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She broke off, startled as Lord St. Vincent moved toward her in two fluid strides. Instinctively she backed away until her shoulders encountered the side bank of the holloway.
Looming over her, Lord St. Vincent braced one hand against an exposed tree root that ran up the wall. “I’m not planning to give you to another man,” he said evenly, “if only because for the life of me, I can’t think of a single acquaintance who would begin to know how to handle you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “But you can?”
Lord St. Vincent didn’t reply, but his mouth twisted in a way that seemed to imply the answer to the question was obvious. As he saw the fist she had clenched in the folds of her robe, something in his face softened. “You’re not here to win my approval. I invited you to find out more about who you are.”
“Well, that won’t take long,” Pandora muttered. In response to his quizzical glance, she continued, “I’ve never been anywhere, or done any of the things I’ve dreamed about. I haven’t finished becoming myself. And if I marry you, I’ll never be anything except Lord St. Vincent’s peculiar wife who talks too fast and never knows the order of precedence for the dinner guests.” Hanging her head, Pandora swallowed against the sharp constriction of her throat.
After a speculative silence, his long, graceful fingers came to her jaw, tipping it upward. “What do you say to lowering our guards?” he asked gently. “A temporary disarmament.”
Fidgeting, Pandora looked away from him and happened to see a nearby vine bearing an enormous cup-shaped pink blossom with a white star at its center. “What kind of flower is that?”
“Sea bindweed.” Lord St. Vincent guided her face back to his. “Are you trying to distract me, or did that question just pop into your head?”
“Both?” she offered sheepishly.
Amusement flicked one corner of his mouth upward. “What would it take to keep your attention fixed on me?”
Pandora stiffened as his fingertips traced the edge of her jaw, leaving behind a ticklish trail of warmth. Her throat felt thick, as if she’d just swallowed a spoonful of honey. “I am paying attention to you.”
“Not fully.”
“I am, I’m looking at you, and—” A shaky breath escaped her as she recalled that Lord Chaworth had called this man a notorious rake. “Oh, no. I hope this isn’t—you’re not going to try to kiss me, are you?”
One of his brows arched. “Do you want me to?”
“No,” she said hastily. “No, thank you, no.”
Lord St. Vincent laughed gently. “One refusal is enough, darling.” The backs of his fingers stroked the frantic pulse in her throat. “The fact is, we have a decision to make by the end of the week.”
“I don’t need a week. I can tell you right now.”
“No, not until you find out more about what you might be turning down. Which means we’re going to have to condense six months of courtship into six days.” He let out a breath of rueful amusement as he read her expression. “You look like a patient who’s just been informed she needs surgery.”
“I’d rather not be courted.”
“Could you help me understand why?” he asked, relaxed and patient.
“I just know it would turn out badly, because . . .” Pandora hesitated, considering how to explain the side of herself she’d never liked but couldn’t seem to change. The side that perceived intimacy as a threat, and feared being controlled. Manipulated. Damaged. “I don’t want you to find out more about who I am, when so many things about me are wrong. I’ve never been able to think or behave the way other girls do. I’m even different from my own twin. People have always called us hellions, but the truth is, I’m the hellion. I should be put on a leash. My sister is only guilty by association. Poor Cassandra.” Her throat cinched around an ache of misery. “I’ve caused a scandal, and now she’ll be ruined, and she’ll end up a spinster. And my family will suffer. It’s all my fault. I wish none of this had happened. I wish—”
“Easy, child. Good Lord, there’s no need for all this self-flagellation. Come here.” Before Pandora quite knew what was happening, she was in his arms, clasped against the warm, breathing strength of him. As he brought her head to his shoulder, her hat was dislodged and fell to the ground. Shocked and bewildered, she felt his masculine form pressed all along hers, and clarions of alarm sang through her blood. What was he doing? Why was she allowing it?
But he was speaking to her, his voice low and soothing, and it was so comforting that her startled tension dissolved like a sliver of ice in the sun. “Your family isn’t as fragile as all that. Trenear is more than capable of seeing to their welfare. Your sister is an attractive girl with good blood and a dowry, and even in the shadow of family scandal, she won’t go unmarried.” His hand moved over her back with easy, hypnotic strokes until Pandora began to feel like a cat whose fur was being smoothed just the right way. Slowly her cheek came to rest upon the smooth linen weave of his vest, her eyes half-closing as she inhaled the hint of laundry soap, and the crisp, resinous dryness of cologne on hot male skin.
“Of course you don’t fit in with London society,” he was saying. “Most of them have no more imagination or originality than the average sheep. Appearances are all they understand, and therefore—however maddening you find it—you’re going to have to heed some of the rules and rituals that make them comfortable. The unfortunate fact is, the only thing worse than being a part of society is living outside of it. Which is why you may have to let me help you out of this situation, just as I pulled you out of that settee.”