“Who do you think it is from?” she asked.
“I wish I knew. Edmund doesn’t talk about the women he frequents or, apparently, esteems.”
Jane wrinkled her nose. “Is it possible to frequent a woman and not esteem her? No. Never mind. I do not wish to know. Lillian asked me to abandon my mistletoe plan, but perhaps Edmund could benefit from it. Hm. No. The owner of the blue ribbon would have to be present. And she can’t be. Even if she were, I have my doubts now about the persuasiveness of kisses. Oh! I've been wanting to tell you.” She wrapped her fingers around his one good arm. The muscles flexed deliciously under her touch. She unwrapped her fingers as if shocked by a bolt of lightning.
“There is much in that speech I wish to investigate further.” He glanced down at his arm where her fingers had rested momentarily, then back at her. “But for now, I’ll settle with knowing what it is you wish to tell me.”
“Thank you for the mistletoe. I did not come to tell you earlier, after the footman delivered it to my personal sitting room, because I was angry with you. But then the mistletoe softened that anger. Butthen,I was scared that your head would be hurting, so I did not go. And when we shared dinner and conversation, I had a particular purpose that kept my gratitude at bay. But here I am now, saying thank you. It was very thoughtful.”
He looked away from her, and the fingers of his good hand tapped on his thigh. “I didn't want you to climb up that damn tree again.”
“I wasn’t going to. I’ve no idea what I’m going to do with it all. Every branch of it in the forest, I swear.” It made her feel like she was glowing from the inside out. Every branch of mistletoe delivered to her private sitting room. Ridiculous.
She hid her grin and inched closer, then tapped him on the chest. His body felt like a magnet drawing her nearer and nearer. But to what? She could not fathom the what. Her destruction most likely, a life of servitude to a goblin king in some benighted fairy county. It did not seem like a bad fate.
My, she felt quite deliriously tired. No more fairy tales with Lillian. Ever again. It could be the only explanation for her body’s odd reactions.
“Do not be grumpy,” she said, “that I have figured out you are kinder than you wish to appear. And do not try to turn your kind act into an insulting one. I know you better than that.”
“Do you?” he asked, his voice deeper than usual. Strange how that deep, new voice affected her. She could barely put words to it.
He reached out and grabbed her braid where it began at the base of her skull. He pulled it over her shoulder and traced it link by link to the very tip, which he lifted to his lips. He seemed to paint something with the tip of her braid across those lips.
What a pity she'd never noticed his lips before. They were so very fine, plump, chiseled. How many other positive words could she think of to describe them? Easier to describe them than to describe the way they made her feel.
“I've made up my mind,” he said.
“About?” She found herself breathless, barely able to speak the two-syllable word.
“About which of the many questions I wish to ask you after your last speech. I find I must have further details on one thing you said.”
“And what thing was that?”
“That you do not believe kisses can be persuasive. How can that be? Pretty girl like you. Bold and bright. I'm not at all surprised you've been kissed. But I am surprised you found the venture lacking in inspiration.”
He tugged her braid. Not hard enough to pull her toward him, but her body moved there, anyway. He looked at her lips, a curious glint in his eye.
But her lips were no mystery. They were there just as any pair of lips were—right where they were supposed to be on a perfectly ordinary face.
“I'm perfectly ordinary,” she blurted out.
He frowned and lifted his gaze to her. “Pardon me? What is perfectly ordinary about you?”
“You called me pretty. I am not.”
He tilted his head to the side and seemed to scan every inch of her face. “I suppose some may say not, and I suppose in the fashionable world, you would not make a splash.”
She decidedly had not made a splash.
He scratched his chin. “They do not know you as I do. And people who say you are plain must not have ever seen you in a passion or curious or talking or simplythinking.”
“I do not understand.” She wanted his explanation like she wanted the sun’s warmth on her skin.
“What people see when they look at you is a perfectly ordinary lady on the cusp of pretty. If they have the pleasure to see you speak, talk, or—damn, Jane, even think—they will see you become breathtakingly gorgeous.”
She let herself believe the words for a breath, maybe two. Then she scoffed and slapped him playfully on the shoulder. “George, you rogue. Is that how you melt the widows’ hearts?”
He tossed her braid back over her shoulder, his brows cutting toward one another.
