Excellent, Sophie thought. Like a horse. Or a dog.
And then he said it. “Not to mention beautiful.”
“I’m not beautiful,” she said before she could take it back, instead wishing that she could disappear, simply fade into the books behind her and never be seen again.
No luck. “Yes, you are.”
She shook her head, hating the way her chest tightened with hot embarrassment at the question. She didn’t want to discuss her beauty or lack thereof. No plain woman wanted to, especially not with a man who was so very handsome.
Dear God. He’d heard her call him handsome.
She swallowed, desperate for an end to the moment.
“Sophie?”
She looked to him.
Don’t make me answer.
Don’t make me think about why you would never be for me.
It was the ale that had her thinking that. She didn’t care to have him.
Except, now and then, she thought about it. When he offered her strawberry tarts. And showed her his magical library. And called her beautiful.
And made her want to believe it.
Then she cared very much.
“These tarts are getting eaten. I feel honor-bound to tell you as much.”
Relief flared, replaced quickly with something much more dangerous. Something that made her wish that they were somewhere else. That they were someone else. That jests about strawberry tarts were all they had to think on.
She looked down at him sprawled in the leather armchair, lifting the plate up to her like an offering.
Perhaps tonight strawberry tarts could be enough.
Her eyes went wide. “You’ve eaten mine!”
“You didn’t seem to want it.”
“Of course I wanted it, you tart thief!”
He smirked. “Then why are you all the way up there?”
Why indeed.
She was down the steps in seconds, snatching the plate from his hand. “This is a half-eaten tart.”
“Better than all-eaten,” he said, making a show of opening the book on the table next to him.
“Stop!” she gasped.
He did, turning shocked eyes on her. “What is it?”
“Your fingers. They’re covered in tart. Don’t touch that book.”
“One might have thought I were about to murder someone.”
“Something,” she said. “The book would be tarted forever.”
He held his hands wide. “Fair enough. God forbid we should tart it.”
She sat in the chair across from him and took a bite of her remaining dessert, sighing her pleasure at the delicious fruit, cut perfectly with fresh cream. “This is exquisite,” she said, her gaze riveted on the sweet.
“It is, isn’t it?” His voice was lower than it had been, quieter. Darker.
She looked up to find him staring at her mouth, and gastronomic pleasure turned to a different kind of pleasure entirely. “Would you like it?”
“Very much.”
She was no longer certain that they were discussing dessert. She extended the plate to him, and he shook his head.
“You’re sure?”
“Why books?”
Her brows rose. “I beg your pardon?”
“Why are they your vice?”
She set her plate down and wiped her hand on her skirts before reaching for the top volume on a stack of small, leather-bound books nearby and extending it to him. “Go on.”
He took it. “Now what?”
“Smell it.” He tilted his head. She couldn’t help but smile. “Do it.”
He lifted it to his nose. Inhaled.
“Not like that,” she said. “Really give it a smell.”
He raised one brow, but did as he was told.
“What do you smell?” Sophie asked.
“Leather and ink?”
She shook her head. “Happiness. That’s what books smell like. Happiness. That’s why I always wanted to have a bookshop. What better life than to trade in happiness?”
He watched her for a long moment, longer than she was comfortable, until she returned to her tart. Once she had, he said, quietly, “You didn’t tell me if you forgive me.”
The change in topic startled her. “I—beg your pardon?”
“For the way I treated you. At dinner.”
She picked at the tart, selecting a strawberry and eating it alone, buying herself time to think about her answer.
He continued in the silence. “For the way I’ve treated you since Mossband. Since last night. In the carriage.”
She looked up at him. “You did nothing wrong in the carriage.”
He laughed, the sound humorless. “I did a hundred wrong things in the carriage, Sophie.”
“Yes, but those weren’t the things that made me sad.” The words were out before she could think, before she could alter them. Before she could make herself seem less delicate. She set down her plate and stood. “I’m sorry.”
He shot forward in his chair. “Don’t you dare apologize. I think that’s the first time someone has told me the honest truth in years. I—” He hesitated. “Christ, Sophie. I am sorry.”
“It’s not—” She shook her head.
“Stop. It is.” He stood, approaching her. “I’m an ass. You told me so, remember?”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Was I an ass?”
She met his eyes, grassy green and focused on her. “You were. Quite.”
He nodded. “I was.”
“And tonight, you
were even worse.”
“I know. I wish I wasn’t.”
“I wanted to throw my soup at you.”
He raised a brow. “You’re getting the hang of telling me the truth.”
She smiled. “It’s quite freeing.”
He laughed, then grew serious. “Forgive me?”
She watched him for a long while. “Yes.”
He exhaled, as though he’d been holding his breath for an age, and reached for her surprising them both, his fingertips brushing along her jaw, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
She swallowed at the feel of him, the heat of his touch.
“I should never have brought you here,” he said softly, and she hated the way the words felt until he added, “you’re too good for this place. The men it makes.”
She caught her breath at the words. “I don’t think that’s true.”
“You don’t know who I am,” he said.
“Show me,” she offered, wanting desperately for him to agree, to tell her about this place. About the men it made.
He didn’t, his gaze falling to her mouth instead, his thumb stroking along her jaw. “You’ve cream on your lip.”
From the tarts. She lifted her hand, but he predicted her move, capturing her wrist before she could brush away the remains of the tart. “No,” he whispered, close, the scent of him overwhelming her, soap and spice. “Let me.”
She stilled, not quite understanding, but wanting it, whatever he offered. And then he was there, his lips on hers, his tongue licking out to taste the errant cream.
She’d never in her life experienced anything so scandalous.
Anything so . . .
“Mmm,” he murmured, the sound low and soft as he lifted his head. “Exquisite.”
He hadn’t been talking about the tart earlier.
She couldn’t stop herself from lifting her hand to his neck, holding him the way he held her, her fingers tangling in his dark hair. “Show me,” she repeated, only this time, she didn’t want him to talk. She wanted him to take.
Or perhaps it was she who did the taking, turning her face up to his, and capturing his lips with hers.