Page 132 of A Scot Is Not Enough

“You’ll never be Baron of the Exchequer.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“Because I chose you instead.”

She memorized him and this bittersweet moment. His blunt-cut queue and his need for order. His mouth, serious and sensual, the first part of his body to give his emotions away. And his intelligent eyes. They saw the world in a different, challenging way. He was a proper gentleman and a free thinker.

And he was hers. He’d certainly given up a great deal for their joining to happen.

No man had done that for her. Ever.

“This must be love, this wanting something so badly for you, yet it hurts, knowing you won’t have it—because of me.” She gulped and glossy tears watered her eyes.

“Don’t cry. My life is with you.” He dabbed hot tears rolling down her cheeks.

“But the work you could’ve done...”

“I will continue to do it. As a barrister. There’s much injustice. You showed me that.”

A wonderful glow spread down to her toes. This was new and exciting and hardly believable. Life with Alexander Sloane. She touched his knee as if her body needed reassurance for what her mind barely comprehended—life with him, forever.

“You were brilliant today.”

“I had a lot to prove since you found me arse up in your mews.”

She laughed softly, nervously. “I can hardly believe it. You and me . . .”

“Believe it.” He rose from the bed. “I have something else you’ll want to see.”

She pushed up and flopped back against the pillows. Her body wouldn’t let her budge an inch more. Sunlight filled the room as he walked, his bottom and thighs pleasant to watch. They were in the White Hart, noise of daily life muffled on the other side of the closed window. Alexander took a knife off the table and crouched on the floor. He slipped the blade between the planks and pried a piece of wood up.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

The wood squeaked as he worked. “Demonstrating my fealty to you, which is quite different than love, I think.”

“Your fealty?” She giggled. “That sounds utterly medieval.”

No man had said such things to her or fought so hard to keep her safe and protected. This would be a new, exciting path, a partnership with a man who saw her as his equal yet doted on her. Alexander kept levering the knife between two planks until one of them gave way. He reached into the hole in the floor and pulled out thesgian-dubh.

She gasped. “Youtook it?”

“I found it. After a short hunt.”

He crossed the room and set the ancient knife in her hands. Time had polished the bone handle and dimmed the blade. Two small pieces of amber embedded the bone, but otherwise it was an unimpressive knife. She rolled it across her palm.

“So much ado... for this.” Her gaze met his. “How did you get it?”

Alexander stretched out on the bed beside her and linked hands behind his head. “I waited for you in the ballroom as planned. Then I overheard guests gossiping about a ruckus in the marquess’s library, and thief takers hauling away a woman accused of theft.” He glanced at her. “I knew Lady Denton had struck.”

“Vile woman.”

“And careless. Before she left Swynford House, I overheard her tell a footman, ‘Toss it in the river.’ On any other night that would mean nothing to me, but I gathered that particular footman had thesgian-dubh. So, I kept an eye on him and waited. He went to the cellar and that’s when I cornered him and demanded he give me the knife.”

“And he just gave it to you?”

“With much encouragement from my pistol.”

“Your pistol?”

“It was strapped to my thigh, hidden by my knight’s tunic.” His grin was positively rakish. “I’ve learned a thing or two defending criminals.”