Of their own volition, her fingers flew over the sheet as his form materialized before her. Her bonnet dipped over her forehead and she hastily shoved it back, before returning to her task.
No gentleman had a right to be so beautiful.
Or outrageously charming.
Or…
“You are a determined young woman, aren’t you, my lady?” Cedric’s amused voice sounded from beyond her shoulder.
She screeched and her finger slid across the page, scratching a black mark along the outside form of her husband. Heart pounding, she hurriedly climbed to her feet. She wheeled around and found him at the entrance of the gardens. Arms folded at his broad chest, he lounged negligently against the ivy-covered wall. How long had he been there? And more…had she uttered anything aloud while he’d been secretly observing? “You are awake,” she blurted and snapped the book closed. It dangled at her side. Her entire body blazed as last night came rushing forth. The feel of his touch. Her own wanton moans, blended with his gruff words of encouragement.
“I am,” he said, his grin widening as he shoved away from the frame and took slow, languid steps closer.
She pulled her sketchpad close to her chest. “That is, of course, you are awake.” Stop talking. “It was just I did not expect you’d be here.” He continued coming. “Not that I really gave a thought as to where you would be at this hour.” She lied. She had wondered. Wondered if even now he was at his wicked clubs and doing…whatever it is wicked gentlemen did at those halls. Amusement flickered to life in his eyes as he came to a stop before her. Genevieve sighed. “What I meant to say is, good morning.”
Why could she not be the same artful flirt she’d been all those years ago? Not that she wanted to be a flirt with other gentlemen. It would, however, prove valuable to have equally witty and clever words for her endlessly charming husband.
“You’ve been awake long?” he asked.
Five hours now. She nodded slightly. “I am an early riser.” A pit formed in her belly as she was reminded once more of how little they truly knew of each other.
“Ah, yes,” he murmured. Capturing a loose curl, he tucked it behind her ear. “The masterful skies; that canvas of purples and pinks.” Yet for her reservations, Cedric so easily spouted words she’d shared with him from one of their first meetings. What was she to make of that?
“There is that,” she admitted. “There is also the quiet of the day.” Before the world intruded, it was just her with her thoughts and Society with its judgmental opinions abed.
“And what do you have planned on your first day as marchioness and master of your freedom?”
Master of her freedom. An excited little thrill gripped her; it blotted out all earlier, whimsical musings. For in a world where she’d had so little, with the name he’d conferred to her, she was no longer under the oppressive thumb of her parents or polite Society. “I thought to go to the museum. But today, after seeing the gardens, I thought I might have gardening equipment found by the servants so I might set to work clearing this space.” She gestured animatedly as she spoke.
Cedric scanned the grounds and grimaced. “Rather a mess, aren’t they?”
She nodded eagerly. “Oh, yes,” she agreed. Then, one who didn’t garden couldn’t truly understand. “But not unlike a blank canvas, in a way.” Genevieve motioned to the space. “There is so much to craft and so much character to this space.”
He returned his gaze to hers and her heart skittered a beat under the intensity of his scrutiny. “You are a true artist,” he said more to himself. He slipped her book from her fingers and proceeded to skim through those pages, until he reached the recent likeness she’d completed of him.
She shuffled on her feet. “I do believe I’ve done—”
“A magnificent job,” he said quietly. “You’ve done a magnificent job.”
And looking at it beside him, she could admit with an honesty to herself that she’d expertly captured his half-grin as he stood at the entrance of Kensington Gardens; his jacket rumpled, his hair haphazard.
Suddenly uneasy with this window into her world, a window that showed his influence on her life, Genevieve cleared her throat. She held out her fingers and he returned to the book, but then swiftly captured her other wrist in his hand.
A breathless gasp slipped from her as he drew her close. “You are well today, Genevieve?” he whispered his question against her ear.
His gentle kiss brought her lashes fluttering and the book tumbled forgotten to the ground. “I a-am,” she managed, not pretending to know what he referenced.
