The Wallflower Wager - Tessa Dare Page 0,29
wrinkled her nose. “That’s a horrid way of putting it.”
“You asked. I tried to spare your feelings this time. Give me credit for that much.”
“Go on by yourself, then. I can wait here.”
“I’m not leaving you stranded on the side of the road.”
“I wouldn’t be alone. I’d be with the coachman and smith.”
“You’re not as important to them as you are to me. I’m not leaving you here.” He picked up the birdcage and walked backward, in the direction of the village. “Just like you’re not letting me walk away with your deuced parrot.”
Impossible man.
The afternoon had grown warmer. Delilah, being a tropical bird, seemed to thrive in the heat. Penny did not. She was weary and thirsty, and growing testier by the moment. “I thought the village was only a mile or two.”
“It can’t be much farther now. Probably just after that bend in the road.”
“You said that two bends in the road ago. I thought the coach would have caught us by now. Perhaps they can’t mend it.”
“All the more reason to find the village. If worse comes to worst and the carriage can’t be mended, we can find other transportation. I can hire a—” He stopped in the road. “Fuck.”
His blasphemy sent Delilah into a titter. “Fancy a fuck, love? Ooh! Ooh! Yes! Pretty girl.”
“My coat,” he said. “I left it in the carriage.”
Penny paused and squinted at the cloudless sky and the cheerfully scorching sun. “I can’t imagine you’ll need it.”
“I don’t need the coat. I need the money that’s in it.” He set the birdcage on the ground and rubbed his face with both hands, cursing into them.
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know. But one way or another, I’ll have you back in London by nightfall. You needn’t worry you’ll be ruined.”
“I’m not worried I’ll be ruined. I can’t be ruined.”
He lowered his voice, though there was no one but Delilah to hear. “If this is about earlier, by the river . . . There’s quite a gulf between what we did and the act of copulation. You haven’t lost your virtue.”
“For heaven’s sake, I understand how matters work between a man and a woman.” She wiped sweat from her brow. “I can’t be ruined because that would suggest I have prospects to ruin in the first place. I’m still unmarried, despite being an earl’s daughter, despite having a considerable dowry. No suitors are beating down my door.”
“There is no way in hell that your unmarried state is due to a lack of interest.”
“Please, enlighten me as to the reason.”
“That’s simple. You’ve been hiding yourself, and you’re good at it. A master of camouflage.”
She laughed. “Camouflage?”
“That’s the only possible explanation. You’ve made a frock from the same silk covering the drawing room walls, trimmed it with cat hair and feathers. Then when gentlemen visit, you stand still and blend in.”
“You have a surprisingly vivid imagination.”
“What I have is experience.” He stopped in the road and turned to face her. “I’ve built a fortune by spotting things that are undervalued, dusting them off, and selling them at the proper price. I know a hidden treasure when I see one.”
“Oh.”
Looking away, he pushed his hand through his hair. “Not this again.”
“Not what again?”
“Every time I speak three words, you look as though you’re going to swoon into my arms.”
“I do not,” Penny objected, knowing very well that she probably did.
“You sigh like a fool, blush like a beet. Your eyes are the worst of it. They turn into these . . . these pools. Glassy blue pools with man-eating sharks beneath the surface.”
“I hope you’re not planning a career in poetry.”
“For the good of us both, you have to cease gazing at me.”
“Then you have to cease wooing me.”
“Wooing you.” He grimaced, as if the words were a pickled lemon on his tongue. “I don’t woo.”
“You do too woo.” She lowered her voice to match his gruff timbre. “‘I need you,’ ‘I’m not letting you go.’ A woman can’t help but go soft inside. Those sorts of declarations are unbearably romantic.”
“You know very well I don’t mean them that way.”
She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “I suppose if I didn’t already, I would now.”
“Exactly. So don’t go swooning on me.”
“I assure you, you needn’t worry about that. If I did swoon, it would be from the heat.”
Pounding hoofbeats behind them announced the prospect of salvation. Penny turned, hoping to see the carriage.
It wasn’t Gabriel’s carriage, but it was the next best thing. A stagecoach, passing their