She flirted with each able man in her vicinity. She smiled too much. She laughed too loudly. She was gauche and opinionated. Even her dress, a dark scarlet satin trimmed with velvet rosettes, was far too attention-seizing and daring for an unmarried lady. Fresh from Paris unless he missed his guess, the gown hugged her body as though fashioned to bedevil any poor sod who gazed upon her in it.
But he wouldn’t think of the gown now. Nor her perfectly shaped mouth with the tiny beauty mark offset to the right like a planet in orbit around a blazing sun. And he most certainly would not contemplate the sudden snug fit of his trousers as the scent of her, jasmine and lily of the valley, hit him with the force of a blow to the gut.
Dear God. He could not possibly be aroused by such a creature. No. He was not.
Spencer forced himself to read another sentence in the small volume he held in his hands, just to be certain he hadn’t misjudged.
I was well-pleased at the tumescence of the shaft I held in my hand.
Jesus Christ. He snapped the book closed and pinned Lady Boadicea with the most cutting glare he could manage. “Lady Boadicea, you are trespassing in my personal library.”
A charming flush traced her cheeks. Her eyes were wide upon him, attempting, it seemed to him, to judge precisely how much of the obscene drivel he’d read. “Your Grace, please forgive me. I do have a tendency to wander, and I’m afraid the beckoning sight of a fire and these lovely windows proved too much of a temptation to resist. I hadn’t realized, of course, that it was your private library.”
Damn it, that flush on her skin went down her throat and disappeared beneath her décolletage, making him wonder if even her lush breasts were tinged pink. Bloody hell, this wouldn’t do.
His brows snapped together in a frown. “See that you do not come here alone again, my lady. Not only is it most improper, but I treasure my solitude.”
“I have heard, Your Grace.” She held out her hand impolitely. “Once again, I do offer my sincerest apologies. If you’ll just return my book to me, I’ll be on my way.”
She had heard. He stiffened, wondering what else she’d heard. The whispers about him seemed to always abound, regardless of how much he tried to remain above reproach.
“You heard?” he repeated, unable to keep the displeasure from his voice. He despised being the target of others’ conjecture above all else.
Lady Boadicea blinked at him, a tentative smile curving that beautiful mouth of hers. “Why yes, from Lord Harry of course. Don’t worry. I shan’t tell a soul.”
Bloody hell. He didn’t need her promises. And he damn well didn’t need her smile. “Forgive me if your assertion is far from reassuring, my lady.” His tone was deliberately frigid and forbidding.
He’d feared her unacceptability from the moment Harry had requested he extend an invitation to their annual Boswell Manor house party for Lady Boadicea and her sister and brother-in-law, the Marchioness and Marquis of Thornton. But Thornton was a potential political ally for Harry, and Spencer had relented on that account alone.
Look what good his equanimity had done him.
“Make of it what you will,” the chit dared to snap at him in dismissive tones now, her hand still stretched out in anticipation of the lecherous volume he had no intention of returning to her. “My book, if you please, Your Grace?”
He tucked the slim volume inside his jacket. “No. I don’t think I’ll be relinquishing it.”
Her smile was gone, and some ridiculous part of him—a part he’d thought long buried—felt the loss like a physical ache in his chest. She considered him, lips pursed, her expression shifting to one of irritation. Her hand remained open, waiting. Rude, damn it all. Even if some far more ludicrous part of him contemplated running a finger over her palm just to see if the circle was as soft as it looked. To trace the lines bisecting it with his lips and tongue.
“I’m afraid I don’t see why you’re so unwilling to return my property to me, Your Grace.” She cast a sweeping glance around her. “Surely you have a more than ample supply of reading material at your fingertips?”
The baggage had more temerity than he’d imagined. “Indeed, though perhaps nothing quite so…edifying. I wonder what Lord and Lady Thornton would make of your reading proclivities, my lady.”
Her eyes flared. “Are you threatening me, Your Grace?”
