Tempting the Scoundrel

by Sumner, Tracy

  “I wish Lady Adam’s pianoforte skills were enhancing this enchanting summer evening, but alas, she’s quite horrible,” Raine murmured after taking an engrossed sip, as if she didn’t often get to taste wine. “If she starts singing, I may have to plug my ears.”

  Her calm certainty about his honorable intent threw him off balance. “You’re not frightened to be out here with me?”

  She paused, her gaze, black in the muted light, narrowing. “Should I be?”

  He took a leisurely drink, then shook his head. “No.”

  “You’re a gentleman. A gentle man. Known more for your reputation than the truth. I know the difference; I’ve encountered the difference.”

  Imagining how she knew sent a jolt of anger through him. “Your beauty is tempting, but your mind even more so.”

  “Beauty is fleeting. And no man has ever taken the time to know my mind.”

  He blew out a breath, frustrated with himself. And her. “You effectively paint me in a corner when I’m not even sure it’s your intention. I’ve never had a partner verbally joust and outman me so well. Or so easily.”

  That charming little dent pinged between her brows as she frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “That I unhappily join the ranks of the fleeting and frail. Because I, too, find you incredibly beautiful. My captivation started when I had little notion what was in your mind, just like those toffs you describe with disdain,” he admitted, forging ahead despite her obvious shock. “I only knew you had a great love of books, nestled in the corner of the veranda night after night, lamplight flooding over you as you tuned the pages. I’d never wanted anything more than I did to hear your voice. And, I suppose, yes, to touch you. My only justification is that I was a fifteen-year-old fool.”

  “Tavistock House,” she breathed.

  He nodded with a long pull of his wine, wondering if he was going to be forced to chase her over the bridge and across the lawn if she decided to run. Because he would chase her. To the ends of the earth. She simply didn’t understand that yet—and he was just beginning to.

  She placed the tumbler by her side and rose to her knees. “Who are you?”

  “You’re waiting for me to lie, aren’t you? Maybe I should, but I won’t. The Earl of Tavistock is my cousin, a very distant relation. Even more distant in terms of our acquaintance. After my brother died, he was the last relative I had left. I spent three weeks with him one summer before I removed myself from his household for an apprenticeship in Cambridge. I was already on my future path, already had a reputation for repairing capricious timepieces.” Soothing a bout of nerves, he polished off the wine in his glass and reached for the bottle. “There was nothing for me at Tavistock House except the girl on the veranda, but I was in no position to fend for myself, to fight for more. I was a child still in many ways. Vulnerable in mind and heart from the previous months, losing my family. The earl was horrid. Belittling. Callous.” He paused, the idea of his cousin touching Raine blackening his vision at the edges. “Which I fear you already know.”

  Her gaze lifted to roam the woodlands, the lawn, the bridge. Anywhere but on him. “That’s why you seemed familiar. How you knew about the books.”

  “Yes.”

  Through moonlight the color of a tarnished coin, her gaze found his. “Why didn’t you talk to me? Your bedchamber must have overlooked the veranda, and I went there every night. Mainly to escape the earl. He would come to the attic and select a maid, willing or not, it didn’t matter. Not every night. Or even every week when he was in residence. You never knew, just heard his footfalls on the stairs. At that time, I was young enough, fourteen maybe, to escape his attention and my father was the head gardener, my mother his housekeeper, so—”

  “I may not be able to hear this,” he said between clenched teeth.

  Her blinding smile, a most contrary reaction, rocked him where he sat. “Oh, no, Kit, he never…” She pressed the tumbler against her cheek as if it could cool her skin, then sighed and took another drink.

  He wanted to tell her to slow down or risk becoming tipsy, but he said nothing, just sat there consumed with relief that his cousin had never gotten his filthy hands on her.

