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pulled back and she blinked up at him.
    “I am certain your sister is a charming young woman, but I don’t
give a damn about her at the moment.”
    Lizzy opened her mouth, and he thought she might protest, but he
continued on.
    “I am not interested in marrying your sister.”
    A flicker of pleasure lit her eyes at his admission, but he was
far from finished.
    “And stop regretting last night.”
    “I do not—“
    “You offered me a gift, and I want it. I want you, but not for
what you might say to your father and certainly not for your sister. How could
you believe such a thing?”
    “Everyone fancies Sara! She is charming and accomplished and—“
    “You must mean her singing?”
    She stifled laughter by pressing her fisted hand to her mouth. “It
was an unfortunate moment.”
    Ian didn’t stifle his laughter, but he only allowed himself a bit
of it. He wanted Lizzy to know that his feelings, his intentions, were true. “I
hardly noticed. I was too busy watching her sister.”
    “Were you?”
    Was she being coy or had she truly failed to notice how he watched
her each time he had visited the Ainsworth home? The scent of her clung to him
and he still had her flavor in his mouth and she still doubted him.
    “I have wanted you since you the first moment I laid eyes on you.”
    “Ian.”
    He had never heard his name spoken with such tenderness.
    The door to the office began to rattle and her father’s voice
boomed his name with anything but tenderness. “Reed, why in God’s name is this
door locked?”
    Even as Ainsworth spoke the words, Ian heard a key scratching in
the lock and hardly had time to remove his hands from Lizzy’s body before the
office door swung open, thudding against the wall behind it.
    When Ainsworth saw them both standing in the middle of his office,
his eyes went wide and a swath of red spread from his cheeks to his neck cloth.
For a moment he gargled and stuttered, as if he was choking on his own tongue,
and then the tirade began.
    “Reed, what in God’s name are you doing locked in the office with
my daughter? Damnation man, this morning I threatened a formal censure and now
I find you... I find you alone with my daughter.”
    “Father, please—“
    “Out, Elizabeth. Wait outside my office, as I asked you to do a
quarter of an hour ago.”
    It took as much restraint as Ian could muster to allow his
superior to raise his voice to Lizzy with that tone of disgust his words.
Father or not, Ian hated the way Ainsworth spoke to her. But Miss Ainsworth
required no rescue.
    Lizzy straightened her back and approached her father. The chief
inspector didn’t give her a glance, no doubt expecting her to obey his command
and leave the room. But she stopped short, just before her father’s desk.
    “Father, please let me explain.” She looked back at Ian after speaking,
and there was a question in her eyes.
    The most important question was the one he had yet to ask.
    “Detective Chief Inspector, I wish to marry your daughter.”
    “What?” The word rang to the ceiling, shouted by father and
daughter at the same moment.
    “Reed, have you gone completely mad?” Ainsworth turned an even
deeper shade of crimson.
    “You said you did not wish to marry Sara!” Lizzy’s voice took on a
petulant tone.
    “You, Lizzy, I want to marry you .” Would the woman ever
understand?
    She launched herself into Ian’s arms and he held her tight,
forgetting for a moment that her father stood glowering at them.
    “No, I will never consent to this.” Ainsworth boomed the words,
like a judge casting final judgment.
    Lizzy stepped away from their embrace but reached down to clasp
Ian’s hand.
    “Elizabeth Mariah Ainsworth, you will cease this foolishness and
step into the hall while I speak to Inspector Reed.”
    “No, Father.” Her rebellion seemed to deflate Ainsworth. He
slumped down in the chair behind his desk and pinched his nose between thumb
and forefinger.
    “Reed, you cannot provide for my