Page 140 of Dukes for Dessert
Needing him to back away before his scent overwhelmed her, she elbowed him in the chest. Not hard, but enough to feel like she might have elbowed a statue made of granite or marble. “What would make me feel better is getting into that safe.”
“I could do it, rather easily,” he boasted.
She turned around, finding his mouth entirely too close for comfort. “I-I don’t believe it.”
“Please, this thing is child’s play.” He lifted one sardonic brow, before drawing his finger down the ridge of her nose as if she were an adorable child. “You can’t have forgotten I’m a pirate.”
She slapped his hand away archly. “Then do it.”
“First you have to say it.”
“No.”
“All right,” he almost sang the words while making a dramatic show of checking his watch once more. “I think we’ve only ten more minutes until we pull away from here. I suppose I should leave you to your—”
She seized his elbow. “Are you really going to abandon—”
He turned back with a sinful smirk. “Come on, my lady, say it.”
Fine. Fine she would say the bloody word! “Fucking hell but you’re impossible.”
His laugh was low and rich and exasperatingly victorious as he crouched in front of the safe to inspect it. Holding his hand back to her without looking up he said. “I need one of your two-pronged hairpins and that hat pin with the golden feather.
Veronica put her hand up to her braided knot held in place by three stick pins and topped by a little fascinator of dark gold skewered through with a single feather pin.
“The quicker the better, Countess,” he prodded.
Plucking the pins from her hair, she took the hat from her head and smoothed her crown with anxious motions. His large fingers made astoundingly deft motions with the delicate pins in the lock and the safe was open in less than half a minute.
Veronica reached in to find the papers conveniently tucked into a well-labeled leather file.
Heedless of the mess, they both burst out the door and made for the rear of the car. Just as Veronica would have leapt from the train onto the platform, she was bodily lifted from around the waist and set behind Sebastian in one graceful sweep.
“Unhand me, you oaf, I have to—!”
Sebastian plucked the papers from her grasp. “I’ll get it to them faster.”
“But—”
“You go up the train four cars and wait for me there,” he instructed. “I don’t want you here should Weller wander back whilst I’m gone.”
“But you don’t know where the coaches are.”
“Yes, I do, I saw you return from them.”
“You don’t know which one the Wellers are in.” She swiped for the papers, but he held them out of her reach. “There’s no time for this argument, Moncrieff. Give them back.”
“Have some faith in me, Countess,” he prodded. “A little trust.”
“Me. Trust you? That’s rich!”
He looked truly wounded for a moment, which made her angrier.
“Go check on Weller,” she suggested. “What if he returns before the train pulls away?”
“I left my valet to watch him,” he shrugged.
“You what?”
