Chapter 12

Was a man meant to have the willpower to reject a kiss, offered so sweetly, from the woman he'd dreamt about every night for the last week? He'd brought himself to completion imagining their kiss against the door, weaving their first kiss from a chaste dream into a heated, erotic fantasy in which he'd done more to her than press his lips softly against hers.

He'd laid her down on the damn couch and taught her reality improved upon fiction.

Damn fiction.

Damn erotic fiction.

The reason he couldn't kiss her now, would have to tell her he'd given up the courtship.

He'd been avoiding her the past week to avoid just such a confrontation, hoping he'd find a way to continue forward with her despite her scandalous secrets.

She licked her lips again, her gaze steady on his, making his mouth tingle to take hers. Would she repeat her request? If she did, he was damned because he'd not be able to say no.

"Kingston!"

Oh, thank God. Bailey had come to save him. He whirled to face his partner.

The American stormed toward them. "There's a man here upset about something published in the Current last week. And complications with the new acquisition. They want more for it."

"Bloody hell." Kingston ran a hand through his hair. "The complaint first."

"The man is in the bookshop, wants to speak with you."

"I'll be there in a moment."

Bailey left, and Tristan turned back to Andromeda. The lust had faded from her eyes, leaving them bright with curiosity.

"Whatever could the man want?" she asked before immediately rolling into, "New acquisitions? Are you buying another paper? Or something else? How much do you think they want? How much is a paper worth? Hm. I suppose it depends."

Tristan chuckled and stepped closer, thinking with his body, not his brain. He tipped her chin up. "Wait for me? In my office." He nodded toward the side of the building where a rickety set of stairs led to a door halfway up the wall. "I'll meet you there shortly." He must make a decision and be done with it today. Better to do so in the dusty public space of the printshop, before the gossip-greedy gazes of his men, than somewhere he might give way to his own lust.

"Yes, I'll wait."

He ripped his hand from her chin, where it seemed perfectly content to remain perpetually.

Money solved most problems, and that remained true for those Tristan met in his bookshop above. The man with the complaint greeted him with great bushy, frowning eyebrows and left with a whistle and a spring in his step. The acquisition of his fourth paper proved similarly easy to conquer. He'd merely thrown the right number at it.

How much was a paper worth, Andromeda had wanted to know. This one, with its significant circulation numbers, was worth quite a lot. The ease of money throwing as a solution left Tristan with plenty of time to think through his more personal dilemma. And the quickly shrinking deadline gave him clarity.

Her request for a kiss echoed in his mind like a tune played in a room across a vast house, barely heard but always there.

Andromeda would be an excellent sister to Alex, an excellent wife to Tristan.

But her current… hobby could prove a liability.

Yet he liked her as a human and desired her as a woman. All anyone could truly ask for in a marriage—respect and desire—because love of a romantic sort existed only in fairy stories.

But her little reading group was not so little, and while a private hobby might be hidden, an entire circle of acquaintances who shared your secret could not.

But Lady Eldridge thought him close to a wedding. And if he did not provide it, who knew what slander she'd invent against him to get what she wanted.

It all came down to this—could they keep Andromeda's secret… secret?

He certainly could. She certainly had, even when she'd been exchanging notes with other women right beneath her brother's nose. Apparently when innocent, unmarried ladies and respectable matrons gathered, no one questioned their reasons.

Perhaps he should not worry so.

He'd spent the week putting names to the women in the room and investigating their connections to Lady Eldridge. He'd found none. The set who read racy books with Andromeda existed a step above that which Alex's aunt found herself within.

Perhaps he should not worry.

Or perhaps his cock attempted to lead his brain.

All but the problem of Andromeda put behind him, Tristan took the stairs two at a time up to his office.

His empty office.

"Where the hell is she?" He'd told her to wait for him there. He rolled out of his office and slammed the door behind him. He gripped the edges of the railing and gazed down into the floor below. She'd left without saying a word. After what they'd shared on the sofa? A growl rumbled through the air. Not the grinding of machines below. The sound came from him.

She'd left.

Was she safe though? That footman seemed reliable. Unable to keep her still, Johnny followed her about like a puppy dog with sharp teeth. Liked that, Tristan did. He'd complete a full day's work and then check on her when he collected Alex at day's end. He'd answer her request for a kiss, too. He'd know by then.

Part of him knew now.

Another part of him called himself a fool. He clutched the railing harder, his knuckles raising white bone beneath thin, work-roughened skin.

