Читать книгу Regency Rumour: Never Trust a Rake / Reforming the Viscount - Энни Берроуз, ANNIE BURROWS - Страница 12

‘Miss Gibson!’

Henrietta faltered to a stop at the malice evident in the speaker’s tone, turned, and saw Miss Waverley emerge from the doorway from where she must have been watching her tête-à-tête with Lord Deben.

‘I might have known you would seize this opportunity to corner Lord Deben and thrust yourself upon his notice yet again.’

‘It was rather the opposite,’ retorted Henrietta, recalling how Lord Deben had accosted her on her way to the refreshment room.

‘You would say that, you brazen hussy,’ hissed Miss Waverley, bearing down upon her. ‘I know what you are about. But it won’t work.’ She raked Henrietta with a contemptuous look. ‘You are making a spectacle of yourself by pursuing him like this. Lady Susan only invited you here so that we could all watch you trotting after him, like some lovesick puppy. So that we could all laugh at you.’

She did laugh then and it was one of the most unpleasant sounds Henrietta had ever heard.

‘He is not really interested in you,’ she said. ‘How could he be? You are just an ugly … nobody. He is very choosy about the females he permits into his bed, you know. They all have to be titled, for a start, and incredibly beautiful. And accomplished, too.’

‘Then,’ said Henrietta quietly, ‘that certainly rules you out, does it not?’

‘You impudent little … vulgar mushroom!’ As Miss Waverley’s face contorted with fury it occurred to Henrietta that she must not have heard about the way Lady Dalrymple had gone to such lengths to prove she was most emphatically not a mushroom of any variety.

Or if she had, she’d chosen not to believe it.

‘I could have you thrown out of this house for daring to speak to me like that.’

Henrietta very much doubted it, but Miss Waverley did not give her an opportunity to speak, so determined was she to give vent to the frustrated spite that had clearly been building up while she waited for just such an opportunity as this.

‘But I shan’t bother. You are not worth bothering with,’ she said, almost as though she was repeating something another person had dinned into her. ‘And Lady Susan may have taken you up, temporarily, the way she often does with odd people who capture her fancy …’

Strangely, although she’d been able to discount everything else Miss Waverley had said so far, recognising it as an outpouring of spite, the remark about Lady Susan struck home, for she’d been suspicious of her motives from the start.

‘There won’t be any dancing,’ Lady Susan had informed her when she’d told her about this evening. ‘Just the opportunity to mingle with interesting people and indulge in stimulating conversation. My father has read your father’s treatise on the potential uses of de-phlogisticated air,’ she’d said, leaning slightly forwards as though about to deliver a confidence. ‘He was most impressed. And for my part, I am just longing to having one female amongst my acquaintance with whom I can hold an intelligent conversation. There are precious few in town this season.’

Henrietta had not missed the way Lady Susan’s eyes had flickered briefly towards Julia, who had been sipping a cup of tea and staring vacantly at nothing in particular. And had decided on the spot she did not like her. Not at all.

And yet it still hurt, somehow, to realise that everyone would now regard her as one of the ‘odd’ people that sometimes caught Lady Susan’s fancy. As odd as some of the other guests present tonight. The wild-haired poetess who’d been pointed out to her in one of the receiving rooms, for instance, or the penniless inventors, grubby artists and belligerent self-made men one would not normally see at a ton event, but who were tonight rubbing shoulders with peers and politicians.

And Lord Danbury, forcing himself to be polite to people he only tolerated in his house because they amused his daughter.

It made her feel a bit like one of those performing monkeys in a travelling circus. Especially when Miss Waverley added, ‘But once the novelty has worn off, she will drop you again and you will sink back into obscurity where you belong.’

Like those performing monkeys, shut back in their cages once the show was over.

With that, Miss Waverley lifted her skirts and swirled away, leaving Henrietta standing stock still in the corridor. She was rather shaken by that display of venom, which was, in her view, completely out of proportion. Miss Waverley, she mused as she pulled herself together and set out for the drawing room where she’d left her aunt and cousin, must be all about in her head. For one thing, had Henrietta not intervened, she would have been at the centre of the most almighty scandal. Though she was not to know that. She had no idea what kind of a man she’d attempted to manipulate. That she’d done the equivalent of poking her hand through the bars of a lion’s cage.

