Читать книгу The Regency Season: Wicked Rakes: How to Disgrace a Lady / How to Ruin a Reputation - Bronwyn Scott - Страница 16

Chapter Nine

Alixe was dressed hideously again in a shapeless work dress when she met Merrick in the library the following morning, her hair left to hang loose in her hurry to make up for oversleeping. There was no one to notice this grooming oversight on her part. The house party had taken themselves off to the village for a day of shopping and touring the local church. But one would have thought the king was coming to call the way St Magnus was turned out in sartorial perfection for the simple and isolated task of working in the library with her.

He was waiting for her, attired in fawn breeches, crisp white linen shirt and a sky-blue waistcoat in a paisley pattern that managed to deepen the hue of his already impossibly blue eyes. He’d been freshly shaved and his hair was brushed to the pale sheen of cream. His morning elan was perhaps a not-so-subtle commentary about her own choice of clothing. But if she’d meant to get a more obvious rise out of Merrick over her clothes, she was to be disappointed.

His comment extended merely to a raised eyebrow. Instead, he turned his attentions to the project at hand and after a few minutes of study to familiarise himself with the text, he said ‘I think you’re taking the translation too literally again. The sentence makes more sense if profiter means taking advantage of. You’re using it to mean making money, the way one would use the word today.’

Merrick slid the document back across the long library table to let her look at the section in question, the understated scent of his morning toilette teasing her nostrils as he leaned forwards slightly to push the document towards her. He smelled clean, the very idea of freshness personified. Then he pulled his arm back and the delightful scent retreated. She wanted more. Alixe wondered what he would do if she acted on the impulse to lean across the table and sniff him, a great big healthy sniff. A giggle escaped her at the very thought of acting on the notion.

‘Is there something humorous?’ Merrick was all stern seriousness.

‘Um, no.’ Alixe blushed and feigned a throat-clearing cough. ‘A tickle in my throat, I think.’ I was just thinking about sniffing you. Alixe hastily shifted her gaze to the manuscript and pretended to read, using the pretence to gather her scattered thoughts. She’d worked on this manuscript for weeks without distraction until St Magnus’s arrival. Now, her focus fled at the smallest provocation from him. The isolation of the country must be getting to her. She took a deep breath.

‘Better?’ St Magnus enquired, needing only a pair of eye glasses to look the consummate college professor, albeit a very handsome one.

‘Yes, much better, thank you.’ What was wrong with her? She did not usually think in such terms. Then again, she wasn’t in the habit of taking kissing lessons from men she hardly knew either.

Alixe scanned the document. It didn’t take long to see his interpretation was correct. ‘It seems so obvious now that you’ve pointed it out. The rest of the document should translate easily from this point.’ His translation made perfect sense. Really, it was a marvel she’d missed it.

Too bad swallowing her pride wasn’t as simple. She was a historian, even if she had been self-trained. She’d had the benefit of tutors and a fine education up until Jamie had left for Oxford. How was it that a well-educated person like herself had not seen what Merrick had noted immediately? She scribbled some notes on a tablet and then looked up, considering. Morning sunlight streamed through the long windows of the library, turning his buttermilk hair to the pale flax of corn silk. ‘How is it that you know so much about French?’ It seemed patently unfair this gorgeous male should also be in possession of an intellect. He’d demonstrated on two separate occasions that intellect was quite well developed.

‘It’s the language of love, ma chère.’ Merrick flashed her one of his teasing grins. ‘I didn’t have to be a genius to see all the uses I could find for it.’

Alixe wasn’t satisfied. He knew far more than a passing phrase for impressing the ladies. ‘Don’t trivialise your skill.’ The vehemence of her defence startled them both. ‘You don’t have to pretend you don’t have a brain. Not with me anyway.’

An awkward silence followed in the wake of her outburst. It was one of those moments when they stepped outside their prescribed roles of rake and blue stocking and the revelation that had followed was nothing short of surprising. It was difficult to think of her and Merrick having something so significant in common.

‘You studied French at Oxford. I hardly think the curriculum there was limited to a few bon mots.’ Alixe cast about for a way to restore equilibrium to the conversation, not entirely comfortable with what she’d learned.

‘Have you ever considered that Oxford might be overrated?’ Merrick leaned back in his chair, propping it up on its hind legs, his hands tucked behind his head, an entirely masculine habit. He tried for evasion. ‘Rich men send their sons to Oxford to get an education when they know full well we spend most of our days and nights carousing in the taverns and getting up to all nature of mischief. It’s a different sort of education than the ones the dons intend for us. Our fathers don’t care as long as we don’t get sent down in disgrace.’ There was a bitterness that underlay the levity of his tone.

‘Jamie mentioned there was time for a few larks.’ Alixe got up from the table and absently strode to one of the long windows to take in the morning sun. ‘But I don’t believe you picked languages entirely on whim.’ She wouldn’t let him get away with skirting the question. Evasion was an unexpected strategy from a man who’d stood on the edge of the pond unabashedly naked.

‘I like to talk and languages are another way to talk. At the time it seemed like a kind of rebellion. I liked the idea of being able to say something that can’t quite be said in English.’

‘Such as...?’ Alixe faced him, her back to the window. She’d not have guessed a discussion of his personal life would send this extroverted man into full retreat, discreet as the retreat was. It touched her in dangerous ways that he would be vulnerable. It made him far more human than she’d like.

