The prudent thing would be to retreat to his desk and tell Thraxton he’d talk to her another time. Neither of them were in any temper to discuss anything. Instead, he took the few steps it took to bring him to her. “I was watching the children, not you.”

Just to tease her further, he reached out and captured a tendril of her silky hair. “But if you want me to watch you…”

She pulled away and whisked herself behind a chair, an irritated flash in her eyes. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Greyley, you must stop this nonsense.”

“You, my love, are not nonsense. You are a passionate, caring woman. And I want you. What’s wrong with that?”

She sighed impatiently. “Damn it, Greyley! I cannot concentrate with you—” She bit her lip as if to stop her words.

Anthony raised his brows. She could protest all she wanted—he could see the truth in her eyes. “You like me, Thraxton. Admit it.”

“Of course I like you!” she burst out. “But this…this is highly inappropriate. Not only am I the governess, but you—you are engaged to another woman!”

Anthony hid a wince at the outrage in her voice. “If Charlotte doesn’t mind, why should you?”

“How do you know Miss Melton wouldn’t mind? Have you discussed it with her?”

“No, but she has no illusions about our marriage. It’s all part of the arrangement.”

Anna’s eyes widened. “Arrangement? You call your engagement an arrangement?”

“That’s exactly what it is. A contract. Come, Thraxton, you aren’t a naive child. It’s the way things are done every day.”

“Not in my family. And not in yours.”

“You seem to forget that I am not a St. John. When my mother married my father, my real father, they had met only once before. Their parents arranged it all. Later on, after my father died, my mother met my stepfather and she began again.”

“If you had your choice of which you’d rather follow, your father or your stepfather, which would you choose?”

“Anna, not one drop of St. John blood flows in my veins. However much I wish it otherwise, I am an Elliot.”

“And that gives you the right to sin at will.”

Was it sin to want to care for and protect a woman? Was it sin to yearn to discover what she thought about and why she laughed? To want to vanquish the shadows in her silver eyes and to provide her with the best of everything?

Everything, that is, but marriage. He’d made promises to the Meltons, to Charlotte, and he could not renege on them. The small part of him that longed to be a St. John refused to accept that possibility. “Thraxton, I don’t want to argue. Let’s talk about something pleasant.” He rubbed a hand along his jaw, watching her intently. “You are doing miracles with the children, especially Desford.”

“He’s a good child, which you would know if you would give him a chance.”

“Give him a chance? What about him giving me a chance? He’s been against me since the first day he arrived.”