And as for predicting that she would sink back into obscurity—well! If the members of the ton were all like Miss Waverley, and those yahoos who’d invaded her drawing room and flung insults left, right and centre, then the sooner they lost interest in her the better. She had only accepted the invitation here tonight because she’d seen it would mean so much to her aunt and cousin. And they, she observed from the doorway, were now enjoying themselves immensely. Not only had Lord Deben convinced the waiters to serve them, but in the short time she’d been out of the room, Mildred had managed to acquire a brace of admirers. One of them was leaning over the back of the sofa and trying to murmur in her ear, and the other, who had pulled up a spindly chair to her side, was shooting him dagger looks.

Neither of them were in earnest, she didn’t suppose, and anyway, Mildred had learned a salutary lesson the afternoon of the brawl. Men of this class did not take women of her class seriously. They might flirt with her, but behind all the flattery lurked a contempt for her background that would prevent any but the most desperate fortune hunter from offering her anything more than carte blanche. Whereas Mr Crimmer, for all that he was cursed with a stutter and a fatal tendency to blush, had more than proved the strength of his feelings with his fists.

She took her place on the sofa on the far side of her aunt from Mildred, so as not to interrupt her light-hearted flirtation, and flicked open her fan. How soon would they be able to go home? And how soon after that would she be able to return to Much Wakering, and the very obscurity Miss Waverley had taunted her with as though it would be some kind of punishment? She sighed. Although she wrote regularly to her father, it seemed an age since she had seen him.

Perhaps he would come up to town for a meeting, or a lecture. He often took off at a moment’s notice, after having read an advertisement in the paper.

Her hand slowed and stilled, as she imagined him going to one of his meetings, and unexpectedly hearing her name bandied about in the way Miss Waverley had just described, for Miss Waverley was never going to let the matter drop. She was so angry about having her plan to entrap Lord Deben thwarted that she would most likely take every chance she got to blacken Henrietta’s name. And she was so popular with the men that she would never lack an audience.

A cold sensation gnawed at the pit of her stomach. She did not care for herself, but her father would be terribly upset to find he’d pitched her into such an uncomfortable situation.

Not to mention her brothers. When they returned home on leave, what would it do to them to find their sister talked about in that horrid way?

Oh, they would understand without having to be told how it was that their absent-minded father had come to send her to stay with the Ledbetters, which was what had led to the general assumption that she had a background in trade, but it would not make their chagrin on her behalf any the less. And even though Lady Dalrymple had enlightened some people, there were others, like Miss Waverley, who would prefer to believe the worst.

But it wasn’t that, so much, which would worry her whole family. It was the nature of her entanglement with Lord Deben. She had done absolutely nothing wrong, but Miss Waverley was sure to make it sound just as bad as it could be.

It was a kind of poetic justice. Because she had rashly pursued Richard up to London, she was going to be branded as the kind of girl who chased after all men. She felt a bit sick. By pushing her father into hastily arranging what he thought was a Season for her, she might well have dragged her entire family into the mire.

She could still hear the drone of Mildred’s two admirers buzzing in her ears, and see gorgeously apparelled people milling about the room, but she felt strangely detached from them all, guilt roiling through her like a poisonous miasma so thick that it practically blotted them all out.

Until Lord Deben strolled across the part of the room into which she was staring sightlessly.

Giving her a faint ray of hope. People were going to gossip about her, now, whatever she did. And that being the case, she would much rather they did so because she had become, mysteriously, the toast of the ton, than a byword for vulgarity.

She was not giving in to base temptation. She was not doing this because she wanted to put Miss Waverley’s nose out of joint. She was not thinking of how often it would mean she would have to spend time in Lord Deben’s stimulating company. It would just be far better for her male relatives to believe she’d had a successful Season, than pain them by becoming a laughing stock.

Rising to her feet, she walked across the room to Lord Deben’s side and, when he did not at first notice her hovering on the fringes of the crowd that had gathered round him, she reached through the throng and tugged at his sleeve.

A matron put up her lorgnettes and stared at her frostily. One of the men nudged another and they both smirked.

Lord Deben eyed the little hand that had just creased the immaculate sleeve of his coat, and then, slowly, followed the line of her arm to her face.