Laughter bloomed from down below, the great, heavy guffaws of his men at work. Or not at work if the laughter provided any indication. He craned his neck for a better look. What had made them so merry? Felt like a direct insult to his own grumpiness. Who dared inspire cheer when he felt so growly? He stomped down the stairs. He'd discover the culprit and put them all back to work immediately. Then he could focus on his work. Or on Andromeda. Or—hell.

There she was, sitting happy and safe in the middle of a circle of men in the corner of his shop. The men had laughed because of her. Because of her, they smiled now, appearing smitten, every one of them, as if a chubby little Cupid had shot them all in the arse with his sharp little arrows.

Andromeda blushed and ducked her head a bit as if uneasy being the center of attention.

She'd not left. She remained, her grumpy footman Johnny hovering behind her. Good man. He could let her know his decision. Surely, he'd know it soon.

He pushed through the outer edges of the circle to stand before her. "Lady Andromeda."

Her gaze shot him to him, a startled thing. "Oh, Mr. Kingston. There you are. I hope that the complications did not prove too troublesome for you."

He hooked his thumbs into the waist of his trousers and smirked. "They never do."

She rolled her eyes. "Is he always so—"

"Confident," he finished for her.

The men laughed again. What had they laughed at to begin with? God, he was dying to know.

"I think it's time you returned home, my lady." He held out a hand to her, beckoning.

The men groaned as if denied a basic pleasure.

"Can't we keep her a bit longer?" Charlie Wilks said.

Keep her. He wanted to. "I'm afraid not."

"Mr. Kingston," she said in a low, wheedling tone, "I would like to say a bit longer. The men were just showing me how this machine works. It's fascinating. And I still haven't seen everything else.

"A tour!" Wilks cried. "Let's give her a tour."

"No." Tristan faced the men, hands to hips and steel in his voice. "I'll give her a tour. The rest of you get back to work."

A lilting chuckle from behind. "Such a taskmaster." Andromeda stood to her full height, lifting her chin—a prim little gesture that made him want to kiss the tip of it.

"I can be," he said.

"Don't you worry, my lady," Wilkes said. "King's a good one. Fair wages. And when my mom got sick last winter, he paid for the doctor."

Heat crept up Tristan's cheeks, and he scratched the back of his neck.

"Of course, he did." Andromeda gave a friendly nod to Wilkes before offering Tristan a more cutting gaze. It did not cut to harm. It cut to investigate, to dig, to discover. He wanted to show her everything.

But could he?

The men walked off to their various positions in the shop, and Tristan offered Andromeda his elbow.

"Let's start so I can escort you home. Or Clearford will wonder where you've gone."

"No, he won't," she said. "No one ever wonders where I've gone."

"Why the hell not?" He held his elbow higher, annoyance prickling through him for more than one reason.

She shrugged. "I do not wish them to. If I act as if all I do is sit about and read quietly, then that's what everyone expects me to do." One corner of her mouth slid into a pleased grin.

Oh, yes, she'd learned well how to keep secrets.

He chuckled. "But you do much more than that, don't you?"

She rolled her lips between her teeth to end her grin, and then she pointed to a machine across the shop. "What is this? And that. And, well, all of them. They do the printing, I assume?"

A cunning distraction. Another strategy of the proficient secret keeper. He'd let it stand because she looped her arm through his and pulled him through the shop. His heart felt connected to a string attached to her. It would follow because it had no choice.

"They are the printing presses. Would you like to see how they work?"

"Very much so." She stopped before an unattended one. "They are broken?"

"No. Just old. That's what Bailey and I were arguing over—what type of new presses to buy. There's more choice now than ever. The Columbian from America, which is, naturally, Bailey's choice. We use a steam press at one of my other papers, but we don't want to here. It scares the men. They don't want to lose work. And we want this publication to feel more intimate. It prints fewer copies every week, and we charge more for those copies."

"So they feel exclusive?"

"Yes. The Stanhope has a steel frame, not wooden like this." He ran his fingers over the decades-smoothed frame, its wood turned satin under history and age. "The Columbia would work, but"—he shrugged—"I like to irritate Bailey."

"Wicked man."

Asking for a kiss and then flirting? It should send him into a roaring panic. But it felt good, like the end of a race. Like approaching the final page of a story that would end just the way he wanted it to. Hell. He usually hid his maudlin side well, but her teasing brought it spilling forth.

He cleared his throat and asked, "Would you like to try?"

Her eyes lit up. "May I?"

He pulled her closer to his side, her warmth searing him. "Here are the letters. What do you wish to spell out?"

"Oh..." Her eyelashes fluttered. "I cannot say."

He leaned low and whispered in her ear. "Something poetic?"

She shook her head.

"Something proper?"