“Perhaps.” It occurred to him that he could use this discovery to his advantage. “Here is what I propose, Lady Boadicea. I’ll hold on to your little book and keep it our secret. In return, you stay the hell away from Harry.”
At last, she withdrew her waiting hand, bringing it to her waist as she struck a defensive pose. “You mean to bribe me?”
Had he thought she possessed temerity? That wasn’t the proper word for the impudence emanating from the lush beauty before him. First, she’d dared to trespass upon his private library. Not to mention he’d caught the hoyden reading the sort of filth that should make any proper, unmarried female faint from horror. Instead of being duly chastised, she dared to challenge him. She stood, as fierce and defiant as the warrior queen who was her namesake.
No question of it.
The wench was as troublesome as she was comely.
He gritted his teeth. “Bribery is rather an ugly word, is it not? I prefer to think of it as bargaining to achieve our mutual ends. Keep away from my brother, and I’ll give your lecherous book back to you at the conclusion of the house party. No one ever need be made aware of your depraved nature, and Harry won’t find himself shackled to a wanton tart masquerading as a lady.”
The alluring pink that had clung to her skin vanished as she paled at his viciousness. He ought to be ashamed, he knew, to speak with such savage indifference to a lady, albeit one with unseemly tendencies and a vulgar reading habit. Had Millicent destroyed all the good in him so that there was nothing left save cruelty and ice? Or, a more troubling question prodded him, was there merely something about Lady Boadicea that unleashed the beast within him?
Lady Boadicea didn’t remain silent or pale for long. In a heartbeat, twin flags of angry red rose on her patrician cheekbones. “Did it ever occur to you that it’s Lord Harry’s prerogative who he decides to marry?” She paused. “Or, for that matter, that perhaps a wanton tart wouldn’t want to marry into a family with the reputation of yours?”
The arrow of her insult found its intended target with deadly accuracy. He stalked toward her, closing the distance between them before he could think better of it, and stared down into her upturned face. But she didn’t stare at him, as some in polite society did, with fear or suspicion. Every bit of her, from the irritatingly lustrous auburn locks that had been woven into an intricate series of braids, to the firm set of her sensual mouth, oozed defiance.
“The Marlow family is one of the wealthiest and most well-known families in England, madam,” he growled as another note of her airy scent swept over him. Tuberose, and damn if he didn’t actually go hard in his trousers right then and there.
She raised a brow, challenging him still, seemingly unmoved by his proximity. “Is it? I confess, I hadn’t realized.”
Without warning the words he’d read returned to him. I was well-pleased at the tumescence of the shaft I held in my hand. Bloody, bloody hell. The vulgar words and her scent entwined, inciting a fire in his veins that pulsed through him and shot straight to his groin. For a moment, he imagined that fine-boned, slender hand of hers—the one that had awaited her book’s return—on his cock. Stroking.
What the hell was the matter with him? His brother was wearing his heart on his sleeve for the vixen. Yet here he stood, the Duke of Bainbridge, a man who had not wanted any woman in three goddamn years, fantasizing about her. A minx who was altogether unacceptable in every way, who read obscene books in his bloody library and dared to defy him, whose very name was as ridiculous and fierce and lovely as the rest of her. Hadn’t the last few years taught him anything?
The familiar coil of resentment and bit
terness tightened within him as memories of Millicent returned to him again, chasing lust back into the dark recesses of his soul like Cerberus. He could control himself. His time of penance had cured him of the need to fulfill his desire.
He sneered down at her. “Hundreds of ladies would do anything to marry Lord Harry, and any one of them would be far more deserving of being his bride than you.”
But she refused to stand down like any rational, well-bred miss in her place would. Instead, her eyes flashed up at him. Her chin upturned with stubborn firmness. “Then perhaps he ought to ask for one of their hands, for the very last thing I should like to do is marry a man with such an insufferable nodcock for a brother. Kindly return my book to me and go browbeat someone else with the misfortune of being beneath your roof.”
He didn’t bloody believe her. She still wanted the book. Still believed she could best him. Still tried him at every turn, as though she were in the right and he was the interloper here on his own turf.