‘Miss Gibson,’ he said.

For one terrible moment, she thought she might just have committed social suicide. If he chose to snub her now, she really would be finished. Silently, with all her will-power, she begged him to help her. And after what felt like an eternity, but was probably only a second or two, his face broke into a charming smile.

‘My dear, I completely forgot. You are quite right to remind me.’ He took her hand and pulled her into the charmed circle. ‘You will excuse us, gentlemen? Ladies? Only I did give my word that …’ He trailed off, pulling his watch out of his pocket and examining it. ‘And I am already overdue. We were so deep in conversation,’ he said to Henrietta, ‘that I quite forgot the time.’

He tucked her hand firmly into the crook of his arm and gave it a reassuring pat. The others moved aside as he led her out of the door and along a corridor. After only a few paces, he opened another door, peered inside, then pushed her into a deserted room, shutting the door firmly behind them and turning the key in the lock.

‘Thank you.’ She breathed a sigh of relief. A brace of candlesticks stood upon the mantel over the empty grate, so that although the room was not very inviting, at least they were not in complete darkness.

‘Did you doubt me?’ He folded his arms and leaned back against the door. ‘I gave you my word that should you apply to me for aid, I would be there.’

But he’d never really thought she would come to him so quickly. His heart was only just returning to its regular rhythm, after the surge of jubilation that had set it pounding when she’d pleaded with him, mutely, to help her. It went some way to compensating him for having made the first move this evening. He’d still been rather annoyed with himself for doing so when two weeks earlier he’d sworn that the next time they spoke it would be because she had come to him. And yet the moment he’d seen her, feigning indifference, he’d been compelled to confront her, even going to the lengths of barring her way when she would have left the room.

‘Yes, that is why I came straight to you. It was only that I was not sure you would understand.’

‘My dear, you would not approach me, push through a crowd who fancy themselves the most important people in the land, and tug on my coat sleeve unless it was a dire emergency.’

Which was why he had not been able to resist making her wait for his response. For a few moments, he’d had the supreme satisfaction of having her exactly where he wanted her—metaphorically, if not literally, on her knees before him—and it had been so sweet a feeling that he’d prolonged it as long as he could. It had been just punishment for the damage she’d unwittingly caused his pride.

‘The most important people in the land? Oh, dear!’

‘They only think they are,’ he said with contempt. ‘But never mind the conversation you interrupted. I am far more interested in learning what has occurred to induce you to abandon that fierce pride of yours and come to me as a supplicant. Not that I object, you understand.’

‘Sometimes,’ she said, observing the smugness of the smile that curved his lips as he referred to her as a supplicant, ‘I really, really, dislike you.’

He took one step sideways. ‘The key is in the lock. You may turn it and leave, if you so wish.’

‘You aggravating man,’ she seethed. ‘You know very well I’m not going anywhere. Do you have to make it so hard for me?’

‘Make what hard?’ His smile was positively predatory now.

She glowered at him.

‘To tell you that I have changed my mind. That if you would be so kind, I should like to take you up on your offer.’

‘My offer?’ His smile froze.

‘To make me the toast of the ton,’ she snapped. ‘They are all going to gossip about me. I cannot stop it now. And at least if you … I don’t know … do whatever it is you had in mind to make them think I’m … fascinating … then at least my brothers won’t be ashamed to own me.’

A strange look came over his face. ‘You are doing this for your brothers?’

She’d done something very like this before. When Lady Chigwell had been berating her, she’d borne it all with weary indifference. It had only been when the old harridan had cast aspersions on her family that she had flung up her chin and answered back.

Because she loved them.

Love was the key that he’d been searching for. If she believed she was in love with him, he would have it all. Her compliance to his wish she should marry him and, most of all, her loyalty. He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it before. But now he had, he couldn’t see her marrying anyone unless she fancied herself in love with him.

And once she’d made the commitment, she would remain loyal to the bitter end. No matter what she thought of him once she knew him well enough to realise he was not the kind of person anyone could really love, she would remain loyal. He might have mocked her for that streak of Puritanism she so frequently displayed, but that very morality would spare him many of the distasteful aspects of marriage that had made him avoid it for so long. She would not be the kind of woman to take a lover the moment she’d presented him with an heir. On the contrary, any children she bore would undoubtedly be his.

