Saying I Do To The Scoundrel. Liz Tyner

seemed prudent.’

      ‘Well, I have a knife. I’ll show you.’

      ‘A knife?’

      She nodded. ‘Of course.’

      ‘You think—Why do you have a knife?’

      She leaned even closer, bringing the scent of a woman’s soft bedclothes closer to him. ‘Because I couldn’t get a gun without raising suspicion.’

      He stopped. Either she had lost her mind, or she was afraid.

      ‘You don’t think Fillmore would come in your room?’

      ‘I’ve woken when the doorknob rattled.’ She moved closer, whispering, ‘But I sneaked into my stepfather’s study and took the key when he was asleep. He doesn’t know I have it.’

      ‘We’ll go. Just keep your silence.’

      ‘I want to be married, just not to Fillmore. Anyone but that beast.’ She reached up with her left hand and put a palm to his chest. His breath was knocked from him. His entire body warmed. He moved her hand away, but his fingers tightened on her wrist. Neither moved.

      He needed out of this mess. He would go out the door and get on his horse and ride far enough away she could never find him and he’d never see her again. But his feet wouldn’t move.

      Brandt leaned so close to her face he could feel her breath touching his cheek and he mouthed an oath when he felt his body respond. She’d trapped him.

      She moved so close he couldn’t breathe and her arm brushed him as she tried to reach under the mattress. ‘I’ve tucked it here. The knife. I’ll show you.’

      He leaned back when she held the blade between them.

      His mind registered the knife she had in her hand, but his body registered the woman standing so close without layers of fabric between them, only the softness of the clothes she wore next to her body. He pried the blade from her fingers and stood away from the bed—taking two steps backwards so she couldn’t touch him.

      He dragged in air through his nostrils. The woman, no sturdier than a stair rail, slept with a knife for her protection. She solicited a governess and a stranger to get her away from the house she lived in. She was either spoiled beyond repair—or afraid.

      She righted herself on the bed, and stepped on to the rug beside him, the skirt of her nightrail tumbling to her calves. In one second, he was in a different world, thinking of things he couldn’t blame himself for.

      She put her hand on his. Fingers over his knuckles clasping the weapon. Warmth on the outside of his hand, the coldness on the inside.

      ‘That is my knife,’ she said, ‘and I would like it back. I cannot trust you to follow simple directions and I may need it.’

      He flipped the knife into the wall across the room. The blade vibrated and so did his body.

       Chapter Seven

      Katherine moved closer and Brandt took a step back. ‘Don’t toss the weapon away. It’s all I have to protect myself.’

      ‘Not any more.’

      ‘I cannot tolerate you in any way, yet you don’t make me wish to cast up my accounts as Fillmore does.’ Her words were quiet, but forceful. ‘Do you understand how despicable that makes him?’