Chapter 6
“What are you doing?” Olivia pulled her face from his gentle grip, but he merely reached out and clasped her hand instead.
It probably wasn’t a good thing that he noticed how perfectly her hand fit in his, but he was starting to think he was doing them both an injustice.
Why fight something that felt more and more right by the second?
He’d agreed to wait another thirty minutes but only if she agreed to warm up in the carriage.
The coachman had been sent off to find an inn and a hot toddy for himself.
Alexander had told him to return in an hour.
And so, he and Olivia were alone. He knew he shouldn’t be in here with her.
Just as he knew he shouldn’t be thinking of all the delicious ways he could warm her up.
He was very close to being besotted by her. Her! Olivia Darington. The shrew.
The problem was that Olivia was completely focused on separating Jane from Elliot. And if she didn’t want her sister with Alexander’s friend, then she certainly wouldn’t want Alexander for herself. Especially because she would blame Alex for Jane’s demise.
Alexander grinned.
“I’m trying to warm up your hands.”
She watched him suspiciously as he reached out and grabbed her other hand. Both their gloves were a hindrance he didn’t want, and he wondered what she’d do if he removed them. Probably slap him again, he conceded. Though it would be worth it.
Alexander chuckled at her scowl.
“What are you at, Fincham?” she asked. Well, demanded.
Alexander placed a hand to his heart.
“I am wounded,” he pronounced dramatically. “There I was trying to be gentlemanly, and you suspect my motives.”
She scoffed in a very unladylike manner and looked out of the carriage window.
“I very much doubt anything you want to do to me is gentlemanly.”
Alexander’s entire body froze. She couldn’t know what her words meant to him, couldn’t know how they sounded coming from her innocent lips. Couldn’t know how torturous it was to hear them and imagine how they could be spending their time together in this carriage.
Was he truly no better than Elliot St. Clare?
The thought should repulse him, but he couldn’t think coherently in the face of her innocent words.
“Olivia,” he said softly, bringing her eyes back to his once more.
She sighed and threw her eyes to heaven, muttering under her breath.
“What?” she snapped.
“I—” Alexander hesitated, wondering what to say. It was odd; most of his conversations with the woman sitting across from him now had been teasing or insulting. Never had he wanted to just talk with her. Until now. ”I think perhaps we should get you home.”
Her beautiful eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“This was your idea,” she reminded him softly.
Alexander sighed and ran a hand through his hair, a sign that he was agitated. The last thing he wanted was to get her home. Which was exactly why he should.
“I know, I know. But—” He reached out and clasped her by the shoulders. God, how he loved touching her. “It’s better – for you – for both of us, to just leave here now. We can figure out what to do about your sister and Elliot tomorrow. Away from here.”
She was gazing up at him, a frown of consternation upon her brow, and Alexander had to fight the urge to pull her against him and kiss her the way he wanted to.
“Do you want people to see you here? With me?” he asked, a nervous energy coursing through him. “You’ve been so worried about your sister’s reputation. But what about yours?”
“I don’t care,” she answered mutinously. “I know you won’t hurt me.” His chest swelled with pride at her trust in him. “But I don’t know that he won’t hurt Jane.”
“If someone you know should see you –“
“Why do you care?” she blurted. “About any of this, I mean. At first I thought that perhaps you’d – you’d developed a tendre for Jane. But you’ve said you haven’t and – and you k-kissed me. So – so why? Why, when you despise me?”
Alexander felt suddenly nervous.
She hadn’t pulled herself from his hands yet and he tightened his grip on her upper arms.
“Isn’t it possible that two people who have long considered themselves enemies could find themselves, well, the opposite?”
“I want to believe it is,” she said softly. “But I think—”
He felt her hesitation, but he also felt her desire as though it reached out to collide with his own.
Tightening his grip further still, he lifted her from her seat and pulled her onto his lap, almost groaning at the sheer pleasure of just having her sitting there.
“You think too much,” he said, lowering his head slowly toward hers.
“You only say that because you don’t think at all,” she argued but she tilted her head just so.
“You talk too much,” he responded, so close to touching her lips with his own he could almost taste her.
“Well, you—”
Alexander didn’t give her a chance to argue, yet again. His lips found hers, and he set about trying to remove any thoughts that weren’t of him from her busy mind.
They were going to miss Jane and it was all his fault!
Olivia desperately clung to her irritation. It was just the defence she needed against the unrelenting, soul-consuming love for him that was lurking inside of her, waiting to pounce.
She couldn’t allow herself to love him.
No matter how many seductive words he said, or how heart stopping his kisses.
Self-preservation was key.
They were once more standing in the freezing cold only this time she was draped in his greatcoat as well as her cloak, and brain was the consistency of mush thanks to his shenanigans in the carriage.
If he hadn’t set her away from him with a black oath and an insistence that he needed to cool off in the freezing air, lord only knew what she would have ended up doing with him.
“What if we missed them?” she muttered crossly.
“Does it really matter?” Alexander asked from behind her.
Olivia swung round to glare at him.
“I’ve already told you that it matters,” she barked.
Alexander sighed and ran a hand through his hair, causing a stray jet black lock to fall over his forehead.
She wanted to brush it back from his face.
And then she wanted to cut it off because it had no business making her feel like she wanted to push it back.
God, this was infuriating; him, her feelings for him, his hair now too, apparently.
It was all far too much to deal with. She was confused and tired and freezing. and solve riddles at the same time.
“Can’t you just speak to her tomorrow?” he asked. “After all, it’s far too cold to engage in anything to ruinous this evening. Trust me.”
He was right, she knew.
She really didn’t want to get into an argument with him again. Especially because their arguments lately were ending with kisses, and they were confusing and wonderful and really, terribly inappropriate.
“I don’t want her heart broken,” she answered feebly.
Alexander studied her for a moment as though he were searching for something in her gaze. After an age, he took her hand and turned her toward the carriage.
“Come. Let’s get you home.”
“I’m not going home.”
“I’ll come back and search for them properly. I’m not bringing you down that lane with me,” he said in a no-nonsense tone that got her hackles good and raised.
“And how do I know you’ll come back?” she demanded, digging her heels into the frozen ground.
“Can’t you just trust me?” he asked with a disarming smile.
Oh, how I wish I could.
“I trust you about as much as I trust Mama’s pet dog. And that’s a vicious, irritating thing as well,” she said then stalked ahead of him.
He was either going to throttle her or kiss her senseless, Alexander decided as she marched away from him, imperious as a duchess.
She was driving him bloody well mad.
After that explosive kiss in the carriage, he’d thought that maybe she’d begun softening toward him.
But Olivia still had a heart of solid rock; he was convinced of it. For while he was caught up in flames just by looking at her, her demeanour remained colder than the frigid air around them.
He needed to remember how dangerous she could be.
Anyone who looked so doll-like and angelic, and still managed to wreck the havoc she did, was not to be trusted, even for a moment.
“You really do need to do something about that temper of yours,” he called as he caught up to her.
“I have no problem with my temper. I have a problem with you.”
“Why?”
He distinctly heard several whispered curses before she spun back around to him.
“Because you’re distracting and — and flustering. And I cannot think properly when you stand so close.”
Her words where music to his ears.
“And you can rid yourself of that smile. It’s not a compliment.”