Just think of that. Having two or even three sons that were indisputably legitimate. It was far more than he’d ever dared to hope for. But with Henrietta as his wife …

He sucked in a deep breath as he imagined married life, with Henrietta Gibson as his countess.

Their marriage would not be in the least bit fashionable. She would be unfashionably loyal, unfashionably faithful and, most likely, with her open, honest nature, probably given to unfashionable displays of affection in public. Which would be a tad irritating, particularly as people would mock her.

Still, he had never imagined marriage would be without problems, and at least having a wife who was a bit gauche in public was far preferable to enduring one who played the whore.

He made a decision. Not only would he not reprimand her, should she be demonstrative towards him in public, he would actually defend her. It would be a shame to crush those traits of honesty and openness that made her unique. Any affection she felt for him initially would wither away and die eventually anyway, but he could at least not do anything to hasten her disillusionment. By the time she realised that love was a fairy tale, that it had no place in the real world, they might have reached a state of understanding which would enable them to at least present a united front to their children. He would do whatever it took to ensure that his own offspring would not become casualties of the kind of bitter war that had raged between his own parents.

All these thoughts flashed through his mind in less time than it took him to breathe in and out a couple of times.

That was all the time it took to decide that he would have Miss Gibson at his side, and on his side, no matter what he had to do to ensure he won her.

Completely oblivious to the fact that Lord Deben was undergoing something of an epiphany, Henrietta had turned away and flung herself on to a convenient sofa.

‘For Hubert and Horatio, to be precise. When they come home on leave I don’t want them to hear the kind of gossip that Miss Waverley says will go round if I just sit back and do nothing. Oh, how I wish I’d never come to town. In doing so I’ve already let Humphrey and Horace down. I should have been at home when they had their school holidays. Mrs Cook is a very capable housekeeper, and very kind in her own way, but one cannot expect her to play cricket with them.’

She slumped forwards and buried her face in her hands. ‘I’ve made such a mull of it all.’

Her despair over not being present during her brothers’ school holidays only proved that he’d just made the right decision. Miss Gibson would make an exemplary mother. He could just see her playing cricket with his own sons on the East Lawn, not caring about ruining the turf. And more than that, he could see her protecting all the children he would get upon her with the ferocity of a tigress guarding her cubs. Unlike his own mother who, once she’d whelped, had scarcely looked over her shoulder as she returned to her relentless pursuit of selfish pleasures.

A lesser man might have blurted it all out, there and then, perhaps claiming to have been struck by a coup de foudre. His upper lip curled in contempt as he considered the outcome of speaking such fustian to Miss Gibson while she was so upset and angry. Particularly since some of her anger was directed at him. She resented having to apply to him for aid. Especially since, now he came to consider it, he had not been all that gracious about it.

And then, something about the term coup de foudre niggled at the back of his mind. Hadn’t he, on that drive round the park, warned her that he was not the kind of man who would suffer from that complaint? He had.

In fact, he had been less than tactful with Miss Gibson on several occasions. And brutally honest about his views on love and romance.

He would have the devil of a job getting her to believe he was now receptive to the whole idea of love, within marriage, especially as he only expected her to be the one ‘falling in love’. He could just picture how it would go, should he commence a courtship after the accepted mode. If he presented her with posies, started making pretty speeches, or gave her respectful yet meaningful glances across the set as they danced with each other, she would simply laugh at him. Frustrate him at every turn. In short, make him look like a fool.

There followed what he found a slightly awkward pause as it occurred to him that he could not have made a worse start with his intended bride.

To cover the awkwardness, and to give her something to think about while he grappled with a solution to the dilemma he’d caused himself, he said, ‘Your parents gave you all names beginning with the letter H?’

If he appeared to be interested in the family she held so dear, that might at least start to smooth her ruffled feathers.

She looked up at him sharply. ‘That has nothing to do with anything.’

‘On the contrary,’ he said, making a swift recovery and making damned sure he would not let her glimpse his true state of mind, ‘I utterly refuse to do anything at all until you have divulged the reason behind such an eccentric example of parenting.’

‘It was a bit of a joke between my father and mother, if you must know,’ she said mulishly. ‘Since their names both started with the letter G, they decided the next generation must all take the next letter of the alphabet.’

