Page 18 of The Hellion is Tamed
She’d vowed then and thereneverto come back.
Delaney’s teacup hit the table with a thunk. “You saw Simon and…” She flapped her hand in the air instead of completing the statement, her breath rushing out in a diminutive, duchess-likewhoosh.
Emma gave his gloves a fierce twist. “I don’t know how I ended up in a bedchamber. I believe it washers. So much pink. Gaudy, like this brothel I stumbled into once when I happened to be delivering coal. Not time travel that one, I just walked in.”
“A countess, you say?”
Emma sank her fingertips into the soft leather and tried to push the picture from her mind. “There was a tiara.”
Delaney scooted forward in her chair. “A tiara?”
Emma threw his gloves on the table. “And not much else.”
Delaney slumped back, her laugh rolling out too fast for her to suppress it.Thiswas the American, on full display. “I can’t imagine,” she whispered and popped her hand over her mouth.
“You can’t imagine Simon…?”
“He’s an Alexander. And a gorgeous one at that. Ofcourse, I can imagine. The stories they print can’t all be fake.” She licked her lips, her voice dropping to a whisper, “What I mean is, I can’t imagineyou, a young girl, seeingthat.”
Emma sighed and went to her knee, deciding not to tell Delaney that fornicating couples were a common sight in the slums.Lord, save her from naïve duchesses. “They have a code at the Blue Moon. Three knocks, followed by two, followed by a final. This one the decider. It means a woman needs to make a shifty escape. They have so many bloody kittens traipsing in and out of there, they had to invent a cipher!”
“And you know thishow?”
Emma rocked back and forth in slippers that pinched. “I just do, that’s all.”
“You just what?” Simon asked from where he’d sneaked up behind her, his long body stooped to hear better a conversation she didn’t want him to hear. Aside from seeing ghosts at every turn and having the fastest hands in England, the man moved like a thief in the night.
She’d never seen him coming—a girl whoalwayswatched her back.
Emma swiveled on her toes, graceful herself when the situation called for it. But entirely at a disadvantage, what with him lording it over her, his body rising to his full height now that she’d turned to look up at him. His eyes flashed, those slender rings of purple visible in the gaslight. And the freckles, a piece she’d bet the countess she’d seen him tangled up with in that flaming pink bedchamber hadn’t cared a whit about. “None of your business,” she growled and shoved to her feet. “How ‘bout that?”
“You sure about making this one into a lady?” Simon murmured and gave his coin another crazy spin. “Although itwasmy idea.”
“Youcad.” Emma jammed her hands on her hips, ready to shout from the rooftops about that blemish on his person. She’d seen it up close before transporting herself back to her time. A crying, unhappy mess, landing in 1802, alone and miserable. With visions of Simon’s pert, perfect, birthmarked arse forever in her mind.
Delaney sighed and lumbered to her feet. “Thank you for asking, Simon, darling. Miss Breslin would be delighted to have this dance. As the duke has continued to play, in hopes someone waltzes before dawn breaks.” When they looked to her with arguments lined up on their tongues, she clapped her hands lightly. “Are you really going to argue with an expectant mother? Causing her any minor amount of undue stress? Shall I tell Sebastian that’s what’s occurring in his ballroom at this very minute?”
Emma dug the toe of her slipper in a crack in the marble floor, chastised. “No, ma’am.”
“‘Your Grace’ is the proper address,” Simon muttered, tucking the farthing in his waistcoat pocket with a resigned roll of his shoulders. “Are we pretending she has a dance card I initialed, Delaney, duchess dear? Bursting with signatures of the ineffectual, men sure to get their toes smashed for their earnest efforts.”
Delaney cuffed him on the arm. “Simon!”
“I quit!” Emma turned, five paces away before he caught her.
His fingers circled her wrist, tugging her to a halt. She glanced over her shoulder, the wrong moment, the exactwrong,bleeding moment to do it. Color had risen in his cheeks, slight but noticeable when she found she couldn’t help but noticeeverything about him. His dark-as-oak eyes wide, his lashes,dear heaven, so long they brushed his skin when he blinked. A muscle in his jaw ticked, his annoying dimple pinging to life. He was handsome, plain and simple. Just a mark beyond, even. On the outer edge of pretty.
Why, oh why, had he grown up to be even more fetching than he’d been as a boy?
“I’m sorry,” he said, loud enough for her to hear. But just barely. “Come, I’ll help you with the waltz.”
Emma wiggled her wrist from his grip, her pulse, which he’d pressed his thumb over, thumping in time with her breaths. His touch was not something she could easily endure when she’d gone years without anyone’s. “Come again?”
He stepped back a feather space, his expression hardening like the marble beneath their feet. “I said I’m sorry. This was my idea, inventing a new history for you, because it’s how Julian solved my problem when I was a boy. I thought to do what worked before. Bring someone into the League and construct a life for them. He lied to everyone. To this day, telling tales about us being half-brothers when we’re not, forcing society to accept the falsehood. So much so that I now believe it myself. Never contemplating that they wouldn’t acknowledge me because he made it so. He’s very tenacious. It’s endearing and infuriating.” Exhaling, he dragged his fingers through his hair, leaving the strands in ferocious tufts she had to squeeze hers into fists to keep from straightening. “I’m being a miscreant. And for that, I apologize.”
Her heart tumbled, an absolute roll, like a length of carpet spilling out carelessly along polished oak. “Miscreant? Is that the same as a scoundrel?”
He laughed softly, his lips twitching as he tried to suppress a smile. “More villainous than a scoundrel. Perhaps cad is closer. When I was a ruffian at the start, this is what I honestly tell you. Julian and Finn took a rowdy, uncouth boy and made”—he swept his hand down his form with a self-deprecating shrug thrown in—“thisof him. It’s not who I would’ve been, but it’s who Iam. And I’m finally, much to everyone’s surprise, coming to accept him.”