Harlequin Historical February 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Never Trust a RakeDicing With the Dangerous LordA Daring Liaison

by Annie Burrows

  No. He was renowned for growing bored with his conquests remarkably rapidly, she reflected as he snagged a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and presented it to her. She supposed she would become something of a rarity if he even managed to keep up the pretence of being interested in her for more than a fortnight.

  ‘Now, let us sit on this convenient pair of chairs, in this recess, and discuss your progress, while we pretend to watch the dancing.’

  The band had struck up. The people who had been forming sets for the opening dance were all bowing and curtsying to each other. She sank on to the chair Lord Deben had indicated and he took the one beside her.

  ‘Oh, very well,’ she said, taking a sip of champagne and watching the dancers. She didn’t quite dare look straight at Lord Deben, while they were sitting so close, not after last night. And because the moment he’d materialised in front of her, her whole body had reacted almost as strongly as if he had done some of the things he’d done then. Her legs already felt as unsteady as they’d done by the time he’d finished with her, and all he’d done was say ‘Miss Gibson’ in that molten-velvet voice.

  ‘Dare I ask what you were thinking about, to make you start so guiltily when I greeted you just now?’

  ‘I w— I d—’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘No, I c-cannot speak of it.’

  With a smile, Lord Deben took her fan and plied it over her reddened cheeks.

  ‘I guessed as much. For whatever it was gave you a similar look to the one you wore when you left my presence last night.’

  A sudden horrid thought struck her. ‘You don’t suppose other people will be able to tell, just from looking at me, what we were doing in that locked room last night? Did anyone see us go in there? I w-wasn’t thinking...’

  ‘Do not worry. I have enough experience at that kind of subterfuge to be able to hide my tracks. People may suspect a level of flirtation between us, but nothing more, I assure you.’

  Nothing more, because they knew he only took beautiful, sophisticated women for his lovers. He did not waste his time on plain, gauche débutantes. They would think, she realised in horror, when they saw her drifting about the room with a soppy expression on her face, that she’d completely lost her heart to Lord Deben. And they would pity her.

  Or they might have done, had he not pursued her to such an unfashionable venue, and pushed his way in without an invitation, making it appear that the attraction was not merely on her side.

  He had thought of everything.

  ‘Thank you, my lord,’ she said, truly grateful, now, that he had made it look as though he could not bear to spend a whole evening without catching just a glimpse of her. She would just, somehow, have to deal with the flutter in her chest and the languor of her knees, and the feeling that she was blushing all over.

  He shrugged dismissively. ‘Our intent is to set tongues wagging. Last night, you made a good start by walking up to me and daring to interrupt what those participating thought of as a serious discussion. Far from cutting you, as is my wont with impertinent creatures, I smiled, took your arm and went apart with you. Giving you such a marked sign of favour, in public, must have stoked the curiosity about us almost to fever pitch.’

  ‘By that reckoning—’ she frowned ‘—you need not have done all that kissing at all.’

  He smiled, lazily. ‘Would you prefer that I had not?’

  Her cheeks, already heated, became blazing hot. She darted him a nervous glance, then took refuge in sipping her champagne whilst searching for a suitable reply.

  He chuckled. ‘I thought not. Nor do I regret it.’ He leaned forwards and murmured in her ear, ‘You are quite delicious, Miss Gibson. I am looking forward to tasting you again.’

  Some of the champagne bubbles went up her nose and she started spluttering. Lord Deben swiftly produced a pristine white-silk handkerchief from somewhere and handed it to her, so that she could at least cover her mouth and chin with it while the coughing fit lasted.

  ‘Not for some time, though,’ he said, once she’d regained her composure. ‘For the next few nights, our courtship will be carried out in full view of the public.’

  ‘Will it? I mean, of course!’ She dabbed at several spots of champagne that sprinkled her lap. ‘We ought never to be private together. I was not intimating that I wished to do anything so very shocking, Lord Deben, I—’

  He placed one gloved finger upon her lips, silencing her.

  ‘Do not fear, little one. The next few times I make love to you, it shall be entirely verbal. We shall not need to withdraw behind locked doors.’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘M-make love to me? Verbally? I’m not sure I understand what you mean.’

  As she glanced up at him warily, he reached out and twined one of her ringlets round his gloved finger.

  ‘I can say how much I admire your hair, for example,’ he said in a sultry voice before allowing it to fall back on to her neck.

  Then she understood. The tone of his voice, combined with that gesture, was so stimulating that he might just as well have trailed that finger all the way down her throat.

  ‘Which is the truth, by the way. I never pay compliments if I don’t mean them. Which you know, don’t you, my sweet?’

  ‘D-do I?’ Yes, actually, she supposed she did, if that horrible outing to the park was anything to go by. For had he not told her that he thought her nose was too big for her to ever be considered a beauty? Not that it wasn’t true. It was just that he need not have mentioned it.

  ‘Why do you look so cross?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said mendaciously. She was not going to admit that his brutal honesty still rankled. ‘It is just that my hair is nothing special. It’s just brown.’