She snorted.

He dipped even lower so that his lips brushed the shell of her ear. He shouldn't. He couldn't help it. He said, "Something naughty?"

Her head swiveled like a weathervane in a gust of wind, and she met his gaze with slightly parted lips. "N-no."

"You don't like naughty words?"

"Why would you ask that?"

He shrugged. "You requested a kiss earlier."

"I did not request. I… I…"

She seemed a frightened mouse under his paw. Time for mercy. "Here." He bumped her hip with his, scooting her to the side. "I'll do it as you think and watch, and then by the time you have what you want to print out in mind, you'll know how to do it on your own."

She gave a tight nod, and he turned his back to her, edging her away from the letters in the frame so that she could not see. She tried to, peeking around either side of him and bobbing up on tiptoe, her frustrated huffs of breath heating his body through his clothes. It tickled, and he swallowed a laugh and elbowed her out of the way, evoking a disgruntled grunt. He chuckled. God, she was adorable. And knowledgeable. Yet inexperienced. Her body did not react as if used to a man's touch, even if she did understand the mechanics of everything, even if she did have some creative insight to what happened between a man and a woman with no one else about, when their bodies both were willing.

A man of her station would be horrified. Tristan was not. Horror had never even occurred to him. He'd been too busy with feelings like excitement. And arousal. Whatever he wished to do with her, she would be prepared for. She was not meant for those tepid men of her own station. She was meant for him.

Would be but for the very books that intrigued her so.

If only she'd give the things up. No, not quite right. If only she'd give up the reading group. She could keep the books. Right by their bed. But sharing them with others… she couldn't do that any longer. Not, at least, until Alex was old enough to choose his guardian for himself, not until he was safe from Lady Eldridge. Everything would rest in her hands. Would she agree to give up her group? Perhaps he could convince her. Perhaps she'd find the practice of the amorous arts more fulfilling than the discussion of it.

Excellent idea, that.

Was that it, then? Had he decided?

Doubt lingered, nipping about the edges of his certainty.

He situated the letters on the frame, locked them in place, and then rolled the ink along them. He positioned the paper, pulled the top of the frame down, and rolled it into the press. He yanked the handle twice to make the impression, then rolled the paper back out.

She inched closer as he opened the frame and removed the paper with a squelching sound. Her head brushed against his arm just below his shoulder, racing a shiver down his spine.

"Can I see?" she asked, her hands clasped together before her breasts.

He handed over the newly printed paper. "Careful. You'll get ink all over you."

"Like you." The paper looked crisp and white held between her gloved fingers. Lavender gloves, and lacy, and he wanted to peel them off her hands digit by delightful digit. "Once upon a time," she read. Her brow furrowed.

"Every good story begins that way."

"We're writing a story, then?"

"It is a printing press. Even if it is as old as Guttenberg himself."

She drew a circle with her finger around the words he'd printed. "What was the acquisition Mr. Bailey spoke of?"

"Another paper. But it was no complication at all. They wanted more money, an easy enough fix."

"Why newspapers?"

He leaned his hips against the press and crossed his arms over his chest. A simple question. Yet no one had asked it before.

"Why," she repeated, "did you leave your travels to buy newspapers?"

"I bought more than newspapers at first—hotels, mainly. I still own one. Don't have anything to do with the day-to-day running of it. Found a fellow better than I to do that. I dabble in shipping, too."

"I did not know."

"I do not talk about it. I prefer newspapers. I always had money to spend, first on seeking out adventure and then on… anything, I suppose. My father, despite his lack of attention in all other areas, never failed to fill my pockets with a generous allowance. When I was young, I did not mind using it, thought he owed it to me. I traveled to find a place where I fit better than I did in England. School had been… difficult."

Why in hell was he telling her this? She didn't need to know. He'd not said a word about it since his school days, since Clearford and Noble had made friends with him just for the challenge of taking on all the other boys at once. And winning.

"Travel did not suit you, though?"

He exhaled roughly, glad she had not asked so many other questions she could have. "It was fine. Exhilarating. Exhausting, too. When I began to realize I did not want to rely on my father's funds, I began to write up stories of my travels and sell them to the papers. Realized, too, I liked telling the stories more than I liked gathering them."

She smiled at the paper held tight in her hands. "Once upon a time."

"The newspaper world is a lot like sailing—there's always the threat of a storm or the threat of no wind—gossip, news, you understand—to fill the sails."

"I like that way of looking at it." She smiled full and bright, and—hell—she had a dimple in her left cheek. Why hadn't he seen it before? Likely because she'd not smiled much around him. Yet. He'd change that. "How many newspapers will you buy, Mr. Kingston? Will you ever have enough? Or do you plan to own every newspaper in London?"

