he have an impulse to shower her in them suddenly?
“On that point, it’s not what I want. I do not intend to ever marry again.” She gave a little illustrative shudder. “I am now my own woman entirely and it suits me.”
“Excellent, Lady Derring. We are agreed on that point of courtship and matrimony. If you would be so kind as to help me understand your question?”
She drew in a breath, fortifying her nerve.
“Do you ‘want’ every pretty woman you see?”
He stared at her, once again astounded and nonplussed.
And then his head went back a little in comprehension.
Then a tiny flame of fury flared inside him at the people who had treated this uniquely lovely woman as someone who was merely a sort of bargaining chip or an ornament or as a means of continuing a line. This singular person.
If she were any other woman in any other circumstance he might say, “I’ve never wanted anyone like this! I must have you!” or something equally impassioned and florid in a low sultry voice. He was reasonably confident he could weaken the knees of a nun if he ever wanted to do that—he had, in fact, done that, once, an aspiring nun, rather—and have her knickers off and legs in the air with alacrity.
He wasn’t certain this was true, however. The never wanting someone quite so much.
He’d certainly known lust, some of it fierce.
He was certain he’d never met a woman like Lady Derring.
Somehow he knew this had something to do with the wanting of her.
Perhaps it was as simple as that: she was unique. Who didn’t enjoy a little variety?
Shimmering around the edges of that realization was, in fact, a unique sort of danger, one that he couldn’t quite bring into focus, one that he couldn’t quite name.
Certainly he’d never had a conversation like this one.
“No. I don’t want every woman I see. When I was younger it sometimes felt that way. It’s quite harrowing to be a man at times, for that reason, you know. The sway of a fishmonger’s hips beneath her skirt, a stray breeze. Honestly, anything can set us off. As I got older, I suppose I gained, er, discernment and discretion. And so. No.”
Her eyes were full of wicked, laughing lights. “I’m so very flattered to have survived the winnowing.”
“Well, you ought to be.”
She laughed. She was a maddening woman who laughed when he didn’t expect her to. At times when she probably shouldn’t. He didn’t think of himself as particularly witty, but her laugh made him feel like he did on the deck of a ship on a glorious day, wind snapping in the sails. As though his mind, singular as it was, was a delightful place.
He realized that was another of the reasons he wanted her.
At this, caution and a sort of alarm slammed down.
“You’re frowning at me,” she said suddenly.
“It’s my usual resting expression.”
“It isn’t, you know. And the lines on your face tell another story.”
He turned his head away a little, toward the fire, nonplussed. He didn’t particularly want anyone to notice, let alone read, the lines on his face.
He didn’t want her to know that.
“Ah ha ha, I have you now!” Mr. Delacorte chortled. Mr. Farraday moaned in dismay, and Delilah cast a glance over her shoulder, her smile pleased that two such mismatched souls were enjoying each other in part because of her.
Something about her posture suggested she was about to get up to join them, to bestow a smile or some hospitality.
“Because you’ve a spark about you,” he said swiftly. “In a room full of people you seem like the one visible star in a night sky.”
He said it because saying it suddenly seemed better than watching her leave.
And because those were the things he knew: the moon. The stars. The wind. The sea. It wasn’t poetry. It wasn’t.
She turned slowly to face him.
Her eyes had gone enormous.
She said nothing.
“And the way you move, it’s . . .”
What he wanted to say: like witnessing something fine and natural. It was simply an indefinable pleasure, like watching a well-built schooner, or a fast horse, or the wave beating on the shore, but he knew enough not to say these things aloud. She moved as though life was a pleasure and her body was wings.
“Like the fishmonger?” she prompted gently, teasing.
“No.”
A fraught, rather soft silence, not entirely comfortable for Tristan, stretched between them.
He knew she wouldn’t linger much longer.
“Because you are surprisingly prickly and clever while also being beautiful and