Love Is a Rogue

by Lenora Bell

  He’d bet he could teach her a few new words. He’d acquired quite a colorful vocabulary living on a ship full of sailors.

  Enough words. There would be no unleashing of passions this afternoon. He’d received his answer about the duke’s whereabouts, and it was time to leave. He hadn’t liked the answer, but there was nothing he could do about it. His orders from the Admiralty would come through any day now, and he’d sail at their pleasure, on a ship of their choosing. If he didn’t have a chance to speak with the duke before setting sail, he’d have to find another safe way to give him the evidence of embezzlement that he’d uncovered.

  Dallying with the duke’s precious, cosseted sister wouldn’t help his case.

  It was past time for him to leave.

  The lady, whether she was aware of it or not, was attracted to him—he knew it as surely as he knew the sun would rise tomorrow and his arms would ache from all that pounding and timber framing.

  He might have believed she was unmoved by his presence and only passionate about the words, if it weren’t for the way she swayed toward him, unconsciously reaching her hands close to his. The little surreptitious glances she kept darting at his open shirt collar. The pink flush across her high cheekbones, a lovely contrast to the mass of curly copper hair piled into a messy bun with tendrils framing her oval face.

  There was no harm in just a little more teasing banter. “You make words come alive in a unique way, but I can think of hundreds of things more pleasurable than logophilia. Kissing, for one.”

  “You mean osculation, the place where two curves or surfaces come into contact?”

  “I mean kissing.” He dropped his gaze to her full pink lips. “What happens when lips meet, and converse, and learn a few things about each other. Wouldn’t you agree that kissing might be slightly more pleasurable than archaic words?”

  She lifted her straight little nose so that her spectacles reflected his face. “I would not.”

  “Spoken like a lady who’s never been kissed, or not properly kissed, at least.”

  “Osculation could never be as thrilling as discovering a new word.”

  “Is that a challenge, Your Ladyship?”

  “It’s a certainty.”

  At least Beatrice was fairly certain that it was true. She had vast experience with the discovery of new words, and none whatsoever with kissing.

  Certainly, if she were going to gain such experience, she might very well consider Mr. Wright as a prime candidate for osculatory experimentation.

  He was obviously very confident in his abilities. And the smoldering light in his azuline eyes was disconcertingly effective, if one was to judge by the weakening of knees and the persistent flutterings in one’s stomach.

  Don’t let it go to your head. It’s not for you.

  Beatrice was quite certain that he stared at every young woman with the exact same smolder in order to inspire feelings of adulation. She was nothing special to him, only an unmarried female to flirt with; a game he played every day.

  But he played it so well, so masterfully.

  She wanted to join in the game. Trade ripostes for sallies, become one of the vivacious and coquettish heroines of the Gothic romances she loved to read.

  If her name were Amaranthine, and she were a violet-eyed beauty imprisoned on the windswept moors by this enigmatic and darkly handsome man, she would be in danger of a thorough kissing.

  He was standing very close. She hadn’t moved away very far after she’d fallen against him while attempting to retrieve her manuscript. Tumbling against his chest had been like falling into a massive oak tree that had suddenly pushed through the floor of the library, spreading its branches and knocking books from shelves.

  He occupied so much space, filling the library with his presence, making her life seem tame and lacking in kisses.

  All summer long she’d watched him outside her window and here he was within arm’s reach, pulsing with life and confidence. There was such freedom in his movements. She thought so carefully about her every move, her every utterance, and he just did as he pleased.

  If she abandoned that carefulness, if she were Amaranthine, a feisty, headstrong heroine, she might pound her fists against his chest in a fit of pique until he had no choice but to capture her in the steel band of his arms and kiss her breathless.

  Would she remove her spectacles first? Probably prudent. They might get in the way.

  It would be a glorious kiss. A kiss worthy of her favorite novels.

  His lips against her lips. A sunrise in her body.

  Golden warmth spreading from where their lips met, suffusing her body, pooling behind her knees and in her belly, and . . . lower.

  A kiss he’d remember when he was sailing at sea, far from land. He’d recline alone in his narrow berth and remember the moment when her lips sought his. When she taught him how transporting a kiss from a bookish wallflower could be . . .

  “Lady Beatrice?” His voice broke the spell.

  She crashed back into the pragmatic, nonwhimsical body she normally inhabited to find one truth confirmed without a shadow of a doubt: she, Lady Beatrice Bentley, was a prize-winning ninny.

  One who indulged in fictitious kisses with handsome, arrogant rogues.

  “Oh, so you do know my name,” she said tartly. She was upsot; she must return everything to rights.

  “Are you feeling quite right? You stood there staring for quite some time. I was beginning to think that the etymologist had run out of words.”

  “Never better, Wright. And I never have an insufficiency of words, thank you very much.” She walked briskly to the bookshelves and began ordering books with no regard to alphabetical or subject order.

  He knew that she’d been thinking about kissing him. Of course he knew. She’d been staring at his lips. What had come over her?

