50 Ways to Ruin a Rake (4 page)

“I have never understood your amusements,” she said.

“I know. That's another reason you are the perfect choice. If you can't laugh with a man, then there's no hope for a future.”

She nodded. It was true. She saw that clearly even if her heart did not. Her heart was suffering from a lack of choices. With the only two gentlemen in her circle being Lord Charming and Ronnie, of course it would leap at him. But she was a thinking person, not a foolish girl led about by her emotions, and so she thought about his proposal.

“You are sure Lady Eleanor will sponsor me?”

“Absolutely.”

“And I will meet plenty of eligible bachelors?”

“Scores of them. I vow it.”

She nodded slowly and watched his eyes light with excitement.

“You'll do it?”

Could she? Did she dare?

“Yes, Mr. Anaedsley, I shall do it. I shall be your fake fiancée and then take great pleasure in crying off. I hope you are completely humiliated when I spurn you.”

“Excellent!” he cried.

And then he kissed her.

* * *

What was he doing? The question spun through Trevor's brain for about two seconds before logical thought completely stopped. All he'd really seen was how pretty she looked in the moonlight, how her hair curled so perfectly by her ear, and how her lips were moist and inviting. So he'd taken the invitation without thought to the consequences.

It started in the usual way. The lady gasped in surprise, and that naturally allowed him entrance. He deepened the kiss automatically, thrusting inside and pulling her closer. Her head had to tip back, which gave him the superior position as he dominated her head and body. He tasted, he toyed, and he took from her before she had the wherewithal to refuse. It was the way a future duke kissed, and he was well practiced.

Except, apparently, she was practiced as well. She closed her mouth—a little, just enough to threaten his tongue. His blood surged at the threat, and his fingers tightened, holding her to his will. She fought him for a moment, her hands hard where they clutched his shoulders. But as he thrust into her mouth, she arched into his body, dropping her head back.

In that small movement, she gave him dominion, and he set out to plunder her with a different mind-set. Where before he had taken, now he set to a skillful dance of advance and retreat. In and out, he played, easily besting her until he found himself burning with a fire wholly unexpected. His heart was pounding in his ears, his hands were shifting to support her so he could take her to the floor, and most damning of all, his organ was hot and hard where he rubbed himself against her skirts.

The speed of this inferno stunned him, and he broke from her in shock before he lost himself to her fire.

He stepped back harshly, his breath coming in great gasps. She was clutching onto him so she followed, though she didn't pursue the kiss. She too was breathing heavily, and that was the only sound in the room. Two people gasping in the most erotic of rasps he had ever heard.

He swallowed and made to straighten his jacket, but his hands would not move from her body. He was locked into supporting her until she found her legs. She did eventually, while he fought the hunger to pull her back to his kiss, and to a great deal more. He was just giving into his baser nature when she pushed herself away. His fingers were wrenched open, and he made a sound low in his throat. It was not a noise he had ever made before, and the feel of it—deep and guttural—appalled him. He was not a beast, for God's sake.

He looked at her, seeing the rosy flush to her cheeks, the wet red of her lips, and he nearly lost himself to her again. But then she turned her face away and half stumbled to the settee. She fell upon the cushion without grace, and he was flooded with images of her hair in a wild tangle, her skirts at her hips, and himself plunging into her again and again.

“What are you doing?” she gasped. Her tone was accusing, and he took that for a well-deserved remonstrance. After all, he was half ready to leap upon her and damn the consequences. That ought to give him pause. Some things could not be forgiven, and this was one of them. And yet, he looked at her with her wide eyes and disheveled skirts, and he wanted her as he had never wanted a woman before.

“You have done this before,” he said, his words harsh. He did not intend to accuse her. Indeed, his fury was all for himself, but she took it as the words sounded.

“You attacked me!” she shot back.

“That was hardly an attack,” he returned, a sneer entering his voice completely unbidden. Sometimes his grandfather's voice came out of his mouth at the worst possible times.

