She widened her eyes. “I couldn’t ask an actual duke to feign wooing me.”
“Right. Not quite feasible.” He chuckled ruefully. “Perhaps I should think about challenging Lady Marwood for the title of Most Outrageous Tale-Teller in London.” He dragged his hands through his shaggy hair, pushing it off his forehead and dislodging his spectacles in the process. Quickly, he replaced his glasses.
When Grace came back into focus, he found her staring at him, as though she’d just made an incredible discovery.
Alarm prickled the back of his neck.
She grabbed him by the wrist and, with surprising strength, pulled him into the empty corridor. He was so stunned he couldn’t register the fact that this was one of the few instances where she actually touched him. Certainly it was the longest amount of time she’d ever done so.
Using that same strength, she positioned him to stand in front of her, and for the rest of his days, he’d never forget the look in her eyes as she gave him a thorough survey.
Oh, God.
Then she stepped closer, her scent of flowers and loam surrounding him, and his sense of reason winked out of existence.
Grace’s heart pounded and she could barely catch her breath as she narrowed the distance between herself and Sebastian.
He held himself very still and confusion shone in his gaze. Despite their years of friendship, this was the closest they had ever been, mere inches from each other. His body radiated heat.
Definitely warm-blooded, she thought through the haze of nearness. For a brief moment, she didn’t exist in a morass of worry over her father, or his implored wish for her to marry. Just then, she was only aware of Sebastian, and the gleam of an idea that was utterly preposterous . . . wasn’t it?
Raising up on her tiptoes, she lifted her hand, but stopped before she could touch him. “May I?”
Slowly, he nodded.
His breath puffed against her hand as she raised it to his face. Carefully, she plucked the spectacles off his nose. The metal was warm from his skin.
She slipped the glasses into his jacket pocket. Still balancing on the tips of her toes, she gently brushed his hair back. Nothing had ever felt quite so soft.
As she stroked his hair away, her fingers grazed his skin and her breath left her in a sudden gust. He, too, jolted.
It’s only Sebastian, she reminded herself. My friend.
But with his hair off his forehead, and his spectacles gone, she finally saw his bare face. And while she’d been aware of him as a man from the beginning, now she allowed herself the freedom to truly see him.
His jaw was square, and he sported a faint cleft in his chin. A light blond stubble grazed his cheeks and framed his astonishingly sensual lips. His nose was beautifully proportioned, large and masculine. High cheekbones emphasized eyes of bright, crystalline blue.
He possessed a long, strapping body, with wide shoulders that suggested athleticism. With his height, his bodily mass, and his handsome—no, striking—features, she knew with absolute certainty that one of his ancestors had braved northern seas to claim a home and mate for himself here in England.
This was what it must feel like to encounter a rare and magnificent species. The world suddenly became much, much larger.
“It’s you, Sebastian,” she whispered to him. “I need you.”
An expression of pleasure crossed his face—his brows lifting, a smile raising the corners of his mouth—followed a second later by a look of pure panic.
“Me?” He fumbled to retrieve his spectacles. “You can’t possibly mean that.”
“I do.” She imagined that her eyes were almost feverish as she stared up at him. “You are the man I need to play the part of my admirer.”
“But . . . but . . .” He backed up, putting needed distance between them. “Your world isn’t my world. Never has been.”
The wall met his back, and it would have struck her as ludicrous, a man well over six feet tall retreating from a woman of her diminutive stature, except she was too focused on the idea that coalesced in her mind.
He glanced toward a passing footman, but the servant was too busy being uninterested to notice.
“Not so.” She advanced. “Only last week at the Rudstons’ ball, I counted no fewer than three men of industry and business amongst the guests, as well as their wives and adult children. One of those men was your father.”