Oh? To where were you riding in reckless haste? Your club?” She spat the word with such disgust he practically felt it upon his skin.

“Point of fact, no. I was— Well, it don’t matter.”

“It does not matter.”

“Glad we agree.”

“Of course it matters, you illiterate.”

Her eyes sparked like fire. It had such an abrupt effect on his cock he almost didn’t care that she’d used his family’s favorite epithet for him. Almost.

“Now there, miss, what matters is that I’m dashed sorry I startled you.”

“Startled does not begin to describe what I—” Her voice broke and this time he was certain he felt it, but not upon his skin, rather beneath his ribs. “Ohh,” rushed from between those pretty lips. “Go away. Go away and leave me alone to my fate.” All the fight seemed to drain out of her. Lifting a limp hand, she covered her eyes and heaved in an enormous breath. It was an uncomfortable series of movements, obviously alien to her lithe limbs.

With a heavy tread, she started off.

“Miss, if you’ll allow me to—”

“I am walking away now. If you follow me, I will call the Watch.”

“No Watch on this block at this time of night.”

She pivoted around. “Is that a threat? What do you intend to do, sir? Since you have already flattened me against a wall and ruined my life, do you now intend to accost me as well?”

“No.”

Abruptly he looked so stern and harsh, Elle did not wonder that he was a decorated officer. With that hard jaw and those intense eyes he might intimidate any sailor into submission.

“You’re clearly distraught,” he said.

“You noticed that, did you?”

“I’d like to make certain you’re all right.” He bowed gorgeously. The sword on his hip glittered.

She stared.

But Jo Junior had said all sorts of pretty things, too, before he had used and discarded her and then tried to blackmail her. And she knew better than to trust a sailor.

“I am fine,” she said firmly, turned, and walked around the corner. He did not follow her. Of course he did not. A man like that, with aristocrat stamped all over his face, would never actually care about the misery of a common shopgirl.

Beneath the marquee of Brittle & Sons, she unlocked the door, stepped inside, and released a long, shuddering breath.

In the back room, she lit a lamp and carried it to the press. Tracing the beloved backward letters and words with her gaze, she set her fingers to the edge of the frame. Then she closed her eyes and let her fingertips run along the lines of type. It was unwise. She would have to clean the type thoroughly now or the oils from her skin would poorly affect the ink. But she had to feel what her grandmother would have felt if she had been successful two nights earlier, to feel Lady Justice