  ‘It curls naturally, though. Which leads a man to imagine it rioting across his pillow first thing in the morning.’

  She blushed fierily, but protested, ‘You cannot possibly tell if my curls are natural. Let alone know what they would look like when I wake up in the morning.’

  ‘On the contrary. By the end of the evening, false curls unwind, particularly when the atmosphere is damp. But that night on the terrace, that first night we met, yours were a positive riot of energy.’

  ‘My hair was a frizzy mess, you mean.’

  He sat back, leaned one arm along the back of her chair and tilted his head to one side as he scrutinised her.

  ‘Why do you always turn a compliment on its head, so that it becomes a criticism? You should accept flattery as your due, not squirm in your seat as though I have said something obscene.’

  That was supposed to be flattery?

  ‘I am just not used to receiving compliments, I suppose,’ she admitted grudgingly.

  ‘I cannot believe that no man has paid compliments to the glorious natural energy and lush bounty of your hair.’

  Oh, that was much better. ‘You really think my hair is glorious?’ Immediately she wished she had not said that out loud, but she had not been able to help herself. At last, at last he’d said something unequivocally positive about her appearance.

  ‘Well, nobody else has ever said so.’ She frowned, robbed utterly of the pleasure of knowing he liked her hair. He might think it glorious, but her inability to respond as he thought she should was just one more proof that she was lacking as a woman.

  ‘Are the men of Much Wakering blind?’

  She darted him a shy glance and saw that he was looking completely baffled. Which, in its turn, baffled her.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘How can you have reached your age without having had at least a dozen admirers?’

  He thought she ought to have had admirers? That observation cheered her up no end.

  ‘Well...’ she mused, wondering if there really wasn’t so very much wrong with her afte
r all. ‘I suppose...’ now she came to consider it ‘...that I haven’t really mixed with many men before. Not ones to whom I am not related, anyway. Except schoolboy friends of my brothers, or scholarly acquaintances of my father’s. All of whom treated me as though I were either a sister, or an honorary niece.’

  Until the night of that totally unexpected kiss from Richard under the mistletoe, which was even more of a puzzle, given his subsequent behaviour. She had not seen him once since the evening he’d met Miss Waverley, she reflected with resentment.

  ‘But there must have been some sort of social life in the area. Surely you mixed with the better families in the county? Even attended the local assemblies?’

  ‘Well, of course we went to dine with friends and attended informal parties of various sorts. But, no, I never went to assemblies.’

  ‘Why is that? Is your father very strict?’

  ‘Quite the reverse. He is an absolute darling,’ she said with a fond smile. ‘It is just, well, I never did learn how to dance. And so it would have been pointless attending assemblies, only to sit at the side, aching to join in and being quite unable to do so.’

  ‘Yet you dance now.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Aunt Ledbetter hired a dancing master as soon as I came to stay with her. Though I am sure, had I asked, my father would have arranged for me to have lessons himself. Only, somehow I never quite wanted him to think I was hankering for anything so frivolous. You know he is something of a scholar.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Well, he could see the point of going to dine with interesting people, where the conversation would be stimulating. Or inviting all sorts of people to dine with us, or even to stay with us. Scientists and explorers, and inventors. And those house parties were very lively, I can tell you. There were sometimes explosions at the dinner table when men whose theories ran counter to one another had been seated unwisely. And—’ she smiled ‘—even the occasional, literal explosion in one of the outhouses when there happened to be a number of experimental scientists about. But there was never any suggestion anyone wanted to do anything so frivolous as dance.’

  ‘Scientists and explorers,’ he repeated, with disdain. ‘Very pleasant company for a young girl, I should imagine.’

  ‘They were very interesting people,’ she retorted.

  ‘But not given to noticing you enough to pay you any compliments.’

  ‘Well, the ones who were young enough to be considered, um, eligible, were generally so wrapped up in their own pet theories that they thought of little else. Not that I ever wished to receive any attentions from any of them,’ she said, wrinkling her nose as she mentally reviewed the parade of unkempt and self-absorbed geniuses she’d met over the years.

  ‘Besides, I was far too busy acting as hostess and keeping things running smoothly to wish for that sort of distraction. You can have no notion how badly experimental scientists can upset the servants if there is nobody to listen to their complaints.’

  ‘You acted as you father’s hostess?’

  She nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘From what age?’

  ‘Well, Mama passed away when I was twelve. So, shortly after that, I suppose, when Papa began to recover enough to want to entertain again.’

  ‘At twelve years old, in short, you took over the role that should have been that of an adult woman.’

  ‘I don’t know why you are looking so cross. Who else should have cared for my family, pray? Papa was distraught for some time, and if I had not reminded him to eat, or wash, I do not know what would have become of him. Then there were Humphrey and Horace to think of. Somebody had to take care of them.’

  ‘And who took care of you?’

