“Last time, you said that I am too young and impetuous to know what I want,” she went on. “While I cannot deny our age difference, you know me. You cannot deny that I have always known my own mind.”
“Even clever misses can be fooled by an infatuation.” He strove for a brotherly tone. “Let it go, Livy. For the sake of our friendship.”
“It is not an infatuation. I love you,” she insisted.
Her words elicited a tingle of pleasure…which he quickly quelled.
“At your age, a lady changes her mind as frequently as she does her gloves,” he said.
She narrowed her eyes. “Do not dismiss my feelings.”
“I am trying to spare your feelings, little one. To protect you.” He willed her to understand. “Livy, you deserve a better man than me. One whose honor is untarnished, whose life is not tainted by filth and darkness.”
His sins were too many to count, his hands stained with the blood of the people he’d destroyed. Redemption was beyond his reach, but through his work with Chen’s night watch, at least he was doing something good. The only area where he allowed his base nature to surface was tupping, and he always chose sophisticated partners whose carnal needs matched his own.
Livy knew nothing of this: the brutality of his past, the covert activities of his present, the depravity of his sexual tastes. She was pure and bright, and he wanted her to stay that way. To be the North Star that lit up his universe, whose shining beauty his darkness could never obscure.
“What if I do not wish to be protected?”
She tilted her chin up, and God help him, her defiance yanked at his dominant urges. That part of him that reveled in taming a lady…
“What if I want the same things that you do?” she persisted.
“You do not know what you want—”
“Dash it all! You do not get to tell me what I want.” She poked him in the chest with her index finger, her eyes flashing with challenge. “And if you will not give it to me, then I will find it elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere? What the bloody hell does that mean?”
Her lashes veiled her gaze an instant before she looked him straight in the eye. “Lord Sheffield finds me quite appealing.”
Did she think she could manipulate him? Goad him into jealousy?
Icy rage flooded Ben. For years, Arabella, an actual expert, had played him like a puppet. The idea that Livy thought she could pull on his strings with her transparent ploy made him want to laugh or snarl…he didn’t know which. Seeing that she was about to punctuate her childish threat with another poke to his chest, he captured her wrist in his hand. He backed her into the glass wall, caging her. Her awareness quivered in the sliver of air between them.
“Do not play games with me,” he said.
Arabella would have backed down at the quiet menace of his tone.
Livy, however? Her gaze sparkled with defiance.
“I am not afraid of you,” she retorted.
“You should be.”
“You are the one who is afraid.”
“And what, precisely, am I afraid of?”
“Of…of wanting me.” She wetted her lips, a provocative swipe. “As much as I want you.”
The chit wanted to play, did she?
He raised his free hand, trailing a fingertip down her throat, feeling her nervous swallow. He brushed the tiny crown before moving lower. Beneath his touch, her skin rose and fell in a silken wave. He stopped at the neckline of her gown, resting the tip of his finger on the fabric just above the crevice of her breasts.
Her eyes were glazed, her lips parting on uncontrolled breaths. Her fresh, girlish scent of peach blossoms was ripened with a woman’s sensual musk. He knew she was aroused. Knew that beneath her bodice her nipples would be stiff and aching, and in the secret cove between her thighs, she would be wet with virginal dew.
Aye, Lady Olivia McLeod had grown into a vixen who tested his restraint. She had transformed from his trusted little friend to a young woman whose innocence and boldness was an arrow headed straight for his Achilles’ heel.
She was temptation, and she was forbidden.
The recognition raged through him, yet he remained in control. As much as he craved dark games, he would never, ever allow himself to despoil his little queen. No matter how much he craved it.
“I do not play with little girls,” he said softly. “Nor do I tolerate manipulation. Try it again, Livy, and our friendship will come to an end.”
He released her. Saw the shock in her eyes and did not wait to see the pain.
Turning on his heel, he walked out.
8
Entering Lady Charlie’s Mayfair townhouse with her friends, Livy was unsurprised to find the antechamber as elegant and fashionable as its owner. The marble floors and rosewood paneling gleamed, the scent of lemon polish mingling with the perfume of roses. The man who had opened the door introduced himself as Hawker, and Livy assumed he was the butler, although his strapping build, eye patch, and rough-hewn features gave him a distinct resemblance to a pirate.
As the girls trailed Hawker to the drawing room, Fiona whispered, “Charlie has a rather unusual butler, doesn’t she?”
Livy thought everything about Charlie was uncommon, which was why the Willflowers were intrigued by her. Fiona was obsessed with the lady’s style, Glory with the promise of adventure, and Livy…
She stifled a sigh. I came because I need a distraction.
Two nights ago, Hadleigh had rejected her…again. She was stubborn, but she wasn’t stupid. He had made it abundantly clear that he was not interested in her—as a woman, at any rate. Perhaps he could only ever see her as a younger sister, she thought, the ache in her chest billowing. The wise course of action would be to cut her losses; if she persisted in trying to win his affections, she might end up losing him altogether. Where would she be then?
You have to move on, she told herself. If you love Hadleigh,
