Sweet Rogue of Mine (The Survivors #9) - Shana Galen Page 0,50

there’s something you aren’t competent in.”

“Ah, that.” He could all but hear her smiling. He wondered what she looked like when she smiled. He wondered what she looked like period. Was she as pretty as she seemed to him? He didn’t think he’d ever met anyone as surprising and patient and calm as Miss Prudence Howard. He was certain it would not be long before he said or did something that drove her away.

“I am not a bad seamstress, but Mrs. Northgate is quite particular, and she insists on adding ruffles and bows and flounces. I’ve never sewed anything so fancy and delicate, but she says they are necessary to set off the flaws in my...er—to make the dress look as well as can be.”

“You don’t need ruffles and bows to look beautiful,” he said. Even as the words left his mouth, he was surprised by them. He was not the sort of man given to complimenting women. He was not the sort of man to compliment anyone. Not now. Perhaps he had been once. Once he had been the picture of the perfect gentleman. But it had been merely a picture. He was a killer and he supposed now he looked like one.

To his greater surprise, Miss Howard laughed. He pulled his hands away. “I’ve amused you?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, but I am not beautiful. No one has ever called me beautiful in my life.”

Nash was familiar with most ladies’ habit of pretend modesty.

“Oh, but I see by your expression—what I can see of it since you have half your face covered—that you think I am being modest. I assure you I am not. I am very plain, Mr. Pope. I have mousy brown hair and unremarkable brown eyes, and I’m too tall and too thin. And since you are not able to see them, I will say I am covered with freckles. I don’t stay out of the sun as I should, but even if I did, I would still have thousands. So if you are imagining me to be beautiful, you can stop now. I understand if you no longer wish to hold my hands.”

Nash sat very still for a long moment. Miss Howard’s words were spoken in a light tone, but he imagined what she’d just revealed was not as amusing to her as she feigned. He heard her chair move against the floor as she pushed back and caught her hand before she could back away.

“I don’t need to see you to know you’re beautiful,” he said, holding her still.

“But I told you—”

“And I want to do much more than simply hold your hand.” Nash rose, slowly, still clasping her hand but doing so loosely in case she wanted to escape. When she didn’t flee and didn’t pull away, he tugged her forward until her body was almost touching his. Only then did he release her hands and hold up one of his own. “Let me see you,” he said. “The only way I can.”

For a long moment, she didn’t speak, and then she took his hand and pressed it to her cheek. Her skin was smooth and warm and impossibly soft. He’d forgotten how soft women’s skin could be, but even whatever memories he could muster did not do the softness of her skin justice. She was no fine lady. He had felt the calluses on her hands and the roughness that came from labor. He had his own calluses, and once his hands had been far rougher than hers would ever be. But the skin of her cheek was like the most exquisite silk. He tried to imagine it covered with freckles, tried to trace where those freckles might be with one finger. She wiggled. “That tickles.”

“I was tracing a line of freckles,” he said. “Right over here.” He touched her nose and felt the shape of it. To her credit, she was quite patient with the exploration, though she must have felt strange having a man trace the contours of her nose. It seemed an average nose—not too big or too small. Straight and somewhat narrow.

“Watch your eyes,” he said as he moved to the bridge of her nose and slid his fingers carefully over her brow and then over her closed eyelid. Her lashes were delicate against his fingertip. He moved to her forehead, felt how her brow was furrowed, skated high enough to feel the softness of her hair. She’d called it mousy brown. “Is your hair long?” he asked. “And