“Do not blame this on me!” she said, her voice growing stronger and her hands steadier as they smoothed her skirts.

He didn't. He couldn't. And yet, he didn't feel entirely to blame either. After all, her kiss had been incendiary. He took a moment to steady himself. He needed to take stock before he further aggravated the situation. He straightened his waistcoat, he fixed his cravat, and he did his best to hide his erection from her view. She didn't appear to be looking in that direction, but damnation…her kiss. That was no maiden's kiss.

“Where did you learn to do that?” He tried to keep the hauteur out of his tone and succeeded for the most part. But he had to know just how seasoned she was.

“Did you think I could age to four and twenty and not experience a kiss or two?” Scorn dripped from her words, a match for his earlier hauteur.

“A kiss or two? Balderdash.” He had kissed courtesans who had less skill. “What the devil is your father about, letting you learn such a thing?”

She snorted—a most unladylike sound. “My father is about his bugs, as you well know. I have been in charge of my own education since I was eight.”

“That is not the sort of thing a gently reared girl should learn.” He didn't know why he was arguing the point. Only that he was unsettled, and harsh words were his only means of release. Which was ridiculous. Before today, he'd never really thought twice about her. This was the place he came for science, not dalliance. And she usually busied herself with other tasks when he visited. Since he and her father were wont to take their meals in the laboratory, he had barely been in her company at all since she was twelve.

How he came from barely noticing her to being a hare's breath away from ruining her on a settee was beyond his powers of understanding. And yet it was true. Indeed, part of him was insistently pushing him to finish what they had begun.

“Why did you kiss me?” she asked, her voice betraying true distress. “Especially if…if…”

He looked at her, seeing her beautiful mahogany eyes shining too bright in the moonlight. “If what?” he asked quietly.

“If you did not want me to kiss you back?”

He had no answer for that, and so he turned the conversation back in on itself. “How did you come by this skill, Mellie?” He used her father's nickname for her because he thought it would help ease the personal nature of the conversation.

“Was I…was I very good at it?”

How to answer that beyond the obvious? “Yes.”

She nodded once to herself as if confirming a suspicion. “I have kissed three boys in total. Two are inconsequential. The third, however…” A fond smile played about her lips. He made a strangled sound, and she glanced his way, her cheeks heating. “I was sixteen, and he was the chandler's son.”

“You kissed a candle maker?” The words were strangled as he fought an irrational fury.

“A great many times. It was summer and…and I don't know. He was fun. He called me pretty. I think I would have married him if he'd asked.”

“He didn't?” Damned idiot boy. He could have snagged himself an heiress. And a woman who kissed like she enjoyed it.

“Papa forbade it when he found out. And…” Her voice grew pensive as she stared out at the night sky. “Even then I knew I was just looking for someone who wasn't Ronnie.” Then she shrugged. “Besides, as much as I liked him, he had the most minimal understanding of mathematics and was completely hopeless in natural history. That's why we spent most of our time kissing. There was so little else to discuss.”

Thank God for idiot chandlers. And how awful that she'd spent so much of her life looking for an alternative to her cousin. Still, the whole thing soured his stomach even though he knew it shouldn't. After all, that was exactly what he'd offered her: a chance to find someone other than Ronnie. He couldn't blame her for using all her whiles to ensnare someone else. And yet, somehow he did. He blamed her even as he pushed for all the details.

“And what else did this chandler's son teach you beyond kissing?”

“How to make candles,” she said. Her glare was venomous. “But that's not what you want to know, is it? Though I don't see why you have the right to ask.”

“Because I am your fiancé!” he shot back. The words echoed loudly in the room, and they stared at one another in a kind of suspended horror. It was true. They were engaged now. He had asked, and she had accepted. It was all a ruse, but indeed…they were affianced.

He watched as she swallowed, her skin pale. Her fingers entwined tight enough to make her knuckles white.

“Oh,” she said softly. “I beg your pardon. Of course you have the right to know.”