They had agreed on the names of their children between themselves. A pang of yearning shot through him. What would it be like to hang over a cradle, and discuss with his wife the naming of each and every one of the children she bore him? His own father had decreed that his name should be Jonathon Henry and had not cared what his mother chose to name any of the successive siblings that she periodically deposited in the family nursery.

He squeezed his eyes shut. He was letting his imagination run away with him. He could not start filling his nursery until he got Miss Gibson to accept a proposal of marriage from him and, judging by her present demeanour and what he already knew of her, she was not going to seize upon it with the delight he might expect from any other female present in town this Season.

He opened his eyes and regarded her slumped posture thoughtfully. For one thing, she had just told him she didn’t particularly like him. Unlike the other débutantes he’d been discreetly interviewing for the position, rank did not mean anything to her. Then there was the mysterious suitor who’d abandoned her for Miss Waverley’s surface charm. She might still have some lingering feelings for him. She’d claimed she had come to him because she did not want to disappoint her brothers, but he would wager it was more complicated than that. He could not leave the mysterious swain out of the equation.

But nor could he risk allowing her to slip through his fingers.

Then it hit him.

There was a way, just one way, he could definitely get her to accept a marriage proposal—and that would be if he asked her precisely one minute after taking her virginity.

For once she’d yielded to him, sexually, she was the kind of woman who would salve her conscience by telling herself she’d only succumbed because she was in love with him. She wouldn’t be, of course, but that was immaterial. He did not need her to really love him, only to believe she did.

His blood stirred. The moment he started to think in terms of bedding her he couldn’t help noticing what wonderfully clear skin she had. Her cheeks were soft as rose petals. And the upper slopes of her breasts, just visible above the modest neckline of her gown, looked so luscious he was already salivating at the prospect of closing his lips around them.

He took a deep breath, reminding himself he needed to keep a clear head. Though he was pleased she aroused the lust necessary to make her an acceptable bed partner, most of the desire he felt towards her had very little to do with the physical. Not that it was sentimental in nature. No, he was not such a fool that he would permit mawkish sentiment to cloud his judgement. It was just that there were so many things about her that made the prospect of marriage entirely … palatable.

As he eyed her dejected form an intensity came to his eyes, like that of a hawk hovering over its prey. For all her protestations of dislike, for all her rigidly held morals, she was not immune to him. He’d caught the occasional glimmer of appreciation in her eyes as she examined his face, or the set of his shoulders, or the skill with which he handled the ribbons. And if he wasn’t mistaken, she had deliberately set out to make him laugh in the recounting of the tale of Crimmer and the yahoos. She’d wanted to impress him, at least, if not to enchant him.

Which was a start.

He wouldn’t mind wagering that during the entire two weeks he had held aloof, she had been thinking about him, too, for she’d as good as admitted she’d wanted him to have been the one to send Lady Dalrymple to clear her name.

And she had not returned the handkerchief he’d pressed upon her, the first night they’d met. If she was completely indifferent to him, she would have had it laundered and returned via one of her wealthy uncle’s footmen.

Yes, she was susceptible.

So, the only question remaining was how best to embark upon her seduction. In some ways it was a pity he’d already put the notion in her head that he was only going to pretend to find her fascinating. It was another reason why he’d seen it would be damned difficult to make her believe he was in earnest when he began to pursue her.

On the other hand, it would give him opportunities to sneak beneath her guard which she would never yield to a real suitor. All he needed was a plausible explanation for why he would push her beyond the bounds of what she would consider acceptable behaviour from a make-believe suitor.

All kinds of interesting possibilities occurred to him …

It felt like getting back on to familiar, firm ground after wading through a patch of quicksand. Because, even though she would no doubt make a spirited attempt to preserve her virtue, he had complete confidence that he could breach her walls. She was such an innocent she would not have a hope of maintaining a lengthy resistance to the range and sophistication of weapons he could wield. He knew how to lure a woman so stealthily that she thought she was the one doing the enticing. How to tease, and arouse, and torture a woman with sensual delights until she was begging him for the mercy of release.

And not once, in his entire amatory career, had any woman ever objected to his methods, or his technique. Even the married ones purred that he was a tiger in bed. And when he ended an affair, they had all, without exception, let him know they would welcome him back.