Merrick gave a lift of his shoulders. ‘Like esprit de l’escalier. It means thinking of a retort after the moment has passed. Diderot introduced the phrase in one of his works.’

‘The spirit of the staircase?’ Alixe quizzed, absently lifting her hair off her neck and then letting it spill through her hands in a careless gesture as she pondered the phrase. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

Merrick was studying her with his blue eyes. She shifted uncomfortable with his scrutiny. Something had changed in the moments since her comments. The air had become charged with a sweet tension that implied impending action.

‘Do that again,’ Merrick ordered, a low-voiced demand edged in sensuality. ‘Pull up your hair and let it sift through your fingers.’

She did as he commanded. He’d risen from his chair. He was stalking her now, with his eyes and his body, coming towards her in slow strides, his eyes locked on hers. She did it again, raising her hands to gather up the thick length of her hair, her teeth delicately worrying her bottom lip subconsciously. She wasn’t aware she’d even done it.

‘Ah, yes, Alixe, very good. Every man likes the innocent wanton,’ Merrick whispered, lifting his arms to take her hair in his own hands. She trembled at the feel of his warm hands skimming her shoulders as he dropped her hair. Her stomach tightened in anticipation. He was going to seduce her again as he had the day before. She ought to resist. There was nothing here but another lesson.

‘My Alixe, your body is so much more eager than you know.’ He leaned in, feathering a light kiss against her neck in the hollow beneath her ear.

A moan escaped her lips and she swayed towards him, all thoughts of resisting vanished in the wake of the curious warmth that spread through her, conjured there by his touch, his kiss, his words. Her face was between his hands and her mouth was open beneath his. With her eyes shut, it seemed all her senses were heightened. She was acutely aware of the feel of his hips pressed ever so gently against hers. The clean smell of him enveloped her—she could make it out now, a light fougère layered with oak and moss, a hint of lavender and something else that called to mind grass on a summer day—and the taste of him was in her mouth, the sweetly pungent remnants of morning coffee.

With the morning to guard her, Alixe had thought she’d be safe from him and the wickedness he awoke in her. She had imagined such seduction could not occur in the bright light of day. She should have known better. The afternoon had not served her well yesterday.

Her hands needed somewhere to go and it only seemed right that they should anchor in the buttermilk depths of his hair. The move pulled her closer to him, her breasts pressed against the masculine planes of his chest. This was most wicked of her and in the light of the window, too...

‘Oh!’ The realisation was enough to make her jump, a hand hastily covering her mouth. ‘The window! Anyone might see us.’ She knew she was clumsy in her panicked retreat past him to the relative safety of the table.

Merrick only laughed, in no hurry to back away from the window. Why had she thought he’d react differently? It was all a game to him, one of the many games he played.

‘Oh, hush!’ she scolded.

‘I do believe you are a hypocrite, Alixe Burke.’ Merrick returned to the table and resumed his seat, eyes full of mischief.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Alixe seethed. She’d been caught out again by that scoundrel.

‘Yes, you do, you little fool.’ Merrick gave a warm chuckle. ‘Look at you, sitting there with your straight back and folded hands like a genteel angel all worried about propriety when moments ago you were the very devil in my arms and propriety be damned.’

Alixe’s face burned. She could not gainsay the truth. He was right. She’d been all hot abandon and it was positively disgraceful. She could not argue otherwise.

‘Come now,’ Merrick coaxed, ‘there’s no need to be ashamed. Why not admit you enjoy our lessons?’

‘There can be no more lessons, as you call them.’ Alixe made an attempt to return her attentions to the manuscript. He’d shown her his vulnerable side and she’d shown him hers. She was certain it was far more than either had intended.

Merrick was letting her stew. She didn’t dare look up, but she could hear him rifling through book pages and shuffling papers. She pretended to read and scribble some illegible notes in the margins and waited.

‘You do realise you’re in an enviable position to combine business with pleasure. You should make the most of it,’ Merrick said casually at last, not bothering to look away from his papers.

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to explain that,’ Alixe replied with the aloofness that had staved off most of male London.

It didn’t freeze Merrick in the least. If anything, it had the opposite effect, encouraging him to indecently honest conversation.

‘Most young women would like to be in your position, privy to the secrets I can teach you.’ He leaned back again in his chair, his feet hooked about the front legs. ‘Perhaps your father has accidentally started a new fad: coaching one’s daughter in the ways of Eve.’

Alixe slammed down her notebook. She was angry at herself for having proved so gullible as to allow herself to be seduced. She was angry at her father for forcing her into this situation and most of all she was angry at Merrick, who refused to be anything but outrageous. ‘My father may have blackmailed you into this, but he did not expect you to take such liberties. You were only assigned to raise interest in me. I dare say that can be done without the “lessons” you’ve apparently designed for my edification.’

Merrick was thoughtful for a moment. ‘All right. No more lessons unless you ask for them. However, I do need to raise interest in you and you must allow me to do my duty—’

‘Without kissing, without excessive touching beyond what is expected in polite society,’ Alixe interrupted.

‘Agreed,’ Merrick said without hesitation.

‘Agreed,’ Alixe answered with equal swiftness. But deep down, her confidence faltered. She’d got her terms. There’d be no more moments like the one at the villa, like the one in front of the window. But she was going to pay—she just couldn’t determine how.

Or when.