Cedric swiftly loosened the strings of her bonnet and tossed the article aside. It caught a gentle breeze and sailed several feet away. He found her lips with his and devoured her mouth as though he sought to burn the taste of her upon his tongue. She twined her arms about his neck and leaned into his embrace. Her husband swiftly moved his questing lips lower, to her neck, downward to her modest décolletage.
She automatically clenched her fingers in the luxuriant strands of his hair. “I expect I should have a modicum of properness and point out that it is daylight,” she panted and tipped her head to the side to allow him better access to her neck.
Cedric guided them down so they knelt before one another. “Properness is wasted on your lips,” he rasped, taking her mouth under his, once more. She moaned as the heady taste of coffee and honey filled her senses. “This should be celebrated between us.” He dragged his lips over her neck, nipping at the flesh, and ringing a cry from her lips.
As he laid her upon the earth, her heart picked up its rhythm and she lifted her arms in invitation. The press of the door handle shattered the quiet, like a shot in the night, bringing them apart. Cedric jumped up and helped her to her feet in one fluid motion, so that as his butler stepped into the sun-filled gardens, his employer knelt with her sketchpad proffered in his extended hands.
He cast a bored look over his shoulder. “Avis,” he said in lazy tones.
How many times had he been discovered so, with other women, that he’d become such a master in prevarication? She hated that he had and hated even more that it should matter. In marrying him, she’d been so fixed on the idea of a formal match between them, that she hadn’t given true thought of what it meant being married to a rake; not truly. Those questions now whispered strong around her mind; where did he find his pleasures and how…? Her stomach muscles tightened involuntarily.
The young servant averted his eyes. Alas, too many times, if his flushed butler’s cheeks were any indication. “Lord Montfort has arrived, my lord. He said you were expecting him.”
Lord Montfort? The earl. Genevieve stared blankly past her husband’s shoulder.
“Tell him I’ll join him momentarily,” he assured the man.
For all the knowledge that hers was nothing more than an arranged marriage, there was a tug of disappointment in her breast that Cedric did not turn away his friend. What did you expect? That you’d sit in his gardens and sketch artwork together, discussing your hopes and dreams? Avis sketched a bow and as her husband returned his attention to her, Genevieve pasted a smile on her lips until her cheeks ached. Her arms tightened hard about her book.
He worked an uncharacteristically solemn gaze over her face and then called out. “Avis?” The servant stopped with his hand on the door handle. “Tell Montfort, I am unable to join him today,” he said, not taking his eyes from her.
Her heart quickened. “Very well, my lord.” Avis sketched another bow to his employer’s back.
“Oh, and Avis, one more thing? Lady St. Albans requires gardening equipment. Will you see the footmen have it brought posthaste?”
Even with the space between them, Genevieve detected the flicker of surprise in the servant’s eyes. “Of course.” The young butler hurried off, leaving them alone, once more.
She searched her husband’s face, trying to make sense of this man and his deviation from his daily plans. Cedric Falcot was a man rumored to place h
is pleasure above all else. He was certainly not a man to enter into an arranged marriage and renege on plans he’d made with his equally rakish friends, all to be with his new, unwanted, but necessary wife. “…I have never seen him look at another person so…” His sister’s softly-spoken words trickled around her mind. A blackbird sang overhead and another gentle breeze tugged at Genevieve’s skirts.
Cedric loosened the buttons of his jacket and shrugged out of the sapphire blue garment. Her mouth went dry as he tossed it to a nearby rusted, metal bench. “What are you doing?” Her words emerged a faint squeak.
He flashed a grin. “I thought you said we were gardening, my lady?”
We. This man was no rake. This man was more than an even charming rogue. With his abandoning his previous bachelor’s plans and joining her today, he was very much a devoted husband. And even as this moment was nothing more than the fantasy of what could be between them. It felt so very real and she did not want to let the moment go—ever.
Genevieve smiled. “Then let us begin.”
*
The sun beat down on Cedric’s neck and perspiration beaded on his brow. If anyone had told him one week and one day ago that he’d be not comfortably closeted away in his clubs but on his knees in his neglected gardens, tearing out weeds alongside a respectable lady, he’d have laughed in the humorous bastard’s face.