  “My brother is friendly with Thomas Kingsman, the Duke of Devon’s footman,” she said after a charged moment of silence. “He spoke to the duke, who offered to pension me off, of sorts, from your cousin. He said my language skills were needed, his governess not equipped. Tavistock was deeply in debt, reducing his staff, so his attraction to me meant much less than the coin in his pocket and one less mouth to feed. All this delicacy, instead of my up and leaving in the middle of the night, was done so my father and mother could remain at Tavistock House until they are ready to retire, possibly with a modest cottage retained on one of his country estates. The countess is quite lovely, and my parent’s positions lofty enough to make her home a fine place to live, the earl notwithstanding.”

  “I could kill him for making you feel like you had to run away, for making you leave your family. For making me flee to Cambridge, alone in the world with a hardened heart.”

  Raine stilled, placing her tumbler on the grass. Leaning on an outstretched arm, she brought her face close to his, her body moving in until Christian caught the scent of her skin, her clothing, her hair. Starch, lavender, lemons. Raine. Mixing with the teasing aroma of a country summer, bringing his blood to a boil. “I wish you’d talked to me. Let me know you were up there watching.” She pressed her lips together, her lids lowering, teasing him, teasing them both. She had power over him, and he wondered if she was becoming courageous enough to use it.

  “Don’t,” he warned, “not now. Not yet.”

  Why, she mouthed, breathless, as affected by him as he was by her.

  If he had to do so little to convince her, they were both lost.

  He shifted out of reach, an awkward move when he wasn’t an awkward man. “Because I’m afraid kisses are all you’ll give me. All you think we’re suited for. And then you’ll use them as proof that it’s all I want.”

  “You engineered this”—she gestured to the wine, the moonlight—“and you’re not even going to kiss me?”

  “I feel caught,” he said, stumbling. Then he went ahead and told her, making a fool of himself. “You know I want to. Since the first moment I saw you ten years ago when I didn’t even know how to kiss! That would not have been pleasant, for you anyway.”

  She laughed and reached, catching his jaw, her thumb sweeping over his cheek and drawing every bit of air from his lungs. “It would have been wonderful and very sweet if you’d tried, because I didn’t know how to then, either.”

  “Now, you do.”

  “Don’t get cross, Kit Bainbridge. Not with your unsavory antics. I’ve been kissed twice. Both disappointments.” She went to lower her hand, but he placed his over hers, trapping it against his cheek. “Honestly, one was acceptable. Boring but acceptable.”

  “I feel challenged because I’ve never been boring.” He dipped his head, pressed a soft, searching kiss to her wrist. “I believe in accurate timepieces. Tepid summer nights and blueberry scones and first-rate Scotch. Tangled sheets and damp skin. Bottomless kisses.” She made a low purring sound and leaned in, her lids fluttering. He waited until she opened her eyes before he continued, “I believe you can meet someone and know. I always have. The girl on the veranda is why no one has been able to touch my heart. I’ve been waiting for her, for you, my entire life.”

  She didn’t stop him when he tunneled his hand through her hair to circle the nape of her neck. Didn’t stop him when he went to his knees and fit her against him, chest to chest, hip to hip, capturing her mouth beneath his. Didn’t stop him when he tilted her head, kissing her more soulfully, giving more of himself than he’d ever given. Didn’t stop him when he palmed her waist and pulled her in, letting her know in graphic detail exactly what she was doing to him.

  Her lips were soft, her sighs sweet, her skin moist, her body perfect. Her arms r
ose to circle his shoulders and bring them closer, like hot wax on parchment, a seductive, molten press.

  Following timelines and building trust and maintaining control slipped away. He let his lips slide to her cheek, her jaw, a sensitive spot beneath her ear as she released a heavy breath against his neck.

  Dutifully, he would record everything she liked, every little thing.

  Starting now.

  “You’re mine,” he whispered, his voice sounding like it had been cut with jagged glass.

  And that’s when she stopped him.

  Rocking back off her kneeling pose, she broke his hold, landing on her bottom in the middle of the blanket.

  He blinked, dazed, shaking his head as if the movement would return thought. “I’m sorry, I lost control. I don’t know what happened. I swear, I only wanted to talk to you, get to know you better and admit seeing you years ago, an admission that had started to feel like a betrayal of our fledgling friendship.”

