She stilled. No one called her Lorraine without “Lady” before it. Her friends and family had always called her Lorrie. “You used my Christian name.”
He nodded. “It seemed the best way to make you stop talking. And here”—he gestured to the library—“it doesn’t seem necessary to use titles.”
Not that she ever used a title with him. She always thought of him as the Viking. “Then I should call you Ewan?”
He gave her that half smile she liked so much, one that said the idea pleased him. “Why did you go to help at the school?”
“Oh, I see.” She had to think back to what had motivated her to go to the school that first time. “I suppose I wanted something to do. Something besides paying calls and embroidering handkerchiefs. My grandmother was alive then, and she would always tell me that a noble family, such as ours, had a responsibility to its tenants and indeed to the county and the country itself. She was a great benefactress of the hospital, but I have never been very good at a sickbed.”
“Really?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I do believe you are teasing me…Ewan.” The name felt quite delicious on her tongue, soft and lazy—very much unlike the man himself.
“I suppose originally I intended to see what I might do for the school—sew lace curtains for the window or some such thing—but after I made the curtains and spent more time there, it became clear what the students really needed was more attention. Well, I had all of this education from my governesses over the years, and the children seemed to like me, so I began to spend more and more time there when I was in the country. After a while, I went every day, and when Mr. Fletcher worked with the upper-level students, I worked with the lower-level ones, and then we would trade places.”
“Do you miss it here in London?”
“Sometimes, but I like the social whirl too. When I’m in the country, I sometimes miss London. One grows tired of dining with the same eight families all year. And then at the close of the Season, one is tired of all the great to-do and happy to return to the quiet of the country.”
“And my cousin is able to support the continuation of this lifestyle?”
She frowned. Who was he… “Oh, you mean Francis.” She felt her cheeks heat. What was wrong with her? She loved Francis. How could she forget about him even for an instant?
“I have told him I don’t really care about all of that. I just want to be with him, but he wants to please me, of course. That is why we will have to wait and marry with my father’s blessing and the dowry.”
“I wouldn’t wait.” He sat back, crossing his arms over his chest.
Lorrie became momentarily distracted by the way the muscles of his arms seemed to swell under the thin linen. “You wouldn’t?” she said absently.
“If you were mine, I wouldn’t wait a day.”
Lorrie blinked and looked away from his biceps. “If I were…yours?”
“If a woman loved me as you love Francis, and I loved her in return, I wouldn’t wait for permission. I take what I want.”
“You take it.” Her voice sounded rather faint. She actually felt rather faint, or at least strangely dizzy. She cleared her throat. “But a woman—a bride—is not a city under siege or a new saber one wishes to acquire. You cannot simply take a woman.”
“Don’t you want to be taken?”
Oh, yes, she did. But Lorrie wasn’t even certain what they were discussing any longer.
“By my cousin, I mean. Don’t you want him to take you to wife?”
“I…” She should say yes. To do any less would be disloyal to Francis, but she had seen some rather unflattering aspects of Francis just lately. Honestly, she didn’t know what she wanted anymore. “I don’t know.”
His expression never changed. “Then what do you want?”
Her head had begun to spin. “For a man who doesn’t speak very much, you certainly have a lot of questions tonight.”
“Questions you avoid answering.”
“Perhaps it’s your turn to answer a question.”
He raised one shoulder as though he had nothing at all to hide.
“Very well, then.” What did she want to know about him? Correction—what did she want to know that she could ask him here and now? “Why don’t you like to wear neckcloths?”
His brows came together, and he gingerly raised a hand to his exposed neck. “Have you ever worn a cravat?”
“No.”
“They’re deuced uncomfortable.”
“And you think my corset and the hairpins poking me all day are comfortable?”
“I have no idea. But I feel as though I can’t breathe or swallow in this.” He lifted the strip of linen, which looked quite limp. “Do you want to see how it feels?”
“Very well. You won’t ask to borrow my corset later, will you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Good.” She held her hand out for the linen. “I had an uncle who—” She stopped speaking when she noticed he was coming toward her. “What are you doing?”
“I will tie it on you. You’ve never tied one before, and you won’t know how.”
“Oh.”
“Stand.”
She did, and he stood before her, looping the neckcloth around her exposed throat. She was level with his chest, and she stared at the row of buttons that led from the middle of his chest to his neck. The first was undone, revealing a patch of skin. She had the strangest desire to taste that skin. She wanted to taste him. She could smell his scent, the light aroma of forest and wild lands on his hands and the shirt near her face. Or perhaps the scent lingered on the cloth he tied about her neck.
He tightened it and began to tug it and loop it.
“Your uncle liked to dress in women’s underthings?” he asked evenly.
“What? Oh.” Her face felt hot, and she did not think the heat came solely from the inappropriate topic of conversation. “I cannot be certain, but once, I overheard my aunt and my mother speaking. My aunt complained that Teddy—that is my uncle—stretched all her chemises and corsets, and she didn’t understand why he wouldn’t buy them in his own size if he insisted on wearing them.” She glanced up at his face, but his gaze was on her throat. “Does that shock you? It shocked me.”
“Nothing shocks me anymore. Your uncle sounds harmless.”
“I suppose he is.” She swallowed as Ewan adjusted the cravat a last time.
He stepped back to admire his efforts. “I’m not as proficient as some.”
She touched the material, seeing the elaborate style of it with her fingers. “It’s not so bad. I imagine you become used to it.”
“I don’t. The longer I wear one, the tighter it feels. I imagine hands closing on my throat and squeezing until I cannot breathe.”
The neckcloth seemed to grow tighter with his words. He reached toward her neck, and she half feared he would draw the material tighter, but instead he yanked it loose.
“A memory from your days in the army?”
“One of the few times I thought I would fail in my task. In Draven’s troop, if you failed, you were dead. The missions left no room for error.” As he spoke, he unwound the cloth from her neck. “One of the enemy caught me unaware and choked me until I was unconscious. He must have thought I was dead and left me. When I awoke it was to Beaumont’s pretty face and a bucket of cold water.”