Page 53 of Honor Unbound

“Can I ask you two more questions?” His knee brushed against hers under the table.

“Go on.”

“Do you want to make London your permanent home?”

The cards exploded from her grip and rained down on the table. She quickly swept them back up. “What an odd question.”

“Not from my position.” He rested his hands over hers, stilling her fingers. His hands were big and warm and made hers tingle. “Not when I want to know what my future will look like.”

Her heart pounded, like a wild animal beating against a trap. “I don’t understand.”

“I think you do. I know it might take you longer to make up your mind about me than it did for me about you, but you know what we’re about.” His thumb traced a pattern on the back of her hand. “Now for my part, I think I’d like to move back to the country to raise a family. I’m a provincial in my heart.”

She ignored the bit about family. She did know what he was about but as the idea of it brought her a faint feeling of panic, she focused on something else. “You’rea provincial?” Marie huffed out a breath. “You grew up in a town near Birmingham. I come from a village of just two thousand. My mouth didn’t close the first full month I came to London for how new everything was.”

Brett held her gaze. “Do you miss it? Your home?”

Marie blinked. There were parts she did miss, very much. The beauty of the countryside. Cream straight from a cow. But she knew joining Lady Mary’s household was an improvement in her station. “Yes, sometimes. And you?”

“Constantly.” Brett blew out a breath. “My family has either been in the military or in service. I did both. My parents are very proud that I’m an under-butler for such a fine lady. It’s allowed me to send some money home to them. But I don’t think I’m meant to remain in such a large city.”

She leaned closer, the table’s edge digging into her abdomen. “Why did you come?”

He shrugged. “The opportunity presented itself. I saw the advertisement in the paper and something told me I should apply. That I’d find something here.” The edges of his eyes crinkled. “And I did.”

She swallowed. “You’ve known me for less than a month. Don’t say such things.”

“Sometimes a man knows in an instant. You’re loyal. Smart. Determined.” He nodded. “I like that.”

“And that’s all there is to it?” Her stomach fluttered.

“Yes. Why not?”

She could think of a whole shipload of reasons why not. They need look no further than the murder victim and his wife. They’d probably started their marriage thinking the best of the other, thinking they needed nothing more than love.

Or had they? Perhaps the marriage had merely been a businesslike decision. Marie’s own parents had married after only a six-week courtship, and they’d been very happy for nigh on thirty years.

She looked at their hands. At some point, she’d turned her hands palms up, clasping his, fingers intertwined. Her hands felt good in his. Right. Brett’s impetuousness made her want to throw caution to the wind, as well. To go with what her heart had been telling her for some time now even though she hadn’t wanted to listen.

But that would be foolish.

Brett squeezed her hands. “It’s all right. You don’t have to be certain. I’m certain enough for the both of us.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Awfully cocksure, aren’t you?” she asked lightly.

He grinned, making something inside of her clench. “How about a gamble of our own. Let’s make it easy. Draw a card. High card wins.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Wins what?” There wasn’t opportunity for her to stack the deck in her favor, not without a couple more shuffles.

“If I win, I get a kiss.”

The hair on the back of her neck raised. She squirmed in her seat. “And if I win?”

He waggled his eyebrows. “You get a kiss.”

She laughed. He truly was incorrigible. And after all, it was only a kiss. She cut the deck about a third of the way down and held the bottom of it up. The eight of clubs.

Brett cut the remainder of the deck in half and held up his bottom card.