  ‘I did not need anyone to take care of me. I was perfectly content to—’ She stopped, an arrested look on her face. ‘Oh. Oh. Do you know, I think that feeling useful actually helped me to deal with my own grief. But anyway,’ she said with a shrug, ‘it is not as if I was compelled into a situation I resented. And nobody

  denied me anything I really wanted. I could have gone to assemblies and such, or had dancing lessons, if I’d wanted. And you must know that the moment I raised the question of having a Season, Papa took the matter in hand immediately.’

  She was not going to admit that she’d already come to the conclusion that had he put a bit more thought into it she might not have ended up staying with a family whose head was engaged in commerce.

  ‘But he did not make those preparations for you without a reminder.’

  She lifted her chin. ‘I make no complaint. And if I do not, I’m sure you have no reason to make it sound as though I have been neglected, or overlooked in any way.’

  ‘But your education has been sadly neglected,’ he said somewhat irritably. ‘It sounds as though your childhood ceased the moment your mother died. Instead of learning how to be a young lady, you became a household drudge. I have heard you say that your younger brothers are at school, while your older ones have their own professions, I take it? But who has made sure that you have been educated as you should have been? Good God, they have gone out into the world so they must know that you are decidedly lacking in accomplishments.’

  So, he thought her lacking in accomplishments, did he?

  ‘It was not like that.’

  ‘It was exactly like that. But at least now I can see exactly why you are so determined not to turn your back upon your socially inferior aunt. For the first time in your life, somebody has lavished care and affection upon you, instead of taking you utterly for granted.’

  ‘That is a rather harsh assessment of my past,’ she said, shaken. And it wasn’t true! Her father had immediately put aside his own needs so that she could come to town and enjoy herself. And as soon as he’d heard about it, Hubert had done what he could, too, though he was so far away.

  The fact that Julia Twining’s friendship could be described as tepid, at best, was absolutely not Hubert’s fault. Nor was it his fault that Richard had evidently thought he’d done his duty by coming to inspect the relatives she was staying with, and, once he’d decided they were perfectly respectable, returned to his own habitual pleasures without a backward glance.

  ‘Do you have any idea how remarkable you are?’

  ‘What?’ She glanced up at him irritably. Whenever she felt as though there was something about her that he liked—such as her hair, for instance—he robbed her of all the pleasure she might have had in hearing it by immediately launching into a series of criticisms. This time they were of her upbringing. Which was what had resulted in her being so singularly lacking in accomplishments.

  ‘I am not in the least bit remarkable,’ she snapped. Had he not just said so?

  ‘Oh, but you are. In fact, I would go so far as to say you are a treasure. Not many women would have cared for their family so uncomplainingly, nor come out of a youth like yours without getting twisted under the burden of accumulated resentment.’

  ‘Resentment? What do you mean? I have nothing to feel resentful about.’

  He thought she was a treasure?

  He smiled ruefully. ‘There are women who fancy they have the right to feel resentful about their lot in life, with far less reason.’

  ‘Well then, they must be very silly. Better to count your blessings than fancying yourself ill used all the time.’ He thought she was a treasure. Her nose might be too big and she was lacking in feminine accomplishments, but not only did he think her hair glorious, but now he was saying there were aspects to her personality he admired, too.

  ‘And I have plenty of blessings to count,’ she continued, in exactly that frame of mind. ‘I am healthy, have always been comfortably circumstanced and have had far more freedom than many other young ladies, from what I have observed since I came to town.’

  Funny, but as she said it, the feeling of being weighed do
wn, which she’d had ever since the night of Miss Twining’s ball, finally slid from her shoulders like a cloak untied after coming indoors out of the rain. She really had been enjoying her stay in town, though it was in an entirely different way from what she’d expected. And much of it, now, was centred on this man.

  She stole a glance at him, then found she could look her fill, since he was gazing across the room with an air of abstraction.

  ‘How I wish,’ he said, coming back to himself abruptly, ‘that my own sisters would take a leaf out of your book. As girls they were forever complaining to me about one thing or another and now I dare say they treat their husbands to the same litany of imaginary woes.’

  ‘You have married sisters?’

  He nodded. ‘Two. And a third who will be making a come out next year.’

  He wondered whether it would be worth asking Gussie if she would invite Miss Gibson to one of the extravagant entertainments she was bound to be throwing this Season. Since she’d married Lord Carelyon their paths had crossed fairly frequently and she had never displayed the very blatant hostility that his other siblings did not bother to hide.

  ‘Perhaps you will meet one of them, one day,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, no. There is no need. I mean, I really do not expect you to attempt to embroil your family in our...in this...’ She blushed as she faltered to a halt. ‘I am quite content with the invitations I am already receiving. There is so much to do in London. Balls and trips to the theatre and exhibitions and I don’t know what. In fact, I am enjoying myself far more than I thought I would.’

  And in a totally different way, too. Even though Lord Deben took away with his left hand what he gave with his right, the very fact that he found anything about her to praise was very heartening. More so, perhaps, because he did not scruple to point out the faults he perceived in her as well.

  ‘You really like my hair?’ She fingered the ringlet he’d toyed with earlier.

  ‘Oh, yes. And your mouth, too.’

  He bent his eyes upon it. His lids drooped. He shook his head.