  “There’s much work to be done before I depart for London.” She grabbed a cloth and started dusting the shelves. “I must put this library to rights, decide which books to bring with me, gather my papers. I won’t have much time for writing dictionaries in London. It will be balls and operas and musicales. Oh, how I detest musicales.”

  She was gabbling nonsense.

  “Lady Beatrice . . .” His voice rumbled, shaking her to the core.

  Don’t turn around. Don’t stare into his eyes.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Quite. Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  He didn’t leave.

  She plucked a book from the shelf at random and gave it to him, keeping her gaze on his large hands, rather than his sensual lips. “Here’s something to read on your next voyage, Wright. I hope it may expand your vocabulary.”

  He tucked the novel under his arm. “I’ll be going then.”

  Yes, Lord. Let him leave.

  “Will you inform me if you hear anything from your brother?”

  “I promise that I will. Good day, Wright. I do hope you’ll take the stairs this time.”

  “Now where would be the fun in that?” He bestowed one last disarming grin on her before disappearing over the windowsill, descending back to his adoring kitchen maid.

  She rested against the solid bookshelf, the smell of parchment and ink surrounding her in a familiar and comforting embrace.

  There was no going back for her. She’d turned a shadowy corner in her mind and found something she’d never expected.

  Irrational desires. Swooning tendencies. A bad case of quivering ninnyhood.

  She couldn’t go back; all she could do was move forward armed with this new information.

  The most annoying thing about all of that practiced charm was its effectiveness. She’d never considered herself to be a girl who might be susceptible to good-looking, arrogant rogues with bulging biceps.

  Who could have predicted such a nonsensical development?

  Certainly not her small group of friends in London. Sensible, pragmatic ladies, all—fellow members of the Mayfair Ladies Knittin
g League. Not that they did much knitting. Theirs was a society secretly dedicated to the advancement of women’s goals and achievements in nontraditional roles.

  Her friends would be quite disappointed to learn that Beatrice had succumbed to such giddy imaginings, especially after he’d insulted her dictionary by inferring that no one would want to read it.

  The red rose he’d offered her languished on a table, its petals beginning to wilt. She brought it to her nose and inhaled the faint, sweet odor.

  She set it between the pages of a little-used copy of Debrett’s Peerage.

  She’d keep this rose as a symbol of what the ancient Greeks would have termed her hamartia, her tragic character flaw: a heretofore unsuspected susceptibility to the appeal of charismatic rogues.

  She would henceforth be on the strictest guard against all handsome rogues. All she had to do was survive one last Season in London and she could return to Thornhill House, and stay forever. The old maid in her library tower, surrounded by books, and probably some cats.

  Wright would be long gone, and Beatrice could resume progress on her dictionary unimpeded by such virile distractions.

  She slammed the book shut, covering the ruby red rose, a symbol of weakness. She must shore up her defenses and her determination in order to survive the trials of London and return to Cornwall as swiftly as possible.

  Spinsterhood was going to be glorious.

  Chapter Three

  London, several weeks later

  “Lady Beatrice Bentley! Do you want to become a spinster?”

  Why yes, mother, yes, I do. “Of course not, Mama.”

  “Then please pay attention when I’m speaking to you.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Beatrice had decided that in the interests of survival she would simply agree with everything her mother said.

  “Put that book down.”

  Reluctantly, Beatrice lowered the Gothic novel she’d been reading while being fitted for a new gown. The dressmaker, Mrs. Adler, a thin woman with a blade for a nose and a mouth bristling with pins, tugged at Beatrice’s hem under her mother’s watchful eye.

  Since returning to London, Beatrice had managed only a few pages of research notes for her dictionary. It was exactly as she’d feared: too many fittings, tedious shopping excursions, and awkward morning calls.

  She hadn’t even been able to see her friends Isobel and Viola yet, but they were coming over this afternoon for tea. She couldn’t wait to see them.

  “That’s better,” said her mother. “If you’d only make an effort, you could make a brilliant match. I feel that this is your year, Beatrice, I truly do.”

  The dowager duchess was all softness with her round face, full lips, and generous figure, but her ambition to marry Beatrice off to a duke, a marquess, or, at the very least, an earl, was as hard-edged as a cut diamond.

  She had launched into the “if you’d only make an effort” speech, which Beatrice had heard many, many times before. She knew exactly when to murmur “yes,” and “of course,” and “quite right, Mama,” all while allowing her mind to roam free.

  Usually her mind ran to the book she was reading, or to her dictionary, but lately her mind had been roaming to one topic and one topic only: Wright. More specifically, their encounter in the library at Thornhill House.

  She’d left days after their exchange, so she’d never had to face him again. She doubted that he’d spared her a moment’s thought since he’d climbed down from her window, while she had thought about him almost constantly.

  She must stop thinking about him. About how close their lips had been, and the uncharacteristic urge that had gripped her, the mad desire to kiss him.

  Thinking about kissing him made her breathing shallow and her heart speed.

  She couldn’t blame it on the new gown, though the bodice was so tight around the ribs as to induce breathlessness.

  It was all Wright.

  His mismatched eyes and large, capable hands. The way he’d humored her, asking her to teach him more words, all the while seducing her with that disarming grin.

