“That’s it.” Lucy snapped her fingers. “Alex, you’ve been visiting a friend—me. To… prepare for married life. Your brother escorted you here and decided to stay.” Her brow wrinkled, and she tapped her lip. “But why would you stay?”
“Stick to the truth,” Keats said. “I stayed because I worried for Alex. And then because I met you.”
Humming silence. Had he stolen their conversation because he’d admitted so plainly the pitiful state of his heart? Or because they realized the solution was a simple one? Tell the truth and send the uninvited guests away.
“Very well then,” Alex finally said. “Let’s go.”
“Not you.” Griff blocked the door. “You stay here.”
Alex ducked beneath his arm. “I think not.”
Griff chased after her, leaving Keats and Lucy alone.
The door was empty, the hallway, too, their guards having chased after Alex and Griff. Keats could easily slip through it without another word to Lucy. She’d prefer it that way, no doubt.
“I should go,” he said, curling his toes in his boots. “I’ll need to change.”
She gave one sharp nod and made for the door.
“You’re coming with, I assume.”
“Do not try to stop me.”
“I would never. I’m a fool, but even a brain so small as mine knows Lucy Jones is an excellent woman to have about in a crisis.”
“You’re not a fool,” she mumbled. “Not entirely.”
Sounded like hope, that did. “Are you saying I have a chance? To woo and win you?”
“I’m saying nothing of the sort.” They took the stairs side by side. “Tell me something terrible about yourself.”
She was curious about him. Hope, indeed. “Why do you want to know?”
“So I may build up my walls against you.”
Ah, and there went his hope—drowning like a shoe thrown into a lake, sinking fast. “I don’t think so.”
“Come now, a small detail only. How many women have you ruined?”
“None! I’ve never touched a virgin.”
She arched a brow.
“Except for you,” he hissed. “All the other women were widows. Or paid well for their time. Actresses. You know.”
“Yes. I do.”
“I did it, didn’t I? Gave you brick and mortar for your damn wall?”
She mimicked plopping a brick on a wall and smoothing mortar across it.
“What can I do to demolish it?”
“Why?”
“Don’t you feel this?” At the bottom of the steps, the front door within view, an arch of bright, dusty sunlight spilled across the flooring from the upper window. As Lucy stepped into it, he grasped her wrist and pressed her hand against his chest, right above his heart. “Don’t you feel what has grown between us? I am happier around you than anywhere else. You comfort me and challenge me. You drive me”—he inched closer, the toes of his boots tapping against hers—“wild. And while I want nothing more than to sink into you, somehow, at the same time, I want more than that to hold you close and safe and fight at your side, to pledge myself to you.” Each word bent him lower over her until he swore the last was whispered right into her ear. Her neck warm, her hair silky, her pulse a dancing flutter beneath her jaw, beneath his fingertips at her wrist.
Her voice as erratic as that pulse. “We’ve known each other so little?—”