Though, he frowned, none of them had been cut from the same cloth as Miss Gibson. Nor was his interest in her merely sexual and temporary. What he wanted from Miss Gibson was something entirely new. In some indefinable way, he wanted more from her than just her body.

But taking possession of her body was where he was going to start.

‘Well,’ she said impatiently, after he’d been staring at her in complete silence for some minutes, ‘are you going to keep your promise, or not?’

‘Oho, Miss Gibson, that sounds like a challenge.’ He stalked towards her, but instead of taking a seat beside her, he bent and took her hands, tugging her to her feet. ‘Turn around,’ he said, letting go of her hands.

‘What? Why?’

‘Just do it,’ he said, affecting irritation. ‘I need to see what material I have to work with.’

Shooting him just one look loaded with resentment, she turned, then plumped herself back down on the sofa and crossed her arms.

‘Completely graceless.’ He sighed. ‘And far too thin to be fashionable,’ though hers was not the pared-down, weakened frame that poets described as ethereal. She had the whipcord leanness of a girl who led an energetic lifestyle—playing cricket with her brothers, for one thing.

‘The quickest way to make you fashionable would be to procure you vouchers for Almack’s. And attend myself …’ He had never set foot in the marriage mart before, and to do so now would be such singular behaviour that everyone would understand his intent. People were already beginning to speculate about his sudden interest in débutantes. When he began to devote himself entirely to Miss Gibson everyone but she would understand that he’d got her in his sights. It would afford her the kind of protection he would never otherwise be able to provide. Though his own treatment of her from now on must be utterly ruthless, he would make damned sure nobody else dared to so much as look at her sideways.

She was going to be his wife. His countess. Everyone needed to understand that and accord her due respect.

‘If people suspect you are about to become the next Countess of Deben, they will be falling over themselves to win your goodwill,’ he predicted.

It was just typical of her that instead of taking the lure he’d dropped into the conversation, about the potential for gaining a title, she wrinkled her nose, and said, ‘Almack’s? Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Ridiculous?’ Why would she consider going to Almack’s ridiculous? Did she care so little for the superficial glamour of the society in which he moved that she would eschew the highest honour it could bestow on a girl with limited connections?

It would, he saw, take a very, very long time before Miss Gibson ever began to bore him. She was like no other female he’d ever encountered. Every time he thought he’d begun to grasp the essence of her, she’d surprise him all over again. But never in a bad way.

She was, in fact, just like his favourite season of the year, when summer began to ebb away, but winter did not yet hold his estates in the grip of its frosty fingers. When he could never tell, on waking, whether the day would be balmy as June, heavy with fog, or ripped to shreds by a bracing gale. When the undulating hills would flush with a last glorious burst of colour, as though each tree had absorbed every sunset and dawn that had tinted the summer skies, only to flaunt them in defiance of the approaching season of dormancy.

‘In what way? Do you not believe I am capable of procuring you vouchers, perchance? Oh, ye of little faith. I am in possession of a certain piece of information for which Lady Jersey would give her eye teeth …’

‘It isn’t that,’ she said with a touch of impatience. ‘I don’t care how many people offer to procure me vouchers to Almack’s, I shan’t go, and that’s that.’

‘I share your reluctance to set foot in anywhere so stuffy, but, Miss Gibson …’

‘No,’ she repeated firmly. ‘It’s all very well to talk about social advancement, and Aunt Ledbetter agreeing not to stand in my way, but I shall not turn my back on her and my cousin. I will not go anywhere that they will not be received, too. And you know very well they would never admit Mildred.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘It sounds as though you are referring to a conversation you have already had, so I can only surmise that Lady Dalrymple has already offered to use her influence to promote you.’

She nodded.

‘But only if you play down the fact that the people with whom you are currently residing are not quite the thing.’

She nodded again, glumly.

He clucked his tongue. ‘How foolish of her to suggest you should turn your back upon your relatives in order to feather your own nest.’

She looked up at him sharply. ‘You do understand, then?’

‘Of course.’ He gave an insouciant shrug. ‘You are too fiercely loyal to anyone you consider family to do anything so shabby. I only wish I’d been there to hear your reply,’ he said, a gleam of appreciation in his eyes. ‘Hampered as you were by the fact that you were, no doubt, in your aunt’s drawing room at the time.’