He paused and dusted the back of his hand over his brow, using the brief break to study his fully engrossed in her task wife. Digging a small hole, she replanted a small, twig-like scrap. A strawberry strand fell across her brow and she blew it back, but continued working.
The sight of her in her modest gray skirts, working away, momentarily froze him and a dull humming filled his ears. He was not a gentleman who found pleasure in the close company of others. Montfort was a friend, but their relationship had been forged as two miserable buggers who’d delighted in thumbing their noses up at polite Society.
This—a wife, a person, who desired his company—he did not know what to make of. He didn’t want a person to be dependent upon him as his mother had been dependent upon his father. For ultimately, he’d fail Genevieve in the same way his father had failed his mother…and selfish bastard that he was, Cedric still loathed the idea of destroying her unfettered smile. He didn’t want to be responsible for her happiness, because if she let him, ultimately he’d be the one to destroy it. A name he could give. Her freedom. Those were safe matters of practicality. But to join her in the gardens and sketch alongside her only built this false, fragile world between them, which was destined for failure.
He scrambled to his feet and Genevieve pulled her attention from her task. “Cedric?” There was concern underscoring her soft inquiry that only roused the terror in his chest all the more.
“I have business I must see to.”
Her expression fell. “Of course.” Yet so much emotion bled from the depths of her eyes, that his mouth went dry; emotion he didn’t know what to do with. He turned to go. “What manner of business do you oversee?”
Her words froze him. Had they been uttered by any other woman, they’d have been accusatory in nature. Genevieve’s, however, conveyed a curiosity to know more about him. Cedric momentarily eyed the door, contemplating a swift answer and a swifter retreat. Instead, he lazily collected his jacket. “I won property in a wager and have been working to see it restored to its former greatness.”
Her lips tipped down in the corners. “You won it?”
He frowned, hearing the slight reproach there. “You disapprove?” he asked, instead. If she disapproved of wagering, what would she say to the truly dissolute lifestyle he’d lived these years? It would shock her into regretting the very marriage she’d entered into yesterday.
Genevieve stretched her back, momentarily diverting his attention to that languorous sight, which conjured all delicious memories of making love to her last evening. “It is hard to approve of wagering,” she said quietly, pulling him back from his desirous musings. “Particular wagering that sees a man divested of his properties.”
He fastened the buttons of his jacket. “If it weren’t me, it would have been another,” he pointed out, not knowing why her ill-opinion should matter. When was the last time he’d ever cared about what anyone thought of him?
“Yes, well, two wrongs infer one right.”
In one fluid motion, Cedric swept her to her feet and brought her to his chest. “Have you always been this proper, Genevieve?” he asked, brushing his lips to the sensitive skin behind the lobe of her ear, ringing a breathless laugh from her.
“Are you trying to distract me?”
He moved his lips lower, to the spot where her pulse pounded in her neck. “Is it working?” he breathed against her satiny soft skin.
“I-Indeed,” she rasped.
“I will delight in teaching you the joys of wickedness.”
They were the wrong words to say. A solemn look replaced the earlier lightness etched in the delicate planes of her face. “You’ve been so immersed in wickedness that you’ve lost sight of the joys of life around you.”
Her words, devoid of teasing, spoken more to herself, penetrated the indifferent attitude he’d adopted these years. He loosened his hold on her, but did not relinquish her from his arms. “What do you find joy in? Sketching? Gardening?”
Her skin pinked under the faintly mocking emphasis he infused in those words. “You would condemn my pursuits without knowing them?”
“Touché.”
Genevieve settled her teeth in her lower lip. “We know so little about one another,” she said more to herself.
Yes, and he quite preferred it that way. All of this was entirely too much. Too much probing, and…talking, when he didn’t speak to anyone. Ever. Not about anything that mattered, anyway. “Come,” he whispered, lowering his lips to hers. “Shall we continue where we were before Montfort’s interruption?” Bloody Montfort.