  Why couldn’t she marshal her thoughts to order? It was most disconcerting. She supposed that time would be the only panacea.

  She’d changed during her sojourn in Cornwall; London had stayed the same.

  Her chambers were still decorated in the discordant combination of blush pink and pale blue that her mother considered pleasing.

  Her mother, the dressmakers and milliners, and the lady’s maids were still trying to accentuate what they considered to be her best features and hide what they thought of as the worst. They drew attention to her slim waist with brightly colored sashes, and covered the right side of her face with thick spiral curls of hair, cascading silk ribbons, and veils.

  In London, she was something to be concealed and camouflaged.

  In Cornwall, at least she’d been free to wear simple, practical gowns of her choosing and pencils as the only ornament in her hair.

  All of that temporary freedom was the only explanation for her unforgivable lapse of sense and that fictitious kiss.

  She recalled with an inward groan the bemused look on his face. He’d known exactly what she was imagining. Dizzy-headed females must throw themselves at him all the time.

  She’d made a narrow escape.

  Mrs. Adler pulled the bodice even tighter and pinned it in place.

  “Ouch!” Beatrice exclaimed as a pin jabbed her rib cage.

  “Apologies, my lady.”

  “If you didn’t fidget so, Mrs. Adler would be finished more swiftly,” said the dowager duchess, who must have concluded her speech some time earlier.

  Beatrice should pay closer attention or she’d be subjected to more speeches. The “woe is me my daughter lives to give me gray hairs” one was particularly trying.

  “Repeat the rules to me, Beatrice.”

  “Er . . .”

  “Oh, Beatrice.” Her mother heaved a sigh. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said. I was explaining the rules.”

  “The rules?”

  Another exasperated sigh. “I have four simple rules for you to follow. The first is no hiding behind potted ferns.”

  “Of course, Mama.”

  “You must remain visible for the entirety of every ball.”

  “I’ll do my best, Mama.” Hiding behind potted ferns was the best place to read during social engagements; everyone knew that. She always had a slender novel secreted in her reticule. Sometimes, if the event were held in a location such as her own home or the home of an acquaintance, she’d even gone so far as to hide books in the ballroom and retrieve them after the event was underway.

  “The second rule, and I know you’ll find this one very difficult, is this—no reading in public.”

  “Mama! You know I can’t promise that.” Reading was as essential as breathing. Without books, there could be no joy in life. “I must be allowed at least a little respite from the vacuous confabulation of London’s dunderhead dandies.”

  “Which leads me directly to rule number three—no using archaic or nonsensical words and no explaining the origins of words. Under no circumstances are you to so much as mention your etymological dictionary. Such antics are the quickest way to dissuade potential suitors. No one likes a know-it-all, Beatrice.”

  That was another one of her standard speeches.

  “Gentlemen don’t want ladies to display an overabundance of intelligence, or to appear as though they believe themselves to possess a superior intellect.”

  “But Mama—”

  “We made a bargain, Beatrice. I upheld my end and suffered all alone in London with none of my three children for company for months while you scribbled to your heart’s content in that moldy old library in Cornwall. Now it’s your turn to follow a few easy rules.”

  “Very well, Mama. I shall refrain from all intelligent conversation.” That wouldn’t be difficult given the paucity of intellect among the bucks of London.

  “And you must dance with a
t least seven eligible gentlemen per ball.”

  Beatrice narrowed her eyes. “Five. I’ll dance with no more than five gentlemen.”

  “Six.”

  She and her mother locked eyes. “Five,” said Beatrice.

  Her mother nodded. “Five, then.” Which was probably the number she’d wanted in the first place. “But you’ll give the first dance to a gentleman of my choosing.”

  “Do you have a gentleman in mind?”

  “I might have.” Her lips curved into a beaming smile. “I have it on good authority that a certain handsome earl might finally be ready to tie the knot.”

  Beatrice flipped through London’s eligible earls in the picture book of her mind. None of them were particularly handsome . . . except . . . “You want me to marry Mayhew?”

  Her mother’s smile widened. “You’ve always been such a clever girl.”

  “I thought he was promised to Lady Millicent.” At the mention of her name, Beatrice’s throat constricted.

  She’d known Lady Millicent since finishing school. Lovely and gregarious with honey-colored ringlets and emerald eyes, Millicent had decided that silent, bookish Beatrice had “airs” and thought that she was above everyone else. Because of this perceived fault, she’d made Beatrice’s life miserable with her taunts, tricks, and derogatory nicknames.

  You’re beastly inside and out.

  Beastly Beatrice.

  “Not promised, precisely,” said her mother. “No papers were signed. The families have close ties, but there’s still hope that he might make a different choice. He’s kept everyone guessing long enough. He’s made some bad investments lately and his coffers need filling.”

  “If he’s joined the ranks of genteel impoverishment, he’ll be after my dowry.”

  “Not impoverished, only not so well off that he can afford to keep all of his properties. Economies have been made, and his mother and sisters haven’t taken kindly to them. If you follow my rules, your reward could very well be a proposal.”