My Fair Marchioness (Scandalous Affairs Book 3) by Christi Caldwell (best short books to read txt) 📗

as though attempting to ward off an evil spirit. “It is wasteful.” Her hands formed an X in a rejection of his offer. “It would be an expensive wish at that.”

Expensive.

Had he ever seen a meager pence as something of value?

Once again, he was struck by the realization of just how privileged his life, in fact, was.

“It is a dream.” When had been the last time he’d spoken about wishes and dreams? Certainly long before his marriage, and then, following his wife’s agonizing death, and the death of her babe, it had been hard to see lightness in anything.

In fact, until this exchange on the shore here with Julia, he’d not believed himself even capable of uttering such words without the cynicism that had come from life’s scars.

“Surely a pence is a small price to pay for a dream,” he said quietly, and gently, Harris pressed the pence into her bare hand.

Julia’s fingers curled over the coin, her grip upon it so tight, the blood left her knuckles. Slowly, she drew her hand in, and as though it were the first time she’d ever looked upon a pence, she studied it wistfully where it lay in her open palm.

“Take it. Make your wish,” he urged, keeping his voice a low murmur, half fearing she’d reject that offering. And not entirely sure, for that matter, just why it mattered so much that she would toss the coin. Only that it did.

Julia dampened her mouth, closing and opening her hand around that pence several times.

Harris leaned in, lowering his lips beside her ear. A whisper of lavender clung to her skin and filled his senses, dizzying, distracting. “Close your eyes,” he whispered. “And let it go, Julia.”

Still, she resisted.

Near as they were, he saw every nuanced change in her body. The slight, but discernable, rise and fall of her chest. The glide of the long, graceful column of her throat.

And then she stepped forward, leaving that spring-summer floral scent dancing in the air behind her, Julia tossed the coin.

It hit the water with a noisy, decisive thunk and promptly sank beneath the surface.

Drawing her narrow, but regal, shoulders back, Julia dusted her palms together. “There,” she said. “Now, if we might—”

Harris shot a hand out, gently but firmly catching her wrist. “Uh-uh.”

She frowned. “What?”

“That’s hardly the throw of dream-making.” He motioned to the place her coin had landed.

She bristled, her adorably freckled nose upturned with her annoyance. “And whyever not? You hardly said anything about one’s throw impacting the state of one’s dream. Furthermore, I’m not throwing away more of your funds, Harris,” she said impatiently, and collecting a slightly too-long hem, she made to step around him.

Harris slid into her path. “You can’t let that throw be the one to mark your first wish.”

Putting her hands on her slender hips, she brought her shoulders up in a belligerent little shrug. “Alas, short of fishing it out, there’s no undoing it, Harris.”

When she again tried to leave, he stretched an arm out so she was forced to either stop or run square into him. “Fair enough,” he said, and in one fluid movement, he fished out another coin and made a show of removing it from behind the shell of her ear. “Fine, then you can’t let it be your last. Here.”

Julia gasped and touched a finger to that delicate lobe. Her eyes went round with her shock. “How… What… How did you—?”

He grinned at her almost girlish wonder. “Alas, a magician never reveals his secrets.” In quick order, he plucked another coin, this time a shilling, from behind her other ear.

She edged her neck back, leaning away and eyeing him as warily as she might the Witch of Endor. “Whatever is that?”

“A shilling.”

Julia briefly closed her eyes and drew a little breath in through her mouth, adorable in her thinly veiled attempt to conceal her frustration. Despite himself, he found another smile forming. When she opened her eyes once more, he was quick to wipe away any and all expression.

“I know what a shilling is, Harris,” she stated evenly. “I’m asking what exactly you are doing with it.”

“Tsk, tsk.” He gave his head a regretful shake. “I’m afraid I’m a deucedly bad teacher if, after the whole wish lesson, you still don’t gather the way to go about throwing a coin.”

She was already shaking her head. “Absolutely not.”

“We’re not leaving until you make a proper wish.”

“I did.” She sounded very close to stomping her feet, and he couldn’t help it. This time, he did smile. “I’m not simply throwing away three of your coins, Harris.”

“Ah.” He lifted his thumb and index finger and flipped the coin so that it landed atop the flat of his hand. “But one would never dare claim that a dream was a waste.” With that, he lifted the shilling near her chin.

She stared mutinously down at it. “You are determined to have me throw away your coins, my lord?” She was perturbed with him. He knew because of the tightness of her voice and that formal use of his title.

“I am.”

“And you are not going to allow us to leave until I play this silly game.”

He grinned in answer and waggled both coins.

Muttering to herself, Julia snatched first one and then the other. This time, she didn’t bother with closing her eyes, but launched them both in quick order. She stared at them as they fell not even a pace and a half away, nearly side by side, identical as they hit the surface with sad, sorry plunks. Until they were gone.

Harris and Julia stared for several moments at the last place those coins had been.

“There,” she muttered. “Are you happy?” Not bothering to await his answer, the lady stalked off.

Harris easily overtook her quick,