  She pressed her palm to her brow. “You don’t have to be sorry. I wanted you to kiss me. It was everything I imagined it would be. I didn’t push you away because I didn’t like it. I liked it too much.”

  The hot lick of temper that had gotten him in trouble many, many times rolled through him. He wasn’t practiced at accepting things he didn’t want to hear. “This was a delicious taste, a glorious start. There’s much more, Raine, and God do I want more, but why do I have the feeling you’re going to tell me that can’t happen?”

  She jerked her head up, her own temper sparking. “Because it can’t! There’s a pleasant young man on staff. Nash. A groom with a promising future, someone who occupies my world, Kit, someone who has intimated—”

  “Oh, no, Raine Mowbray.” He grasped her wrist, giving her a gentle shake. “If you’re marrying anyone in this lifetime, it’s bloody well going to be me. I claimed the right ten years ago, even if you didn’t know it. Even if I didn’t fully know it. The thousand dreams I’ve had about you since then confirm the decision, make no mistake.”

  Her eyes widened, her cheeks leeching color until he feared she would swoon. Then they filled with rosy-red fury. “Marriage? Should I have you admitted to Bedlam? I’m a housemaid, and you were just offered a knighthood! A union with me would be preposterous to consider when you could climb so much higher. You have patrons who would drop you and your accurate timepieces before you took your first matrimonial breath.”

  He settled back on his heels, releasing her as if her skin had scorched his hands. “What did you think I was doing out here with you?”

  Guilt raced across her face, and he realized what she’d thought: that he was toying with her as she’d been toying with him. His chest constricted, and he closed his eyes to fend off the crimson haze. To her, he was just another feckless aristocrat when in truth, he’d never fit anywhere except his lonely crevice. A crevice it seemed he was never to crawl from.

  When he’d imagined creating his own universe with her in it.

  A Latin phrase he recalled from school rolled through his mind. Contra mundum. Against the world. He’d wanted his future to be the two of them against the world.

  “Go inside, Miss Mowbray. Before I say something I’ll regret. I have a lamentable disposition that’s landed me in more than one brawl. Ask Penny if you need proof.” He grabbed the bottle and lifted it to his lips, the taste of wine washing away the taste of her.

  “I’ve hurt your feelings,” she said, her voice cracking. “Kit, I would never…that is, I…”

  “Mister Bainbridge, if you don’t mind. Sir works, too.” He sprawled to his back, his arm going over his eyes to hide whatever might lie in their depths. He wasn’t accomplished at hiding his emotions, as those many scuffles Penny had rescued him from attested to. Raine witnessing his dismantling would serve no further purpose; her rejection was already stripping him bare. “Leave me to my plans to climb higher in society by means of an advantageous but loveless marriage. My plans to seduce a maid beneath a”—he shifted his arm and stared at the tree above them—“towering elm.”

  She muttered something he didn’t catch, then said clearly, “I’ll leave as you’re not willing to discuss this rationally, when you know I’m right. I wish I weren’t right, do you not know that? I’m sorry, I would never do anything to hurt you. We’re becoming friends, and I’ve never had many of those.” She sounded close to tears, and he felt close to them.

  He heard her rise, shake out her skirt, hesitate, when he wanted, suddenly and desperately, to be alone. “It looks like I’m going to have a lot of time to devote to creating a detached escapement caliber, and I need you and your German, Miss Mowbray, so don’t think about wheedling out of finishing the translations for me.”

  There. Well done. If he made her mad, she’d bolt.

  Women tended to do that; he tended to make them.

  She cursed beneath her breath, a most unladylike sentiment, and stalked away, the sound of her footfalls lessening until halting pianoforte notes and a chorus of bleating crickets were all that surrounded him.

