Page 28 of A Desperate Proposal

She clasped the golden cross at her neckline and closed her eyes. She realized now that it’d never been intended as a gift. It was a collar to be worn around her neck to remind her whose commands she ought to heed. And like the obedient puppy who continued to be kicked, she still gave chase at his heels, begging to be noticed. To be accepted. With a snarl, she pulled hard. The chain snapped.

To hell with Henry Weston.

“Are you intending to rip all your finery off this evening, Miss Harcourt?” Asherton’s laconic question seemed to come out of the ether before his hand appeared on the top of the high-backed chair. She hadn’t heard him enter, not one whisper of tread on the floorboards. Was it normal for such a large person to move so silently? “That would be the most diverting event of the ball by far.”

“Honestly, my lord? It wouldn’t be my worst decision tonight.”

“I dispute that assertion, but I suspect I know why you make it.” He moved, with only the barest sound of velvet brushing against buckskin to mark his passage, until his coat rustled against the upholstery of the matching chair beside hers.

“I suspect your suspicions are correct. Much as I wish they weren’t. But you were right. I think part of me knew you were.”

“I would have preferred to be wrong, in this instance.”

“I know.” Her eyes met his, and she hoped she didn’t look as sick with nerves as she felt. Did he have to look even more handsome by firelight? “Because you are a good man.”

“Am I?”

She sighed, refusing to be distracted from her purpose. “And though I have been undeserving of it tonight, you have also been a good friend. That’s why I wanted to speak to you. To apologize for my behavior. I should not have put my hands on you.”

“Not in anger at any rate.” His lips turned in a wicked smile.

“Don’t,” she said sharply, her eyes snapping shut. “I need to ask you something serious and if you start teasing, I shall lose my nerve.”

“I do dread it when you insist on sobriety.” Asherton settled back in his seat. “Fire when ready, Miss Harcourt.”

“Have you found a governess yet?”

His head jerked toward her so suddenly she wondered if he was still angry after all. His unnerving gaze narrowed. “I have not.”

Elinor took a steadying breath and straightened her shoulders to face his incisive gaze. “Would you allow me to put myself forward as a candidate?”

He did not answer immediately. Or after one heartbeat. Two. Three… Maybe the floor will open up and swallow me whole? He would have welcomed her request mere hours ago, she was certain. Before the fight. Clearly, he wasn’t going to forgive her lapse.

“Not for that position,” he said at last, shattering the last of her resolve with four simple words.

“Please, Lord Asherton?” She turned in the seat to plead her case. She wanted to rise—if only she trusted her unsteady legs to work—and throw herself at his feet. “Please, it needn’t be permanent. Take me on for a month. Weeks? I only need to stay long enough that you could give me references for another household.”

Tristan’s glorious face had become solemn as any angel in Merfield’s ancient paintings. “I could never see you as an employee, Miss Harcourt. A governess is meant to be plain and retiring. Keeping a beautiful, young, and entirely engaging governess would be—”

“Stop, please.” She interrupted him, her desperation too great to remain silent. “I do not need empty compliments, my lord. This is about my future. My life.”

“They are not empty, I assure you.” He sat forward in the chair, watching her with those too-intense eyes, the firelight’s endless dance once more changing him into something distant and fey, not at all the amiable man who had carried her, laughed with her. Kissed her.

“All the same. Please, I cannot hear them. Not now.” She swallowed hard, hoping he would understand, twisting the broken golden chain in her fingers. “I am not so skilled at flirtation that I can keep my heart separate from it, my lord. I would rather you not tease me tonight. I do not think I can bear further disappointment.”

“Oh, I have no intentions of disappointing you, Miss Harcourt.” His long fingers tapped the chair arm almost absently, as if he didn’t know he was doing it. But she suspected he did, she just didn’t know why. “Nor am I teasing.”

Her breath caught. Was she imagining the weight of his words? “W-what are your intentions, then?”

That enigmatic smile returned. “They are legion, Miss Harcourt.”

She glared at him, though she felt a slight hint of amusement bubbling up inside of her. “I thought you weren’t teasing me.”

“Touché. I suppose you’re asking very particularly about the ones regarding you?”

“Before this moment, I didn’t think you had any intentions regarding me. You made that quite clear.”

“Did I?”