‘And,’ she pointed out, ‘by my own innate good manners. Heavens, your godmother had just offered to go out of her way to bring me into style. I would never, ever want to offend someone who’d just done that.’

He raised one eyebrow. ‘Anyone but me, you mean. After all, have I not just offered to do the same?’

‘Oh, you are different,’ she said, slamming her hand down on the arm of the sofa.

‘Am I?’

‘You know very well you are. This is all just a game to you. So stop pretending to take offence,’ she said, folding her arms and glaring up at him. ‘And concentrate on coming up with some other solution.’

He planted his hands on his hips and examined her, head tilted to one side. He did his best to look stern, but no matter how hard he tried he could not quite prevent a smile from playing about his lips. He was glad she’d turned down his offer to procure vouchers for Almack’s. Delighted with the reasons she’d done so. And thoroughly enjoying the spirited way she was sparring with him.

‘It would have been quite a sacrifice, you ungrateful wretch,’ he said with mock reproof, ‘getting me to attend Almack’s. Any of the lady patronesses would have been thrilled to think they’d seen me finally brought to heel.’

‘Well, you shan’t need to make that sacrifice now,’ she pointed out.

He shook his head ruefully. ‘No, instead I shall be obliged to pursue you through the lower echelons of society.’

‘But … how will that answer?’

‘You goose. Once people discover that I am prepared to go anywhere that you attend in the hopes of making you smile upon me, you will get invited everywhere. All you will have to do is ignore any invitation that does not include your chaperon and companion. Before long, the more astute hostess will understand what she needs to do to get you, and therefore me, to attend her party.’

Her face lit up.

‘Oh, how clever of you. Yes, that would answer.’

He had never thought that a woman’s smile could have such an exhilarating effect upon him.

Though it was simultaneously rather sobering to reflect that if she knew what he was planning for her, she would shrink from him.

But he was not going to let minor matters like scruples hold him back, not now. Miss Gibson was going to marry him and he would do whatever it took to get her to the altar. Even if it meant deceiving her.

‘In part,’ he said gravely. He made as if to sit on the sofa beside her. Henrietta shifted slightly to give him room, her eyes fixed on his with open curiosity. Another pang of something like remorse shot through him.

Again, he thrust it aside.

‘At the risk of you accusing me of being rude, Miss Gibson, I have to remind you of the one factor which may give the lie to our little game.’ He took her hands in his, without breaking eye contact. ‘My reputation.’

‘Y-your reputation? As a rake, you mean? Y-yes, I know that you do not normally pursue innocents …’

He shook his head. ‘Even among those who could never have been described as innocent have I ever had to pursue any female. At the most, all I have ever had to do is drop a few subtle hints. If the woman in question did not respond, I saw no reason to persist. After all, there have always been plenty who were willing to pursue me. Thus, I have been able to avail myself of the ones who are …’

‘The most beautiful!’ She tried to draw her hands away, but he held on to them firmly.

‘It is not that you are not beautiful, Miss Gibson. I have already told you that you have many good features. Clear skin, speaking eyes and a perfectly acceptable mouth. Your problem, my dear, is, as you yourself have already pointed out, that you do not have what you call the “charisma” to attract the notice of a man such as myself. Though I would call it allure. Feminine allure. That elusive factor which draws men to some females like moths to a candle flame.’

She frowned. ‘You aren’t going to suggest I suddenly start apeing all those girls who flutter their eyelashes at men and say how clever they are, and agree with whatever nonsense they spout?’ She wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘Even if I restricted my fluttering and fawning to you, I don’t think I could be very convincing …’

She faltered as he began to chuckle.

‘God, no! You must remain your own, refreshingly honest self at all times. Only a more feminine version of yourself.’

‘How can I become more feminine? You aren’t going to advise me to wear low-cut gowns and paint my face, I hope?’

‘That would be to make you look desperate,’ he replied drily. ‘As though you are out to snare any man who will throw the handkerchief your way. No, what I plan to do is make you aware of yourself as a woman. Only when you understand and embrace your own sexuality will other men understand what it is that attracts me to you.’

‘Embrace my s-s—’ She tugged her hands free, a tide of red sweeping over her cheeks. ‘What,’ she said primly, ‘exactly, are you suggesting?’