Except he didn't. Not really. Not when their engagement was a lie. He didn't say that aloud though. He was too interested in her answer.

“James and I kissed. Just…kissed. I knew not to go further, and he was gentleman enough not to press. And truthfully, it was only a few weeks before Papa realized and put a stop to it.”

At least her father had paid some attention. But bloody hell, the dangers to an innocent girl wandering about the countryside were legion. He shuddered to think what might have happened. “What became of this chandler's brat?”

She shot him an annoyed look. “You have no cause to call him names. He married one of the local girls the very next year. They have three children now and are very happy.”

Did he detect a note of longing in her voice? Or perhaps the better term was “loneliness.” He had not stopped to think what her life must have been like here, secluded and waiting hand and foot on her father. The man had enough care to forbid the local men, but not enough presence of mind to be sure she met gentlemen other than her cousin.

“I beg your pardon,” he said as he joined her on the settee.

She tilted her head and more of her curls escaped their pins. The whole mass would come tumbling down around her ears soon, and he found himself hopeful for the event. He waited while she looked at him, her eyes steady and no longer shiny with suppressed tears. He waited even longer, but she said nothing in response to his apology.

He deserved that, he supposed. He was the one to kiss her and the one to rudely demand she account for herself. Therefore it was up to him to make amends.

“I suppose I am unaccustomed to being engaged. I have behaved badly.”

“By kissing me?”

Yes. No. Bloody hell, but he couldn't make himself regret that kiss. “By being impetuous. It's my gravest fault, you see. Sometimes I just act without thinking.”

“Ah,” she said. Nothing more. Damn, she was hard to read, and he was accounted a good judge of people and faces.

He shifted to look at her more fully. “You haven't changed your mind, have you? About our engagement?”

She shook her head, then looked at him. “Have you?”

“Lord, no. I've been casting about for a solution for weeks now. But…” He looked at her lips. He looked at the way she twisted her hands in her skirts. And he was excruciatingly aware of his still throbbing erection. “But no more kissing, I think.”

“I assure you, James and I haven't kissed in years.”

He frowned. “I, um, I meant us.”

Her lips twitched. “Yes, I know.”

She was teasing him. The minx had deliberately misconstrued his words. Damnation, how could she be so composed when his blood still ran hot with lust? He dropped back against the cushions and regarded her darkly.

“It occurs to me that you and I don't know each other very well.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him, but did not speak.

He felt his jaw clench. “You have been cutting up at me all day. Do not become taciturn now. It ill becomes you.”

“Mr. Anaedsley, we have known each other nearly all our lives.”

Perhaps. But he had only vaguely been aware of her. And now he wondered if he had missed something—someone—special. An odd thought to be sure. Meanwhile, she unclasped her hands and made an open gesture.

“What is it you wish to know?”

Damnation, this was ridiculous. He didn't know what he wanted to know. If he did, he'd know it already. He huffed out a breath, completely at a loss.

“Mr. Anaedsley—”

“Trevor. We are affianced, Mellie. At least call me by my Christian name.

She nodded. It was a rather regal dip of her chin. Quite refined, come to think of it. “Very well, Trevor. Might I make a suggestion?”

“I would welcome it.”

“We shall spend a great deal of time together in the next few weeks. To start with, there is the carriage ride to London. Then the preparations for the Season, not to mention all the parties and the like.”

He nodded, though he suspected she had no idea exactly how busy she would be during the Season. His sisters were not yet out, but he had friends who had told him of the military-like campaigns females waged during this time of year.

“Perhaps,” she continued, “we should delay the personal inquiries until tomorrow.”

He tilted his head. “Are you trying to be rid of me?”

“Dawn comes very early,” she said softly.

“What of it?” He rarely went to bed before three.

“Fisticuffs at dawn?” she prompted.

The duel. “I'd completely forgotten.” He studied her face, noting the fine lines of worry. “I swear I shall not hurt your cousin overmuch.”