Page 7 of The Viscount’s Vice

She was, in essence, impossibly beyond his reach.

“Please?” she asked, raising her face.

Absurd to present an ultimatum, then courteously say please.. Absurd, but effective.

He found himself incapable of uttering the word no. Yes, however, was equally unfathomable.

After she’d noticed his hand, he’d never lost the feeling that Lenora could read his secrets. He had always taken care that they never be alone. Then, last summer, he’d gone from thinking of her as a child to noticing she had become vibrant, curious, and comely.

After such a revelation, increased precautions had become essential.

An unexpected breeze ruffled the fabric attached to her bonnet, making shadows of lace flutter across her face. Even in the gathering gloom, she’d a radiance that bewitched. Another trick, surely.

Feigning was her stock-in-trade.

He forced her blurring features back into focus. “Lenora, you cannot possibly expect—”

“Nora, please.”

He would not be calling her Nora.

“And I shall call you Simon,” she said, her voice warm as the humid breeze.

“You will call me Asquith,” he corrected.

No one called him Simon anymore, not, at least, as they once had.

Silly Simon. Stupid Simon. Scared Simon. Or, on the days Willard, the bully Asquith had battered to the brink of death, had been feeling generous, Lily-livered Landon.

He must convince her to stand down. Again, he attempted the word no.

Nothing came out.

“Could you live with yourself if you forced me into marriage to another?” she asked.

“No.” The deuce! He’d answered the wrong question. Marriage was the point of her upcoming London Season.

Hastening his youngest three wards to the altar was, in fact, the only thing that would allow him to concentrate on turning a profit. So why did the thought of Lenora marrying some London buck leave him with an internal shudder?

Still, how could he surrender to their mutual desire when he had practical and moral reasons to remain resolute?

His paralyzed pinky served as a constant reminder of his fatal flaws. He was the kind of person who might have killed his adversary in a fit of rage. Suppose he claimed her, and something—or someone—made him lose his mind again?

He could not envision himself as an adored husband and a gracious patriarch, someone who operated as if his mission was promoting kindness, as though fairness in life was achievable.

His own father had been such a man—principled enough to sacrifice everything for his ideals, including, ultimately, his health.

Good everyone called his father.

And every time Asquith felt an inner wince.

Good, his father had been. But Asquith could not help but resent the fact his father had inadequately prepared him for the cruelties of this world. Cruelties that had him swearing off marriage and family as a young man.

But renouncing marriage as a sullen boy differed from rejecting a young lady he desired, a young lady whose upturned face was shining with hope in the quiet and growing darkness.

Changeling. And no longer a waif, but feminine perfection.

Each breath she took drew his gaze to the spot on her green bodice where a seam puckered and strained. She’d a body made to be revered.