Genevieve turned her head and his lips grazed her cheek. A slight frown marred her lips. “You don’t care to speak of yourself, do you?” She peered at him closely. “Rather, you don’t truly wish to speak of anything of importance.”
Disquiet rolled along his spine. How much she saw, this woman he’d bound himself to. She looked when no one else bothered. In a bid to reclaim control of his tumultuous thoughts, he forced a lazy grin and stepped away from her. “What is there to know about me that you don’t already know?” he drawled and gave a roll of his shoulders. “I enjoy my clubs and gaming hells. I like to wager and drink and attend wicked parties.” He added that last part in a bid to silence any further questions from the lady.
Genevieve furrowed her brow. “Wicked parties?” Instead of proper shock, there was a healthy dose of curiosity and he silently cursed.
For now that he’d mentioned the whole wicked parties business, distaste burned in his mouth at actually speaking of what those entailed. He gave a tight nod.
Understanding dawned in her eyes. “Ah, as in the masquerade Lord Montfort will host?” He went still. Surely, she didn’t know of Montfort’s annual masquerade? “Hmm?” she prodded when still he said nothing.
“What do you know of—?”
His feisty bride snorted. “It’s hardly a secret when mention of it appears in The Times…” She paused. “As well as wonderings as to whether the newly married Marquess of St. A,” she gestured to him. “That would be you. Plans to attend.”
Regardless of where it appeared, he’d not discuss Montfort’s orgies. Not with her. His friend closed out every year with a scandalous affair, attended by only the most jaded souls. “Montfort’s…masquerade,” a term which could only be loosely applied, “is not until the end of the Season.” As such, there really was no need to further discuss—
“What makes them so very wicked?”
They were the manner of event no proper, respectable miss would be in attendance. It would be a den of sin, visited by only the most depraved, scandalous lords and ladies…and sudd
enly, the idea of her being part of those festivities gave him pause. “They are different than events you are accustomed to.”
Her lips twitched. “Well, that is hardly enlightening.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Rather a disappointing description by a man rumored to be a rake.”
Rumored to be? By God, she truly didn’t know whom she’d married. What did she take him for, then? On the heel of that, terror slithered a slow, torturous path around inside him. Surely, she didn’t see him as anything…more? “I am,” he gritted out, determined to disabuse her of any potentially romantic sentiments.
She tipped her head at that bloody endearing angle so he didn’t know if he wished to kiss her into silence or grit his teeth and storm off.
“I am a rake,” he said through clenched teeth, lest she forget precisely whom she’d married.
“Do you take me for one of those simpering misses who’d be outrageously shocked?” she shot back, wholly ignoring his statement.
There wasn’t a thing simpering about Genevieve.
Then, she dusted her palms together. “Very well.”
He cocked his head. “Very well?” What was she on about, now?
“You’ve joined me in the garden and sketched with me. I’ll allow you to take me to one of Montfort’s wicked parties when it comes, Cedric, and then I’ll form my opinion.”
Cedric closed his eyes a moment and, in his first attempt at prayer in the whole of his life, he prayed for patience. Of course, he’d been drawn to a marriage of convenience with Genevieve because of her unwavering spirit…after all, if he was going to be eternally bound to someone it should, at the very least, be someone interesting. But this…a spitfire who’d insist on attending Montfort’s orgy? This woman he didn’t know what to do with.
“Are you praying, Cedric?”
He opened his eyes and found Genevieve staring boldly, more questions in her eyes. “No.”
She slowly nodded. “Yes, well, I didn’t take you for the praying sort.” Did she just insult him? He was still too flummoxed by her earlier question to take proper offense.
Not only had his wife neatly maneuvered her way deeper into his world. She also, by her questioning, expected more than a functional, purposeful arrangement that allowed them to live their separate lives and merged their lives in a way he’d not truly considered. And he needed to regain a foothold of his life. “You are not going.” It mattered not if Montfort’s ball was today, tomorrow, or ten years from now.
The Lure of a Rake Page 20
