Page 45 of A Shore Thing

She gripped her elbows.

“Headaches for you,” she said. “Vexation for me.”

Miles and miles of vexation.

Her own head hurt as she tried to assimilate all the new information.

“What awakened you to the woman question?” Her frown deepened. “Was it waking up with a suffragist?”

He gave her a wry look, his gray eyes glinting. “I count many suffragists among my friends.”

“How uncharacteristically evasive.” She said it in her sweetest voice. “I am correct, then. Your politics is based on pillow talk.”

“Would that be so bad? If I listened to the women I bedded?”

Her gaze faltered under his. Esmé had educated her, and rewarded her progress, delegating tasks of increasing professional importance. But he hadn’t listened to her, not when she’d expressed opinions that didn’t conform with his own.

Nor had they shared a pillow.

She raised her eyes to find Griffith watching her.

Her mouth went dry, and her voice was scarcely more than a whisper. “I have seaweed to collect.”

“Penny,” he said, and his use of that silly nickname fluttered her pulse. “I’d hoped to be restored to your good graces.”

“When were you ever in my good graces?”

He raised his brows.

That cursed kiss. He’d never let her live it down.

She went crimson. “I was much affected by the sun that day.”

“It’s sunny now.” He studied her with interest. “Are you feeling a similar effect?”

She was feeling it, God help her. A fluttering within and a buzzing without. The beauty of the brisk, bright day, the rocks and the sea—a foil for the beauty of the man who sat before her.

“No,” she muttered. “You’re blocking the sun. And casting a shadow on the pool. No, don’t move. I might as well find another.”

She began to gather her scattered belongings: discarded gloves, pocket lens, chisel, hammer, oyster knife.

“Have I wronged you in some way?”

“Pardon?” She looked over, oyster knife in hand. He’d dressed more casually today, in a Norfolk jacket, with a gray cap instead of a topper, and he’d crossed his legs and propped his chin on his fist. The total effect was of boyish expectancy.

“Have I wronged you?” he repeated.

She scowled. She didn’t like what the question made her confront.

Had he wronged her? He’d almost collided with her on the cliff path, but that was because she had started forward without looking, a fact he’d never mentioned. He’d kissed her, but that was because she had fibbed to James about seduction. He’d declined her commission, but even if he hadn’t offered an explanation, she should have accepted his decision. She’d known as much in the moment, known that she was reacting too dramatically.

Clarinda Chiswick, and whatever poor cats had crossed the wrong quad at Eton—they might have more cause to complain.

“No, you have not,” she conceded. “You haven’t wronged me.”

“Not you.” He narrowed his eyes, suspicious. “Someone else?”

It wasn’t worth it. She shook her head.