frighten him. He leaned into it, testing what it was to be so truthful with another. “It’s different with you. I’m not a dancing bear or a way to get anywhere. I’m a man.”
There was no disgust or fear in her eyes, no calculation as to how to exploit the knowledge he’d given her. All he saw was her warmth, and his smile widened. “When I’m near you, I’m very aware I’m a man.”
She looked stricken, then glanced away. “We really do need to return to the others.”
The heaviness in her voice alarmed him, sending prickling concern across his shoulders. “I’ve pushed you too far, made you do things you didn’t want to do.”
“You must not know me at all,” she said softly, “if you believe anyone could make me do something I didn’t want for myself.”
He inclined his head as gratitude and relief surged. “Point taken.”
“I’m merely tired. The day has been long.” Appreciation shone in her gaze. “This morning, you stepped between me and a conflagration.”
“Was that today?” He snorted in disbelief. “Can’t be. It feels as though—”
“As though?”
Noel hesitated. He’d taken a few steps in baring himself to her, but could he take more? Each revelation left him more and more exposed. She could use anything to her advantage. Certainly others in her position might.
But Jess wasn’t like that. He believed that completely.
“No point in prevaricating. Games are things to be played with other people, people I don’t care about.” He drew a breath, loosening his hold on his apprehension. “The truth is, it feels as though I’ve known you forever.”
The column of her throat worked. “It’s mutual, that feeling.”
Just then, he did feel like a human firework, brilliant as it exploded across the sky. He’d given her a piece of himself, and she had treated it with care and respect, not because she wanted something from him, but because to her, it seemed as though he was fully flesh, as vulnerable as anything that walked the earth.
Before he could take her in his arms again, she said with regret, “It’s time to go back.”
There was disappointment that this idyll couldn’t last forever, but he wasn’t a lad any longer. He knew what the responsibilities of the world entailed, including leaving this place, when all he wanted was to stay and stay and stay.
“Of course.” He offered her his arm, and when she took it, he led her back down the winding path. They joined up with the more populated walkways.
She looked skyward. “The fireworks have stopped.”
“For now.”
Chapter 13
Jess took the measure of the drawing room on the final full day of the Bazaar. They’d already seen two presentations and were taking a pause before the last push.
Noel had been drawn into conversation with Lord Trask the moment the prior presentation had ended. She resented the marquess’s presence, as much as she required him to act as a bulwark between herself and her desire for Noel.
They had kept apart today, as if things between them were too hot, too sensitive, to be handled for very long.
Now he seemed to sense her looking at him—he had a way of finding her wherever she was, as though they were magnets forever drawn to each other—and his eyes were dark, almost as dark as they had been last night at Vauxhall.
She broke away from his gaze, busying herself with pouring a cup of tea from the refreshment table.
She had a task to complete, a reason for her dissembling that brought her to the Bazaar. Noel wasn’t that reason and it was important for her to remember that.
Guilt needled her. Over the past few days, she’d come to think of some of the guests as friends, and it did not feel right to manipulate them. If there had been a choice, some other way of salvaging her family’s business—and her family itself—she would have gladly done it.
But there was no choice. She had to do this now, and face her guilt later.
After taking a sip of tea, she approached a gathering of Bazaar guests that included Mr. Walditch, Ladies Farris and Haighe, and Baron Mentmore.
“But is it sound, to invest?” Mr. Walditch said, clearly adding to an ongoing conversation. “If a business fails once, it could again.”
“Depends on the circumstances of the failure,” Jess said. “Acts of God, and so forth.”
“I had nothing to do with it,” Noel said, joining the group. “Whatever it was.”
Jess pushed down against a rise of excitement and pleasure, but now she knew what it was