Her lips parted as if he’d snatched the breath right from her.
He rued it at once. He could not recall ever using that tone before in his life, and yet he hadn’t been able to stop it. This was who he was, apparently, stripped entirely of anything ulterior. He wanted to help her. He needed to help her.
He was afraid he’d frightened her instead.
But instead, her eyes traveled thoughtfully over his features, and as they did, they gradually went hazy and amazed, as if she was trying to ascertain the source of her own thrall. When they settled speculatively on his mouth his body jolted.
Nearly threeyearssince he’d had a woman. But he now understood the difference between appetite and desire. And desire of this sort—that felt as though it might rip the top right from his head, that surged through him at the very thought of covering her body with his own—seemed entangled with how he felt about her. Lust might be the larger part of how he felt. He didn’t know. It was base and he wanted her. It was merely fact. He wanted to feelherlips crushed against his, her nipples chafing against his chest. He wanted to feel her thighs against his palms when he eased them apart so he could lower his head to touch his tongue to the velvety wetness between.
Her innate sensuality would draw any man. What revolting thing had Brundage said?I needed her in my bed from the moment I met her.
But it was everything else about her—the indefinable and definable qualities—that made her feel likehis.
He’d enjoyed friendships and flirtations and passionate liaisons. But never had a woman affected him as though she were the weather. As though he could feel her in his bones, like an ache, and on his skin, like sunshine or a breeze.
His life had contained nearly equal parts glitter and grit. But it was clear to him now how shockingly barren it had been in many ways.
And how different it was when one trulywanted. And one truly cared.
“That is very kind of you, Mr. Hawkes,” she said gently. “But I do not want to trouble you with the matter.”
He nodded once. Shortly. A little subdued.
The quality of the silence that followed was different. Shimmering. Taut. It was as though an intent had been revealed, and was under consideration.
“Which part of your encounter with that man has upset you the most? His mistaking you for a lightskirt or the missing Mr. Monroe?”
The question seemed to surprise her.
“I may only choose one?”
“Yes.”
“Well, perhaps I should be otherwise, but I am not so delicate as all of that, Mr. Hawkes. I withstood the shock of learning you were not a vicar, after all. I’d hoped he could... advise me on a matter of the passage across the sea to my brother.”
“It is very important that you leave at once? You can’t linger in London for a time?”
“My brother expects me, you see, and he shall worry if I don’t arrive when I told him that I would. I should like a new beginning as soon as possible.” She took a breath and looked him steadily in the eye. “And to be frank, I cannot afford to linger in London.”
“Well, nobody can, really.”
She smiled at that.
“You cannot begin again in England?” he pressed.
It was a moment before she spoke.
“I feel as though I cannot have a new beginning on the whole of this continent.”
She nearly whispered it. Carefully. As though she was ashamed of this, or he would think she was mad for saying such a thing.
“Is there a memory you’re trying to outrun, Mrs. Gallagher? I’ve terrible news for you. They do not confine themselves to continents. They tag along wherever you go.”
She snorted softly. “You are a sage, and yet you are not so very much older than I am.”
“I can’t imagine why you would need to flatter me, so I’ll assume you believe that, for some strange reason. I’ve a decade on you at least, I’d warrant. I am old and hardened. Perhaps you need spectacles like Mr. Bellingham.”
She laughed.