“And yet you meet with the man all cloak and dagger in a tavern?”
She shrugged. “I keep in touch with his sister if you must know. She is a reclusive character, keeps to herself. I promised to look out for her. Now can you please let the matter go?”
She still hadn’t answered his question. But Wolfstan let the matter go. And only because he had already decided to seek out Lance the moment he deposited Rebecca at Willoughby Castle. However deep the acquaintance ran between them, Wolfstan had to know. Rebecca was his.His.
He willed the rigidity to ease from his shoulders, directing his mind to their last kiss. The anger faded.
“I suppose I could let the matter go—”
“I amnotkissing you.”
He raised a brow. “Mightily forward of you to assume.”
“Your eyes dropped to my lips. You were thinking about kissing me.” Her eyes widened. “There! They dropped again.”
He smiled at that. “Have you always been this outspoken? I cannot recall.”
***
REBECCA LIFTED HERchin. His eyes shackled her in place and her belly contracted with nerves. Longing nipped at her heart but she fought it off. She sensed her story fell short. Could offer him no more than that. “It seems foolish not to speak my mind after all that’s transpired between us.”
Lord, the knot in her belly still hadn’t quite unraveled since their eyes locked back in the tavern. She’d told Wicke she had never gambled in her life but she had lied. Ever since Rebecca had procured Knightley’s she gambled every day. Gambled with her reputation.
How had the conversation gone from Mr. Lance to kissing so suddenly? Underneath her gloves, pearls of moisture collected on the inside of her palms.
“Kissing me should come as second nature by now.” He grinned. “Will you deny it?”
Rebecca did not trust that blinding smile. It was the sort of wolfish grin that said nothing and spoke volumes at the same time, and Rebecca found herself once again immersed in fantasy. If she had her sketchbook handy, she would have drawn rough outlines of them, in this moment, laughing at each other.
“Second nature is a bit of a stretch,” she said snappily.
He settled back into the seat and crossed his legs over one another. “Only a bit?”
She refused to answer. He was too close, too attuned to the slight nuances of her nature not to catch a lie. She wanted to kiss him. But if she admitted the truth, he would not allow her to walk away from it. Rebecca was certain of it.
And there was still Knightley’s to consider. The fact that Wicke did not know all of her. His reaction to Mr. Lance. And if this encounter had shown her anything it was that Wicke would never accept the role she had placed herself in Knightley’s.
Disappointment pushed at her shoulders, and she dragged her eyes away from him. Could a woman fall in love in just a few short days? Was it enough for her to give up Knightley’s? She could scarcely look him in the eyes without replaying his confession in her mind a thousand times. The man across from her loved her. He wanted to marry her.
She could tell him now.
Tell him about Knightley’s.
She did not. “I cannot marry you, Wicke.”
He stared at her a long while, the emotion in his eyes unsettling. The space between them crackled with tension. Rebecca held her ground.
“Because of Langley?” he asked, voice pitched low. “What about me? What about the boy who fought Jim Parsons for you all those years ago? What about the boy who never wandered too far from your side to protect you?”
“Not because of Langley,” Rebecca denied. “I have no wish to marry Langley.”
He frowned. “The sketches you drew . . .”
“Were a young girl’s fantasies about her first kiss.” She fished out a carefully folded piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to him. She could not give him marriage, but she could at least give him one other thing he had asked for. “This is for you.”
She watched as he unfolded the paper and studied the picture she had sketched of them in an archery lesson. Not one twitch betrayed his expression as he traced the lines of her work.
The scene was an intimate one. She held a bow and arrow in her hand, aiming at the target, and he was behind her, keeping her arms steady with his own while she gazed over her shoulder at him.