“No,” he snapped. “Now get the hell out of my library and consider yourself lucky I don’t take this book and your behavior both to Lord and Lady Thornton.”
“Very well,” she said grimly.
But if he’d thought she had at long last chosen to show him deference and humbly go on her way, he was wrong. For in the next instant, she closed the final step between them. Her face was so near he detected a smattering of bewitching freckles over the bridge of her nose. Her full skirts swished against his trousers, and his cock went hard all over again.
“My lady,” he warned tightly.
“Oh do shut up,” she told him, and then she locked her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers.
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Before you go…
If you enjoy steamy Regency and Victorian romance and second chance love stories, don’t miss the Wicked Husbands series.
Fiercely independent, dazzlingly beautiful, and married to handsome scoundrels, these American heiresses are ready to turn the tables on the insufferable English lords they’ve wed. What happens when their wicked husbands start falling for the wives they never thought they wanted?
Corsets come off, bed chambers ignite, the passion sizzles, and more than one stubborn English rake gets reformed by love.
Read on for an excerpt of the latest book in the series, Her Reformed Rake.
Wicked Husbands Book Three
She refuses to behave…
American heiress Daisy Vanreid prides herself on bucking convention at every turn. Equally well-known for her beauty and her rebellious nature, she has no choice but to entrap the notorious Duke of Trent to avoid marriage to the aging aristocrat her father chose for her. Or so she thinks.
But once she becomes Trent’s duchess, he disappears. Now, she’s on a mission to stir up enough scandal to force his return.
He refuses to be chained…
An elite spy, Sebastian, the Duke of Trent, is on a mission of a different variety, and his wild, trousers-wearing wife is creating the sort of distraction he can’t afford. He returns to London to take the minx in hand, but the woman he married as a pawn proves a wilier opponent than any enemy of the crown.
His inconvenient attraction to her complicates an already tangled web of danger and deceit.
Love is the most perilous risk of all…
When Daisy uncovers Sebastian’s secret life, she’s swept into his world of intrigue and straight into his arms. Together, they become locked in a battle of passion and wits that they can only survive by trusting each other.
London, 1881
he brash American chit had nothing to do with dynamite. Sebastian would wager his life upon it. He watched her from across the crush of the Beresford ball as she flirted with the Earl of Bolton. He was trained to take note of every detail, each subtle nuance of his quarry’s body language.
Studying her wasn’t an unpleasant task. She was beautiful. A blue silk ball gown clung to her petite frame, emphasizing the curve of her waist as it fell in soft waves around lush hips down to a box-pleat-trimmed train. Pink roses bedecked her low décolletage, drawing the eye to the voluptuous swells of her breasts. Her golden hair was braided and pinned at her crown, more roses peaking from its coils. Diamonds at her throat and ears caught the light, twinkling like a beacon for fortune hunters. She wore her father’s obscene wealth as if it were an advertisement for Pears soap.
Everything about her, from the way she carried herself, to the way she dressed, to her reputation, bespoke a woman who was fast. Trouble, yes. But not the variety of trouble that required his intervention.
She tapped Bolton’s arm with her fan and threw back her head in an unabashed show of amusement. Her chaperone—a New York aunt named Caroline—was absent from the elegant panorama of gleaming lords and ladies. Dear Aunt Caroline had a weakness for champagne and randy men, and provided with sufficient temptation, she disappeared with ease.
Sebastian wasn’t the only one who was aware of the aunt’s shortcomings, however. He’d been watching Miss Daisy Vanreid for weeks. Long enough to know that she didn’t have a care for her reputation, that she’d kissed Lords Wilford and Prestley but not yet Bolton, that she only smiled when she had an audience, and that she waited for her aunt to get thoroughly soused before playing the devoted coquette.
As he watched, Miss Vanreid excused herself from Bolton, hips swaying with undeniable suggestion as she sauntered in the direction of the lady’s withdrawing room. Sebastian cut through the revelers, following her. Not because he needed to—tonight would be the last that he squandered on chasing a spoiled American jade—but because he knew the Earl of Bolton.
