The Scoundrel and I: A Novella by Katharine Ashe

high society ball.”
    “You will tomorrow night. Seraphina will see to it.”
    “But—”
    “Come now,” he said with a half-smile. “Isn’t dressing up in a pretty gown and dancing at a ball every girl’s dream?”
    “Perhaps for some,” Elle admitted. “But even so, a
dream
. Not reality. I know nothing about how to comport myself in a London ballroom.”
    “Comport?”
    “The rules of etiquette. Surely you understand.”
    His black brows lifted. “Never gave it a thought.”
    “You would not have, would you? You, in your uniform littered with medals, with your face and—and—and
height
and absolute disregard for rational sense would certainly never need to know anything about the rules of society. I have no doubt that you flash that handsome smile and say ridiculously charming things, and nobody notices that you have just broken twenty rules of etiquette and mangled the English language in the meantime.”
    “You think my smile is handsome?”
    “I have just insulted you and you did not even notice it.” She turned her face to the window. “I cannot believe I am here. In this carriage. I cannot believe I spent the past two hours being fitted for a ball gown that costs more than my yearly wages. And you know very well that your smile is handsome.”
    “If my smile’s handsome, must be a reason for it,” he said so mildly she had to peek at him from the corner of her eye. A perfect example of the smile in question shaped his lips, and she knew he meant
she
was that reason.
    She snapped her attention back to the window.
    “Did notice the insult,” he said after a moment’s silence. “The compliment suited me better.”
    She turned her face to find him regarding her with perfect equanimity. A special little bloom of pleasure inside her felt distantly familiar and so very good.
    She rolled her eyes away. “You are incorrigible,” she said.
    “And you’ll do fine tomorrow night. A girl like you—”
    “Woman.”
    “—with your snappy tongue and haughty nose—”
    “Haughty
nose
?”
    “Poking right up in the air when you’re put out, just like the titled ladies of the
ton
. High society’ll adore you, Elle.”
    “I never said you could call me that.”
    “Won’t, if you don’t like it.”
    But she did like it. She liked it enormously. He pronounced her name like a caress, and perhaps it was spending hours wearing a gown studded with diamonds, or all the chocolates, but she had the most pressing urge to ask him to say it again. Her name. His voice. Like a caress.
    “You may,” she said.
    He grinned.
    Of course he grinned. This was all his plan, his ridiculous lark. Not
his
future at stake. Not his real life. He could amuse himself with her troubles now and, when it was all over, be none the worse, while she would be in prison.
    “If you don’t want to go to the ball, Elle, you needn’t. We’ll find another way to replace that type,” he said, entirely destroying her righteous indignation.
    “You keep using that word.”
    “A man’s bound to repeat a word every so often. Tell me which one you don’t you like and I’ll do my best to avoid it.”
    “We,” she said.
    His brow knit. “What other word would I use? But damned if your speech ain’t finer than mine. Beg pardon—
dashed
. All right, teach me a new word, Madame Printer. I’m all prepared to expand my vocabulary.”
    “There is no other word for ‘we’, of course.” Her cheeks were burning. “You . . .”
    “You?”
    “
You and I
. But I already told you that.”
    “And I remember it.” He tapped his fingertip to his head and his smile broadened. “Not entirely empty up here.”
    He was a ship captain in the Royal Navy. Men did not win the command of vessels worth thousands of pounds, and the ruling of dozens of other men, unless they were intelligent.
    “I do not dislike it when you use the word ‘we,’” she finally said, too quietly probably.
    “Happy to hear it.” His voice was a bit rough.