Courtney Milan - Unclaimed

She’d been reaching for his jacket. But she froze at that, her hand held rigidly an inch away. Her eyes widened.

“No,” he continued, “the reason I offer is not because I want to avoid my sins, but rather that I must own up to them.”

“Sins?” she repeated.

“We’ve already discussed my sins, Mrs. Farleigh. I am greedy. I am covetous. I am selfish. And one other thing.” He leaned in. “I absolutely do not share.”

“I— But I haven’t— We—” Her eyes fell from his in discomfort.

“Just because I happen to be a virgin does not mean I am content to share my fantasies at night with other men.”

She exhaled slowly. “If you were any other man,” she said softly, “I would think that you had just threatened to seduce me.”

“Worse.” He leaned down, close enough to whisper. “I threatened to like you. I suspect seduction would be easier for you to understand.”

A small smile touched her lips. “Sir Mark, there’s no need to threaten me with anything so drastic as like. Mere acceptance would be sufficiently shocking.”

Mark straightened. “One last thing, Mrs. Farleigh.” He took a deep breath and waited for her to raise her eyes to him one last time. When she did, he gave her a wolfish grin. “Red suits you,” he said, and then left.

JESSICA PICKED UP the jacket Sir Mark had dropped next to her and shook it out. She watched his retreating back, trying to find firm footing in her mind.

She had thought it would be easy to guide a virgin’s first tentative foray into sensuality. But there was nothing tentative about him. He did not deny his lusts, his wants. She didn’t know how to seduce such unbending confidence.

Yes, I want you, he’d as good as told her, but I won’t act on that want.

There was a bigger problem.

He looked at her with an air of such quiet expectation. She remembered what he’d said with a laugh the other day. I rather like myself. She could feel that certainty, spreading from him like a contagion. And now he was threatening to like her, too.

Despite her better judgment, she respected him. It was impossible not to. He was so…so forthright, so straightforward. He didn’t hide behind rules, didn’t accuse others of his own shortcomings. He didn’t flinch from his own desires.

He simply…didn’t set a foot wrong.

And for the first time, Jessica wished this was real. That she was merely a widow with a slightly tarnished reputation. That she had been banished here.

She wished she was free to revel in the heady feel of flirtation without feeling the future press against her in suffocating reminder of the penury that waited.

Sir Mark’s long strides had brought him back to the protective crowd of women once again.

Everyone had been watching them. Jessica stood and brushed her skirts into place. Then she shook out the jacket he’d left behind. The fabric was warm with the heat of his body. It smelled of him—clean, fresh male, with a dab of sea spray. Slowly, she donned the garment. It was large on her, and overly warm. Still, it felt like a friendly embrace—comforting and casual, without importuning her for more. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a simple hug from a man.

He was surrounded by women again—a gaggle of concerned villagers, clucking over him. No doubt making sure that he’d not been tainted by her.

He laughed and then spoke, gesturing with his hands. And then, when he’d tamed their frightened outrage, he turned and glanced at her. A warm breeze swirled up. It lifted the collar of his jacket against her neck.

No. She had no notion how to seduce a man like this. He had no pampered vanity to flatter, no hidden desires to draw out in the open. He wanted her. He thought of her. And he admitted it so openly that she feared it would be impossible to lure him into dishonesty.

Worse; he was luring her into the truth. He gave her a private smile, one that made a hollow of her chest.

She had thought that when she felt again for the first time, it would be something gentle, something clean. Some small and silent pleasure, perhaps. But it was not some quiet return to feeling that came to her. It was the sharp, painful tingle of a limb being slapped from sleep.

She wanted to tell him the truth. She wanted to relinquish all hope of seduction, so that she could enjoy the company of a man who didn’t lie. She wanted him to like her with the same easy confidence with which he liked himself. The impossibility of it made her ache.

Jessica reached out and plucked a dandelion from the grass. It was a fragile, delicate shell of white spores; when she snapped its stem, a few seeds detached from the round head.

He was still smiling at her, a bright golden grin as blinding as the sun.

She raised the dandelion to her mouth and blew. White seeds scattered on the breeze, whirling in his direction. Maybe it was her imagination. The spores separated too quickly for her to follow their path, and it would have been a strange wind indeed that blew those tiny parachutes across twenty yards of picnic.

Still, after a few seconds he raised his hand, almost in greeting. And then he closed his fingers, as if snatching something invisible from the air.

“DID YOU NOT SEE me, Sir Mark?” James Tolliver demanded.

Mark pulled his gaze from Mrs. Farleigh’s form to contemplate the skinny child by his side.

“Your pardon, Tolliver. Were you trying to catch my attention? My mind is…” He trailed off, thinking of the red silk of Mrs. Farleigh’s skirts, spread on the blanket she’d set out. The carmine of her gown had been in perfect contrast to the pale perfection of her skin. But it wasn’t the cold marble of her complexion that drew him. It was the hint of fire that he’d sensed beneath. As if she were unstable, dangerous and all too enticing. The buzz of insects swirled around him, loud in his ears. “My mind is elsewhere.” Mark turned his head to focus on the young man. “My thoughts have all gone awandering.”

“I didn’t mean just now. I meant before you left to speak with Mrs. Farleigh. I made the signal.” Tolliver held up his hand, his thumb curled to meet his two middle fingers. He twisted it at an angle.

“A signal?”

“The signal,” Tolliver corrected.

Mark stared at the boy’s hand in puzzlement. With his little finger peeled back that way, his hand looked like a small dog, ear cocked, looking on quizzically.

Tolliver tapped the blue rose on his hat, glanced at the women around them with a glare that bespoke a world of suspicion and dropped his voice. “You know. The signal.”

“I’m not familiar with that.” Mark didn’t lower his voice.

Tolliver blushed and looked about furtively. “Shh! Do you want them to hear?”

“I hadn’t realized we were in enemy territory. Who is this them that we fear?”

Tolliver made the signal once again and pointed to his hand. “Didn’t I do it right? It’s supposed to be the signal for ‘Watch out—Dangerous Woman Ahead.’”

Mark counted slowly. One. Two. Three…

“Tolliver,” he finally said, “where did you learn that signal?”

“It was in the introductory pamphlet. A Youth’s Guide to the MCB, by Jedidiah Pruwett, which I—”

“There’s a pamphlet?”

“Yes, advertised in the paper! Send one shilling to…” Tolliver trailed off, glancing at Mark. Maybe it was the curled fists, or the clenched teeth, that gave away Mark’s anger. “That…that wasn’t your pamphlet?”

“No.”

When Mark had sold the rights to his book to a publisher, he’d not given a thought to any potential profit. Philosophical volumes—even ones written for the common man—rarely sold well. And besides, he didn’t need the money. His publisher had paid twenty pounds for exclusive and unlimited rights to the work; Mark had been convinced they’d only given so much because his brother was a duke. Said brother had tried to convince him to hold out for royalties, but Mark only cared to see the volume in print. He’d donated his twenty pounds to charity and thought nothing more of it.