Page 5 of Winter's Waltz
His scowl turned into a glare. Moderately less painful than the scowl had been. “Touché, Miss Winter. You do not look much like a lady from where I stand either.”
She sauntered toward him, exuding a confidence that was rare amongst females—unless they were courtesans, of course—drawing to a halt within kissing distance. “Here’s the way of it,yournabs. I don’t want to be a bloody lady. I just want to know how one thinks and acts so I can persuade as many of them as possible to come to Lady Fortune and give me their blunt.”
There was honesty, he supposed. And he could not help but to think of himself in those same terms. To wonder if that was how every gaming hell proprietor thought about him and other noble clientele.
Max leaned down until their noses almost brushed. Until her breath skated over his lips, tea-scented and alluring. Of course. He took a moment to appreciate the unusual beauty of her features. She did not possess an ordinary loveliness—not the fragile beauty expected from a diamond of the first water. But she was exquisite in her individuality, in the ferocity she exuded, in the disparity she represented. Flaxen hair, icy eyes, rosebud lips, the slashes of her cheeks, the strength of her brows, the prominence of her jaw, the gentleman’s attire, the spare form.
Rare.
That was what she was.
And maddening, too.
But never mind all that now. He had a far more pressing concern.
“If you want me to help you empty the reticules of every gambling-minded lady in London,” he told her, “then you had damned well better refrain from punching me in the nose in future, madam.”
She sniffed. “You earned that one, Blunderberry. Don’t dare to suggest you didn’t.”
With that, she turned on her heel and sauntered away. He would be a liar if he said he was not watching the sway of her hips in those damned trousers of hers.
He was watching.
And she was exquisite.
Or mayhap her bottom was?
Both, he decided. Her rump and all the rest of her, too.
“Stop ogling my arse,” she commanded, as if she knew what he was about.
And then she rang the bell pull.
In the next few seconds, the dreaded Peter appeared.
