Page 9 of For a Scot's Heart Only

“Sheathe your claws,” he said. “Then, you and I can continue our conversation in a safer place.”

“Why should I? When I can simply walk away from you?”

His breath tickled her when he whispered, “Are you not the least bit curious?”

Heaven help her, she was. His voice alone poured sweet goose bumps down her back.

“Of a man threatening blackmail?” she whispered back, peevish.

“A harsh word,blackmail. You’ve trusted me in the past, Miss Fletcher. It’s in your best interest to trust me again.”

Peals of laughter expanded in the gaming room, the noise enough to scramble one’s mind. Or was the chaos inside her entirely because of the gentleman at her back? His confident arms slid across her stomacher, and just like that, she was free.

She touched where his hand had been on her neck and turned, stunned.

Dazzling aquamarine eyes clashed with hers. Like pieces of polished glass, those eyes. They belonged to Mr. Thomas West, owner of a whaling concern. A strapping man with a piratical scar on his cheek, he embodied rough refinement. Sun had streaked gold in brown hair clubbed at his nape. His jaw was shaved and his cravat starched, a sign of his civility. But she wasn’t fooled. The rugged shipmaster carried a bit of salt air and rigging wherever he went.

A sea wolf to be sure.

“Mr. West.” She was cool, her hand dropping to her side.

“Miss Fletcher.”

He took in the silk mask and her hair piled on her head, sparks searing her wherever his gaze wandered—especially when it landed on her bosom. The shipmaster’s mouth quirked as if he couldn’t believe his fortune at being the sole recipient of an up-close, magnanimous display of flesh.

She wanted badly to regain her composure, but a curl still hung over her eyes from her tangle with Culpepper. She brushed the lock off her face with all the hauteur a spinster in a brothel could muster.

“I daresay you have some questions,” she said.

His attention climbed to her face.

“A few.”

“Then you will be pleased to know I won’t answer them. So don’t bother asking.”

He grinned and shook his head. “Not one question?”

“No.”

The memory of his hands on her body unsettled her. They were business acquaintances after all. During the autumn season she purchased whalebones and baleen from West and Sons Shipping for her shop, and oil for her lamps. And she was always properly garbed. Neckerchiefs, mobcaps, practical wool.

Once she’d visited his shipyard at Howland Great Wet Dock to forge a key, an arrangement brokeredby Will MacDonald, a friend of her league’s. She was pleased Mr. West didn’t mention that.

She was equally pleasednotto receive a lecture about the damaging effects of being in a brothel. The latitude given to noblewomen did not trickle down to shopkeepers. At almost thirty years old, she’d lived too long and seen too much to care. Perhaps the same was true of Mr. West? There was a rawness about him. A man who’d tamed the sea, whispered to mermaids, and lived to tell the tale. He was a gentleman, of course, but that scar and his tantalizing scent—dangerous.

She pulled out her fan to blow cool air on hot skin.

“I’d prefer you simply walked away and forgot that you saw me.”

“Liar,” he said in a silken voice.

She balked, but skin crinkling at the outer corners of his eyes softened her ruffled feathers.

“Admit it, Miss Fletcher. You’re just as surprised at finding me here as I am at finding you in this unlikely place.”

She pursed her lips. “Perhaps.”

His unblinking gaze was backlit with enough admiration to send fresh warmth up and down her body.