A Kiss To Remember | Herophine

Chapter Seven - The Sealed Bill

Josephine

Although I let them take you away from me, I have always kept you close to my heart...

As those deep, silken tones emerged from the shadows, Josephine whirled around, fearing irrationally that she’d summoned the devil himself with her blasphemy. It wasn’t the Prince of Darkness but her fiancé who leaned against the doorframe, the flames reflected in his green eyes warning her that she might be playing with something even more dangerous than fire.

Wrapped in nothing but a quilt, he had resembled some sort of magnificent savage fresh from the jungles of Madagascar. He looked no less uncivilized in trousers and a shirt. Without a coat and cravat to bind his masculine vitality, it seemed to spill from him in restless waves. The tawny brown of his hair, worn slightly longer than was the current fashion, brushed his broad shoulders while his shirt lay open at the throat. Josephine glanced down, then wished she hadn't. The clinging buckskin of his trousers perfectly defined the elegantly chiseled muscles of his calves and thighs. He was certainly no spidershanks who had to use sawdust to pad his limbs.

Or anything else.

Pain seared her fingertips. Yelping, she dropped the smoldering remains of the letter and began to stomp on them with her slippers. “It was the latest bill from the butcher,” she explained breathlessly, lifting the hem of her nightdress to avoid the scattering sparks. “He can be rather intractable if he doesn’t receive his money by the first of the month.”

Her fiancé watched her graceless dance with keen interest. “So tell me, do you consign all of your creditors to hell or only the ones who insist on being paid?”

To avoid answering, Josephine tucked her singed fingertips in her mouth.

“Let me have a look at that hand." As he crossed the room, shadows veiled his face, making him look even larger and more menacing than he had in Lady Martha's bedroom.

Josephine’s heart skipped a beat. What if John was right? What if she had brought a murderer or thief into their midst? Suppose he hadn't been set upon by a band of highwaymen but was a highwayman himself? Surely any highwayman worth his salt could afford the outward trappings of a gentleman. Perhaps he had even discovered her subterfuge and had come downstairs to strangle her.

Without realizing it, she began to back away from him.

He stopped abruptly. “If you're my fiancée, then why do you behave as if you’re afraid of me?" He drew nearer, looking so genuinely aggrieved that it was almost as if she were the one who had wounded him. “Have I ever hurt you or led you to believe that I would?"

“Not yet.” Her shoulders came up against the mantel, setting a porcelain vase to swaying. He reached around her to steady it, effectively cutting off her means of escape. “I mean, no.”

Her stinging fingertips were forgotten as he cupped her cheek, the callused pad of his thumb playing softly over her downy skin. Instead of shrinking from his touch, she found herself wanting to turn into it.

His husky voice was mesmerizing. “If I’m the sort of bullying asshole who would lift a hand to a woman, then I’d just as soon you’d have left me to the mercy of the French. It would have been no crueler a fate than I deserved.”

Josephine ducked beneath his arm, seeking shelter in the moonlit bay of the window seat. She sank down among the cushions, folding her hands in her lap. “I’m not afraid of you," she lied. “I just thought it best to avoid any appearance of impropriety."

“It’s a bit late to worry about that, isn’t it, considering that we’ve yet to have a conversation while fully clothed.” His eyes sparkled with dark humor. “At least not in my memory."