Slowly, he extended his hand offering her the crystal snifter. Just as slowly she slipped her fingers around the cool base.
Their fingertips touched ever so briefly and her eyes snapped to his. This was not heady stuff to him. Perhaps it was to her.
And yet that brief touch, that skimming of skin to skin, of fingers caressing over fingers, he was stunned at the power of it.
Something about her sent shocks up his arm, urging him to pull her into his embrace and claim her, making her one with him.
It was the wildest most impulsive thought he’d possessed in decades.
From the moment he had spotted her in that dark hallway, he had known that he was in trouble. There was something about the way her shoulders were back. The way her chin lifted, the way her eyes flashed with resignation and determination at the same time.
Something inside him had been awakened… and he knew it would not be quelled.
“Why are you here?” he asked softly. “I gave warning to you. That was not enough?”
“No,” she replied honestly, before she lifted the brandy, took it to her lips, and drank.
She did not take a dainty, lady-like sip, much to his astonishment. She drank it down in one go. She did not cough but wiped the curve of her lips.
“Are you secretly the proprietor of a gambling establishment or part of the demimondaine?” he asked trying to lighten the situation.
She sucked in a sharp breath and met his gaze. “I do not know truly what either of those things are like. I know that my father attends several gambling houses, and I haven’t been near the demimondaine as far as I am aware, although I am sure that there are members of the ton who have crossed my path that have.”
A tense sorrow darkened her visage. “You see, I have spent many years fortifying myself against my father. And brandy, well, sometimes one needs a bit of brandy with their book in the evening. Does one not?”
He blinked. “I’m surprised your father allows it.”
“He does not allow it,” she countered. “But when he goes and sees his mistress, I go into his study. I sit down in his chair, take up one of the novels that he buys for himself, but does not wish me to read, and I fantasize what it would be like to be a man of power.”
He blinked. “I beg your pardon.”
She laughed, a dry, hollow sound. “Does that surprise you?”
“I suppose it does,” he said. “You fantasize what it’s like to be a man?”
“Oh yes,” she said passionately. “Any young lady who has been in a position like mine should.” She tilted her head to the side. “Have you ever thought of what it was like to be a woman?”
“Yes, I confess that I have,” he replied, easily.
Her eyes widened with astonishment before she asked, “And did you like the picture that it created in your mind?”
“No,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
He drew in a breath, understanding her more and more. “Because when I am considering what it would be like to be a woman, it is in terms of empathy. How difficult it is to be a woman in our society and so on… I know that I have far more choices born as a man.”
She gave a nod, handed the brandy snifter out to him and he gazed at it.
“More?” he queried.
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “I wish my wits about me.”
He nodded, in a way glad.
The idea of her drinking copious amounts of brandy alone to soothe the pain of her father’s cruelty, haunted him. It seemed she did not do this, thank the gods.
He’d certainly seen enough people in his walk of life use gin to push back the tide of pain that life often brought.