  He was going to finish the bottle of wine and slumber beneath the stars. Stagger into Devon’s agreeable abode at dawn and sleep until supper. Let the entire household think him a mad artiste because perhaps he was. Penny could make excuses for him and supervise the translations, while Christian spent the rest of the week repairing the duke’s timepieces in seclusion.

  Then he would bolt for London himself.

  Because his heart was breaking.

  Raine didn’t believe that love could happen instantaneously. Intuition or fate or destiny, whatever one wanted to call it.

  And there was nothing he could do to make her believe.

  Like the nick of a blade against tender skin, his dilemma was painful but uncomplicated.

  For years, he’d loved someone who, when given a chance, wasn’t willing to love him back.

  Chapter 4

  Raine huddled beneath the starched sheet in her attic bed, tugged a counterpane of higher quality than Tavistock had ever provided for his staff to her chin. Moonbeams, the same that had tumbled over Kit so generously an hour ago, poured in the small window, highlighting the dust motes drifting through the air and the despair filling her heart.

  He might not talk to her again, except for his bleeding translations, a project she’d been dragging out to spend more time with him. What if he woke at dawn and decided to return to London? What if he woke at dawn and decided wenches were much less trouble than obstinate housemaids?

  She sighed and touched her lips, still tingling from his kiss. Wasn’t that what she’d told him to do? Leave her to an independent future, a footman who may or may not ask for her hand. A man she considered a friend but nothing more. A man who’d given her nothing more than a tiresome kiss.

  She didn’t want to live the rest of her life with tiresome kisses.

  Not when there were ones powerful enough to melt copper if she only dared to accept them.

  She closed her eyes and swallowed against the sting of tears. The hurt in his gaze had pierced something deep within her.

  He was going to be doubly mad that she’d alerted his valet—who looked like no valet Raine had ever seen—to his possibly drunken state out there on the edge of the parklands. Where foxes and grass snakes and she wasn’t sure what else roamed at night. Maybe it wasn’t safe. Maybe he would get cold. The clouds had looked tempestuous like a storm might be rolling in. And…

  Damn and blast. This felt like what she’d imagined falling in love would. Astonishing and distressing. Like stripping naked and diving into a calm pond. Glorious, until you looked to the shore and realized you weren’t alone and everyone was watching.

  Kit might love her, too. Or imagine he did. That timid girl had made an enormous impression on him. Hard to believe when she’d been so lonely and fearful. But he’d been lonely and fearful, too. Like recognized like. It made her breath catch to imagine that brilliant boy gazing down from his window above and wishing he had t
he courage to talk to her.

  Something he’d said when he met her shimmered through her mind.

  So easy, and yet, ten years overdue.

  A tear rolled down her cheek, and she scrubbed it away. His odd comment now made all the sense in the world.

  If she tried, she could almost picture him. She remembered a young man visiting that summer. Quality clothing covering a gangly body, one in the midst of splendid promise. Beautiful features too big for his face.

  Of course, he’d grown into them, into everything, beautifully. Become a gorgeous, talented, thoughtful man. A man suited to a highborn lady, someone who would add every advantage to his life, to his business. Even in Raine’s class, marriage was rarely about love and often about necessity or accessibility, property, or monies. She’d never expected love.

  When Kit expected everything.

  She snuggled deeper in the bed, her toes chilled, her skin clammy. There were a thousand reasons for her to push Kit away and only one reason not to. If she let herself love him, and someday he regretted his choice, as she assumed he would, she’d curl into a ball and die. Simply die. A marriage of convenience was one thing, but a marriage where only one person was happy…where only one person was in love…

  Better to be alone than suffer such torment.

  She pressed her face into her pillow, deciding to take the coward’s path.

  * * *

  Christian felt the tip of a boot nudge his hip. At the third nudge, he snarled, “Leave me be, will you? I’ll head back to the house with the sun. Go away.”

  “You’re a disaster. I can’t take you anywhere.” Penny dropped to his haunches beside Christian and seized the empty wine bottle with a groan of dismay. “I was afraid of this. Women aren’t clocks. Nothing reliable about them.”