His damnable sense of honor wouldn’t allow him to stand idly by as the foolish chit was ravished by such a boor. Wilford and Prestley were young bucks, scarcely any town bronze. Manageable. Bolton was another matter entirely. Miss Vanreid was either as empty-headed as she pretended or her need for the thrill of danger had dramatically increased. Either way, he would do his duty and by the cold light of morning, she’d no longer be his responsibility.
He exited the ballroom just in time to see a blue train disappearing around a corner down the hall. Damn it, where the hell was the minx going? The lady’s withdrawing room was in the opposite direction. His instincts told him to follow, so he did, straight into a small, private drawing room. He stepped over the threshold and closed the door at his back, startled to find her alone rather than in Bolton’s embrace. She stood in the center of the chamber, tapping her closed fan on the palm of her hand, her full lips compressed into a tight line of disapproval. Her chin tipped up in defiance. He detected not a hint of surprise in expression.
“Your Grace.” She curtseyed lower than necessary, giving him a perfect view of her ample bosom. When she rose with equal grace, she pinned him with a forthright stare. “Perhaps you’d care to explain why you’ve been following me for the last month.”
Not empty-headed, then. A keen wit sparkled in her lively green gaze. He regarded her with a new sense of appreciation. She’d noticed him. No matter. He relied upon his visibility as a cover. He flaunted his wealth, his lovers. He played the role of seasoned rake. Meanwhile, he observed.
And everything he’d observed thus far suggested that the vixen before him needed to be put in her place. She was too bold. Too lovely. Too blatantly sexual. Everything about her was designed to make men lust. Lust they did. She’d set the ton on its ear. Rumor had it that her cunning Papa was about to marry her off to the elderly Lord Breckly. She appeared to be doing her best to thwart him.
He fixed her with a haughty look. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
She gave a soft, throaty laugh that sent a streak of unwanted heat to his groin. “You mean to rely on your fine English manners now when you’ve been watching me all this time? How droll, but I already know who you are just as you must surely know
who I am.”
His gaze traveled over her thoroughly, inspecting her in a way that was meant to discomfit. Perhaps he’d underestimated her, for in the privacy of the chamber, she seemed wilier than he’d credited. “I watch everyone.”
Tap went her fan against her palm again, the only outward sign of her vexation aside from her frown. “As do I, Your Grace. You aren’t nearly as subtle as you must suppose yourself. I must admit I found it rather odd that you’d want to spy upon my tête-à-tête with Viscount Wilford.”
Miss Vanreid was thoroughly brazen, daring to refer to her ruinous behavior as though nothing untoward had occurred. It struck him that she’d known he watched her and had deliberately exchanged kisses with Prestley and Wilford, perhaps even for his benefit.
He crossed the chamber, his footfalls muted by thick carpeting. Lady Beresford’s tastes had always run to the extravagant. He didn’t stop until he nearly touched Miss Vanreid’s skirts. Still she held firm, refusing to retreat. Some inner demon made him skim his forefinger across the fine protrusion of her collarbone. Just a ghost of a touch. Awareness sparked between them. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly.
“Wilford and Prestley are green lads.” He took care to keep his tone bland. “Bolton is a fox in the henhouse. You’d do best to stay away from him.”
She swallowed and he became fascinated by her throat, the way her ostentatious diamonds moved faintly, gleaming even in the dim light. “I’m disappointed you think me as frumpy and witless as a hen. Thank you for your unnecessary concern, Your Grace, but foxes don’t frighten me. They never have.”
Her bravado irritated him. Even her scent was bold, an exotic blend of bergamot, ambergris, and vanilla carrying to him and invading his senses. He should never have touched her, for now he couldn’t seem to stop, following her collarbone to the trim on her bodice, the pink roses so strategically placed. He didn’t touch the roses. No. His finger skimmed along the fullness of her creamy breast. Her skin was soft, as lush as a petal.
Restless Rake (Heart's Temptation Book 5) Page 28
