The Wicked Wallflowers: Regency Boxed Set by Tammy Andresen

Author:Tammy Andresen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2020-04-16T21:00:00+00:00

LUKE SAT in his favorite shop, with a steaming pot of tea in front of him and a plate filled with fruit pasties. Simple pleasures. Dryden sat across from him, their meeting nearly complete. Luke had to be honest, he liked the man. He didn’t talk too much, had a good head for business.

Their partnership was sure to be a successful one.

“I have one more matter I wish to discuss.” Dryden shifted in his chair.

“Speak freely,” Luke answered, reaching for a pasty.

“It’s about Annie,” Dryden answered, and Luke set down his flaky bit of snack.

Then he wiped his fingers on his napkin. “She asked me to dance.” Then he winced. He didn’t want to blame her. “Though the dance was lovely enough, Lady Annabelle is not a woman whom I am interested in pursuing.”

Dryden gave a stiff nod. “Very good. I wouldn’t ask at all but my wife.” Dryden made a face. Rather like he’d seen something awful. “She loves her friends and I love her so…”

Luke assessed the man. He was very free with that word love. No one since his mother had declared any affection for him. “So it’s a love match then?”

Dryden gave him a smile that lit his entire face. He’d never seen a man so transformed. “From the moment she swept into my life, she breached my defenses and has been tearing them down ever since.”

An uncomfortable tightening of his chest made him ache. Because he’d had a very similar thought upon meeting Annabelle. She’d immediately slid past all the usual techniques he employed to hold people at bay. But that was simply her intelligence wasn’t it? She hadn’t sparked any feelings, well other than desire. “And you like this? Her seeing all the parts of you that you’ve carefully hidden?”

His smile widened, his face relaxed and joyful. “I do.”

Luke’s own expression had to be full of doubt. No woman should know about the man who’d raised him. The sort of horrors his own father had inflicted on him. But Dryden wasn’t a man he knew well enough to confide in, not that many were, so he shrugged instead. “Good for you.”

Dryden winked and then rose from the chair. “You’ve got a lovely snack to eat and I’ve got a home to return to.”

Luke gave a quick nod and Dryden turned to go. As he exited the door of the empty shop, Luke sighed with relief, then lifted a pasty to his mouth. Just before taking a bite, he muttered, “Tied to a woman’s apron strings.”

“I beg your pardon,” a feminine voice said just behind him. He recognized the timber or perhaps just the feeling its tones sent skittering along his skin.

He dropped the pastry. “Annabelle.”

She came around from behind him and leaned her hip on his table. As though she’d done it every day, she reached down to his plate of pastries and snatched one up then took a bite. Those lovely pale pink lips had a dusting of powdered sugar on them as she slowly chewed, looking down at him.

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