“Ah, yes, that. Hm.” She floated toward the pianoforte, ran her finger down its edge. “Just consider, my lord.” Mrs. Bronwen’s voice almost sang with despair. “Consider that I am in great need, and you may save me.”
Oh no. Notthat. He scratched the back of his neck. Save her. Save everyone. How had she spotted his weakness so easily? “I am not a hero.” No matter what the papers had said.
“You do not have to be a hero to hire me. You merely must see my skill. Let me tell you of the work I’ve done. That is all I ask, and if I am more capable than the others on your list, you must hire me.”
“Must?” He grunted. “I must do as I see fit. And technically, you’ve just asked two things of me.”
She flattened her palm against the top of the pianoforte, hanging her head. “I’m desperate.” Two words like bullets to his chest.
He rubbed it, put more distance between them until he was entirely across the room, seeking the cozy crackle of the fireplace.
No safety there, though. She straightened and followed, holding her hands out, palms up, as if to beg something of him or show him something. No matter which, he wanted nothing to do with what her upturned palms offered. And he banished rogue thoughts that offered alternative uses for them. Such as smoothing over his shoulders or massaging his aching leg or?—
No! “Mrs. Bronwen.” His back pressed against the mantel now, his trousers in danger of catching fire. “I am afraid I cannot help you. I’ve already made the decision. You waste your time.”
She sat in a nearby chair, so close he could reach out and touch her. With the fingers of both hands, she clutched a single chair arm and tilted her face up to him. Yes, there in her green eyes—desperation. Her face a rich tapestry of it, worn thin by habitual use. The fire put blooms in her round cheeks, and herthick lashes rested against her creamy skin as her eyes fluttered closed on a shaky inhalation. When she opened them once more, those green eyes were swimming. She would speak, and Atlas must listen. Though, likely, he would hate what he heard. Because…
Save me.
Bollocks.
“I am running from my husband’s family.” Her knuckles were bone white, though rose pink crept across the backs of her hands and up her wrists across that sea of freckles.
“That is not my concern.” Difficult words to say. “I need a cabinetmaker. Not a fugitive. Whatever your situation is will complicate matters for?—”
“You do not wish to hear what I have to say, but I will say it. I do not wish to. I have pride. But I am willing to toss it into the fire for Alfie.” Her child? “My husband died two years ago. His family never approved of me. A journeyman’s daughter? For a baron’s younger son? Ridiculous, I am well aware. But they were stuck with me. Until Everette died. They were going to send me away, keep Alfie.”
The words hovered in the air between them.
“I… I don’t know you,” Atlas managed to say.
“And you cannot know if separation from me would be better for my son than a continued connection.” Her voice had changed, taken on a rough tint as the polished elegance she’d been speaking with slid right off her vowels and consonants. She no longer sounded like an educated lady comfortable in drawing rooms and ballrooms. She sounded like the women from the village near his home, like the maids and the farmers’ wives. “I am a nobody, after all. You’re a peer, like them. Of course, you would think?—”
“No.” His hesitance came not from the difference in their births. He hesitated only because he understood howcomplicated family could be, how loving yet imperfect. How supportive yet selfish. He swallowed. “Do not speak for me.”
She lowered her head, hiding her face. “They would not let me visit family or friends, Lord Atlas. I sat in a room with a woman who taught me how to speak better and walk better. To erase who I was. They dressed me like a doll and moved me about like a doll, too. And when my son was born, they took him away, guarded him with governesses and tutors to ensure my commonness did not rub off on him. Alfie is not even heir to the title…” She bit her lip, looked away for the space of a shaky breath during which her hands turned still as stone. When she returned her attention to him, they fisted in her skirts. “They did not care. Considered me a stain. My husband tried to change it, but he had little power. And when he died, any hope I had of keeping my child with me disappeared. Yet I would have stayed. I would have stayed if it was best for Alfie. But he was miserable. He missed his father and missed me and could not please his grandfather, and?—”
“Enough.”
“And I have not seen a soul I grew up with since marrying. Not friends, not family. They refused to let me leave the estate. And I dare not go to my family now. That is where Lord Tefler will look first for me. But in the country, we might hide away for a bit, perhaps save enough money to make a life across the sea and?—”
“Enough!” He’d spoken more loudly than he’d intended, but it was enough to ring silence throughout the room.
She finally lifted her face once more, the vulnerable curve of her neck slowly straightening, her chin rising until he could see her expression. Those green eyes—no longer swimming. They were blazing. Her determination, her courage, made her beauty divine. He’d never seen a more exquisite sight. He needed to reject her. He wanted to drop to his knees and worship her as ifhe were still the young rogue he’d been before the war—ready to tup any pretty lady who winked his way.
With a ragged sigh, she stood. “I see I’ve made a mistake. I thought I might make you see. But I should have known.” Her steps toward the door dragged as if she carried the weight of a dead man across her shoulders. “Men like you are all the same.”
She thought she knew him? She knew nothing, and since she’d shared a bit of herself with him, perhaps he should reciprocate. Before she could wrap her fingers around the door handle, he grabbed her wrist, stopping her, swinging her around with a careful hold sure to show his power without hurting her.
“Do you want to know why I cannot hire you?”
She thrust her chin at him, making no attempt to shake him off. “It is only right.”
He would not only tell her, he’d show her. He loosened the grip on her wrist, brushed his thumb gently over her hammering pulse, that petal-soft skin there, and he caught his gaze on her lips, plump and slightly parted, a lovely dark pink. Impossible to look at them and not think of kissing.
He stepped closer, his thumb still soothing her pulse, their bodies now a breath away from touching, and he lowered his head, spoke with his nose beside hers, his lips tantalizingly close.
“I cannot hire you because I want to fuck you. And I am trying very diligently to hold on to my remaining gentlemanly impulse by not doing so. However, if we were to spend every day together. Alone.” He licked his lips. “There’s a bed in a room on the second floor of the dower house. It’s narrow. But that would be no disadvantage. And… who needs a bed anyway.” With his free hand, he reached up and brushed a lock of hair away from her neck. “I could hook your lovely legs over my shoulders and press you against the wall, taste that warm, sweet place at your very center.” He should not paint such wanton pictures. They shook him to his core. He’d dream of just such fantasies fornights to come. “I cannot hire you, Mrs. Bronwen. Because you need to be saved, and I… I would take advantage of you.”