He turned so only one hip braced against the creaky frame, and he could lean over her and catch her eye as he said, "I never stop until I have everything I want."

A truth at the very core of his being. So why the hell had he even contemplated giving her up? He wanted her. And he wanted Alex safe and happy. He would have both. And since Lady Eldridge would cause a fuss if he didn't marry Lady Andromeda, best to continue with the original plan.

Almost the original plan. The previous one had not included seduction.

The new one did.

Hell. He couldn't seduce her. He shouldn't seduce her. Alex could never know. No one could. And the sooner he married her the better. A rotten plan to count on scandalous behavior when scandal would be the end of his guardianship.

Andromeda's breath came quicker than before, and she licked her lips. "You are quite impressive, sir."

"I know." He grinned.

And naturally, she rolled her eyes. "I know what I wish to print now."

He stepped aside, holding his arms wide in invitation for her to do as she pleased. With thoughtful, precise movements, she selected her letters and laid them in the frame, secured them, rolled ink across them, secured the paper, and closed the frame.

"You roll it in," he said, "and I'll create the impression."

She nodded, her chin set in concentration as she pushed the frame forward.

He tugged the handle once, twice. Three times, just for her. "Go ahead, then, roll it out."

She did, then carefully removed the paper and handed it to him. "I know it's silly," she said as he took it, "but it occurred to me, and I thought it should be said. Because it's difficult to move forward when you do not know what you want. But you continued seeking until you found it. You never stopped or hesitated, no matter what storms blew your way. Difficult, that."

Her voice sounded tentative, and who knew what her face looked like because he could see only the paper and the words printed, slightly smeared, in the middle of it—I'm proud of you.

The words hollowed him out, scooped out every bit of his flesh and bone and filled him to the top with buzzing bees. He experienced not the buzzing of a thousand stings, though, but of shock, of recognition of a void.

Pride. In him? No one had ever. Hell, the bees were stinging the backs of his eyes. He laughed to cover it up, slapping the burning paper onto the press.

"I…" She shuffled away from him. "I'm sorry. It was silly. Ridiculous. A man like you who has achieved so much. You don't need me to—"

Something snapped into place then. Another realization surer than before. He did need her. To say those words. To feel them. And he needed, too. Everything he'd done had been to prove himself—his independence, his worth. And while his success had proved all that, and his growing sphere of influence proved it, too, he'd never heard those words. I'm proud of you. No mother to feel such things. No father who cared. It was not his brother's job to say the words. It was, instead, Tristan's to say to Alex.

Apparently, though, Tristan had needed the words, missed them, and now he wanted everything he'd always wanted before—more success, more wealth—but he wanted them for her. Where lonely ambition had raged through him before, now the need to please the woman standing before him—to make her proud of him every damn day of his life—rebuilt every bone in his body, every muscle, every drop of blood.

He'd come to a decision. He'd do anything to keep her secret so that he could keep her.

He took her hands and pulled her back to him. He tipped her chin up, and in front of everyone, he kissed her softly until her hesitant icy lips thawed into soft daisy petals.

A cheer went up, huzzahs and whistles, and she shrank from shouts, glowing and blushing, but not pulling her hands from his.

He tugged her closer, careless of the cheers. "I apologize for laughing. I've never heard the words directed to me before, and they made me… uncomfortable. Just for a moment. I reacted poorly."

Her tiny gasp fluttered up to settle against his skin like a kiss. "Never?"

He shook his head.

Her eyes took on a wicked glint. "Impossible to believe with your confidence and self-importance." She reached up to cup his cheek in a gentle gesture that defied her words, and he turned his head slightly to press a kiss into her warm palm. She curved her hand into a fist, catching the kiss, keeping it there.

She'd better never open the damn thing and let it go.

Hell. What had she done to him? He needed only a respectable woman to mother Alex, to appease the Court of the Chancery should Lady Eldridge make a fuss. But he was like a snowball rolling down a snow-blanketed hill—rolling ever faster toward an abyss he could not see and collecting so much more than he'd ever bargained for. Whatever had cloaked him fully lacked the chill of ice and snow, though. It felt warm and velvet and right.

He shook it away, whatever it was. If he was going to do this, he'd have to keep his head. A logical seduction to keep his intended distracted, too busy for reading groups of any sort, too pleased to need naughty words printed on hidden paper. He held out an arm to usher her toward the space beneath the stairs. "The next part of the tour takes us to my study."

She followed, her hands light on his forearm and tight around his frantic heart.