“Of course I am agitated,” she snapped. She placed her palm over her eyes and shook her head. “This is not how anything should be.”
“Are you …? You’re not going to cry, are you?”
She might. She just might.
She heard the bed creak. “Lady Magnificent,” Tobias said, the devil-may-care drawl wrapped around his voice once more. “You look rather pale. Should I call for the doctor? Or are you going to turn poet and simply expire on the spot? If you do, I’ll make a yearly pilgrimage to this exact spot and sleep all night on your … bed.” She heard the grin in his voice.
She laughed and it pushed the tears away. “Oh, stop, will you? You speak such nonsense!” But she couldn’t help herself from smiling all the same. His nonsense tickled the corners of her lips.
The bed creaked again, louder this time, and she heard his footsteps across the carpet-padded floor. “All right. We’ll continue to talk sense as long as you promise to stay dry eyed.”
He stood impossibly close. The heat of his body warmed her back.
She nodded, incapable of speech.
“We must face these facts. I saved your life and, in the process, ruined your reputation. Your parents do not care as long as we live out some sort of fated love affair.”
“Nonsense.” Maggie huffed.
“Agreed. But you’ve already begun to see the consequences of our little adventure for yourself. One proposal from a novelist—”
“A second-rate novelist at that.”
“Precisely. And you’re awaiting another proposal from a man older than your father.”
The Mathematical Baron, the very man she intended to blackmail.
She hid her face in her hands, groaning. “I don’t think he’ll actually propose. My brother’s taken to glaring at him all day long.”
“Your brother has also taken to glaring at me. He’s a terrifying man. Was he spawned by the titans?” His hands cupped her shoulders and spun her on the spot so that she faced him. “But enough of your brooding brother.” He pulled her hands away from her face. She looked up into his eyes and found them unexpectedly gentle, patient. He twined their fingers together. “Maggie, marry me.”
My, but his soft, scratchy voice tempted her. She shook her head, not entirely sure she meant no by the gesture.
“Hear me out. You’re frustrated here—bored, restless. Why else would you sneak into a man’s rooms?”
She stopped breathing.
“There. What is that for?”
“What is what for?”
“Your eyes are round as moons, and you’ve stopped breathing.”
She inhaled. Narrowed her eyes. “Have not.”
“Tell the truth! Why were you in my room the other day?”
She hated lying. But not telling the whole truth wasn’t the same thing. “To learn your secret.”
“Why did you care to begin with? I’ve been hiding my secret in plain sight for almost a decade now and no one, not a single soul until you, has ever cared to find it out. But you, you’re curious and”—he glanced at her closed notebook on the bed—“talented, I suspect. But with no outlet save a small journal for your artistic impulses.”
Equal measures of outrage and relief flooded through her. He didn’t suspect the real reason she wanted to know his secrets. Excellent. But what he did suspect seemed not far from insult, compliment that it had been. “I’m not an artist!”
“Quiet down, Pocket Princess. If you don’t want to have to marry me, you won’t want to attract the attention of others.”
An excellent point, that.
“Marry me. At the very least, you can escape this scourge of artists you seem to so despise. That beef-wit Lockham I understand. I despise him, too.” He chuckled. “His face when the contents of three glasses of wine soaked him through … I’ll live off that forever. Him, I understand detesting, but what about Miss Scarlett? She seems quite likable. Is an artist such a bad thing to be?” His gaze wavered for a moment.