‘Do not look at me like that,’ he said frostily. ‘Do you think I intend to ravish you upon this sofa?’

‘N-no, but—’

‘No buts, Miss Gibson. Either you trust me to turn you into the kind of woman who can have a man panting after her with one glance, or you do not.’

He could teach her how to have a man panting after her with one glance? Was that even possible?

Yes. Yes, it was. Hadn’t she seen Miss Waverley bewitching Richard? And even Mildred had the mysterious power to draw men to her side, and keep them fascinated, even whilst holding them at arm’s length. She had thought it was simply that she was beautiful. But Lord Deben was saying there was more to it than that.

‘Do you trust me, Miss Gibson?’

She looked into his stern features. If she said she didn’t trust him, he would get up and walk out, she could tell.

‘If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t be sitting here in this room, on the sofa with you, with the door locked,’ she pointed out. ‘I just don’t really understand how …’

‘I know you don’t understand. That is why you must trust me. Let me teach you about your body and the power it has.’

‘Teach me about my body? How will that help?’

‘You really have no idea, do you?’ His eyes, which could sometimes look as hard as polished jet, softened to something she felt she could drown in.

‘If you were more aware of yourself as a woman, the power to attract a man’s notice would flow naturally from that.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Why was it becoming so difficult to draw breath? ‘Of course I am aware that I’m a woman.’

He shook his head, almost pityingly. ‘No. Miss Gibson, though you inhabit the body of a fully grown woman, you are still, in many ways, just a little girl.’

‘I am not!’

‘Oh, but you are. You wield none of the weapons that other women employ upon the battlefield of the ballroom. You walk and talk more like a man than a gently bred female of two and twenty summers.’

He laid one finger upon her lips when she opened her mouth to make an objection.

‘And, my dear, it is quite obvious to every experienced male that nobody has ever kissed those innocent lips.’

‘Oh, but they have. I mean, they did. I mean, of course I have been kissed!’

‘Not to any great effect,’ he said with a slight sneer. ‘It was obviously a fumbling boy, not a man that kissed you, or you would not appear so untouched.’

Untouched? Richard’s kiss had flummoxed her so much she had chased after him all the way to London.

‘Whereas,’ he was continuing, silkily, ‘if I were to kiss you, you would never be the same again.’

‘You are the most arrogant man I have ever met!’

‘No. Just truthful. If I were to kiss you, I would take great care to ensure you would never be able to look at a man’s lips in quite the same way again. When you next spoke to a man, any man, you would not be able to help wondering if his lips could wreak the magic that mine did. Your eyes would linger on them, speculatively. And he would know that you were summing him up. Know that you were wondering what it would be like to kiss him. And then he would want, above all things, to show you.’

Magic? He was declaring that his lips would work some kind of magic upon her? And yet, it appeared, the magic was already beginning to work because as he spoke, she found it impossible to tear her eyes from his mouth. And wonder what was so special about it that one touch would change her into someone who could draw men to her like moths to a flame.

Of course, he had a vast amount of experience.

And he did have a reputation for being so very good at carnal things that any lady who’d been fortunate enough to attract his attention wanted it again. And suddenly it was not just his mouth she was thinking about, but his whole body, naked, in a rumpled bed, where he was rendering some faceless female delirious with desire.

He smiled, a lazy, sensuous smile that did funny things to her insides and made her heart race. Or had it been racing like this for some minutes already?

‘Exactly so,’ he purred softly. ‘You are wondering what my lips will feel like. So, naturally, I wish to oblige you.’

‘How can you tell what I’m thinking?’ Her voice came out in a horrified squeak. Goodness, if he knew she’d just been picturing him naked, she would never be able to look him in the face again.

‘It is the way you are looking at my mouth, Miss Gibson. With curiosity. And longing. And, best of all, with invitation.’

‘I … I wasn’t …’

‘Oh, but you were.’

He frowned. ‘At this point in the proceedings, with any other man but me, you would pull up the drawbridge and retreat behind it, since you do not wish to appear fast.’

‘P-pull up the drawbridge?’

‘Last chance, Miss Gibson. Stop me now, or I will kiss you. And I promise you, if I do that, you will never be the same again.’