London's Perfect Scoundrel (20 page)

“Have you really never been on a picnic before?” she asked.

“Not with a guard present, in a public setting, or with sandwiches in a basket.”

“Then what…” She trailed off. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

“Yes, you do,” he returned, glancing over at her. “You just think you’re too proper to ask.”

“
You
just think you have to be improper enough to shock everyone with every sentence. Don’t you get tired of that?”

“Are we attempting to reform me again, or is this a mere chastisement of my usual poor behavior?”

Evelyn sighed. “Didn’t you learn anything?” she
whispered, so that Sally, walking several feet behind them, couldn’t hear.

“I learned a great deal. I learned that you like to chain men up and kiss them when you’re the one who can dictate the action. I learned—”

“That is not so!” she snapped, her face heating.

“No? You did like making love with me, Evelyn. I know that.” He hefted the basket, obviously annoyed to be reduced to performing manual labor. “Have you touched anyone else like that?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“You, however, have obviously…touched several women before, my lord. I fail to see why you continue to torment me about my…slip of propriety.”

He chuckled, the sound low and so seductive that several women they passed on the street turned to look at him and then titter to one another. “My dear, you said you wanted to turn me into a gentleman. Don’t I have the same right to attempt to turn you into a wanton?”

“That would ruin me, Saint,” she said, trying to remember her strategy of not allowing herself to be shocked by anything he said. Honesty would work—at least it had seemed to with him before. “And I don’t wish to be ruined.”

“It would only ruin you if someone else knew about it. All we need do is be discreet. I could make sex a condition for keeping your little escapade a secret, now, couldn’t I?”

“I suppose you could. Reminding me of some awful thing you might do, however, hardly predisposes me to want to be seduced by you.”

This time he laughed outright. It was the first time
she’d ever heard him do that, and the hearty, merry sound resonated down her spine.
My goodness
. If he weren’t so terrible, she’d be halfway to being infatuated with him.

“What’s so amusing?” she asked, reminding herself that desirable and charming as he could be, he was still blackmailing her.

He leaned closer to whisper in her ear. “I already did seduce you, my love. And I think you like me
because
I’m awful.”

The gesture reminded Evie of the night all this chaos had begun, when she had found him whispering naughty things into Lady Gladstone’s ear. Only now she was the hoyden welcoming his scandalous attentions. And she did welcome them, and the heat and craving he awakened in her.

“Perhaps I do,” she admitted, noting that Lady Trent nearly ran into a lamppost, she was so busy gawking at proper Evie Ruddick walking arm in arm down the street with the Marquis of St. Aubyn. “But perhaps I’d like you even better if you were nicer.”

Saint hefted the picnic basket again as they reached the western boundary of Hyde Park.
Nicer
. “I’ve invited you to join me for a picnic,” he returned. “I think that’s very ‘nice’ of me.”

Evie chuckled, leaning a little against his arm as she did so. “Yes, if we overlook the fact that you threatened the orphanage if I didn’t join you.”

“Would you have come otherwise?”

Coming from him, it sounded like a childish, naive question, but he was dismayed to realize that he wanted to know the answer. And Evelyn would tell him the truth; she always did.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I…I know you said you wouldn’t have me arrested, but I—”

“You want my word that I’ll leave the orphanage be,” he finished, somewhat distracted by the warmth of her hand over his arm. “Yes?”

Earnest as she was, she’d never join him in bed again if he didn’t give his word. And when he did, she’d expect him to keep it. Saint took a breath. He’d waited six years for an opportunity to be rid of the place. He could wait a little while longer, until he’d purged himself of the desire for her.

He nodded. “Then I give you my word. You have…four weeks to convince me to leave the Heart of Hope Orphanage standing. But I warn you, I will take a great deal of convincing.”

From her expression, now that he’d acquiesced, she didn’t know what to do next. That suited him; he’d just given himself four weeks to learn why he’d become so obsessed with her, satisfy that torment, and end their affair. If he didn’t, she would, because in four weeks the Heart of Hope Orphanage, brig and all, was becoming part of the Prince of Wales’s newest park.

“This is nice,” Evelyn said, slowing beneath a stand of old English oaks.

Saint glanced at the crowded riding path just fifty feet away, and at the equally busy footpath half that distance in the opposite direction. “Too many witnesses,” he said, urging her deeper into the park.

She pulled free of his grip. “This is a luncheon, is it not? What do you care if people see us?”

Because she was the dessert he wanted
. “Here,” he said dubiously. “In the middle of everything.”

“It’s pleasant and pretty.”

“But I can’t kiss you here without ruining you. And you insist on not being ruined, as I recall.”

With an overloud laugh, Evie took his arm again. “Be quiet,” she muttered. “Talking about it is just as bad as doing it.”

“But not nearly as much fun.” Beginning to wonder whether he’d wandered into someone’s idyllic nightmare, Saint relented. “You ask a great deal, you know.”

She smiled at him. “It’s not so difficult once you get used to it. Did you bring a blanket?”

He set the heavy basket on the grass. “I don’t know. I told them to pack me a picnic.”

“Let’s see, then.”

Evelyn seemed amused, undoubtedly at his expense. Since good humor made her eyes light and set tiny dimples into her cheeks, he could tolerate it.

The basket did contain a blanket, blue and neatly folded and completely unfamiliar. Saint took it from Evelyn and snapped it open, letting it settle onto the cool grass. “Now what?”

“Put the basket in the center of the blanket, and we sit down.”

Saint directed a thumb at the maid. “And the propriety shackle? Where does she go?”

A soft blush climbed Evelyn’s cheeks at his choice of words, as he knew it would. He liked when she blushed. It made her seem so…pure.

“Sally will sit on one corner of the blanket,” she directed, following him onto the material as he moved the basket where she indicated. She knelt beside it, her green muslin gown flowing out around her.

Saint gazed at her for a moment, at the pert, perfect coil of auburn hair atop her head, at the soft curve of her neck as she peered into the basket and drew out a bottle
of wine, at the long, curling lashes concealing her eyes from him. He swallowed, his mouth abruptly going dry. Good God, he wanted her again, wanted to peel the gown from her shoulders and kiss every inch of her soft, smooth skin.

She looked up at him. “Are you going to sit?”

He sat, folding his legs in front of him.
What was he doing with this goddess of grace? And what was she doing with him?

“You’re being very quiet,” she said, and handed him the wine bottle. “And that’s a fine cabernet.”

“It goes with the pheasant.” Saint reached into his pocket. “I do have a flask, if you prefer gin.”

“Wine is splendid.” Pulling two glasses from the basket, she raised up and leaned toward him. “Now you pour.”

He shook himself. Sweet Lucifer, he was behaving like a gawky village idiot. The Marquis of St. Aubyn did not moon over females or their fine bosoms, particularly
after
he’d bedded them. With a twist of his fingers he uncorked the bottle. “A cabernet tastes better on naked skin,” he drawled, “but since we’re not discussing that, I suppose glasses will do.”

The glasses wavered a little in her hands as he filled the fine crystal. “You’ve…picked a lovely day for our outing,” she said crisply.

“Are we talking about the weather now?” Saint set the bottle in the grass and took one of the glasses from her, making sure that he brushed her fingers as he did so. It seemed imperative that he touch her every few moments.

“The weather is always a safe topic.”

He took a sip of wine, gazing at her over the rim of the glass. “A ‘safe’ topic. Fascinating.”

Her eyes lowered. “No. It’s dull.”

Evidently he’d said the wrong thing. Being proper was even more difficult than he’d imagined. “No, really. This is new territory for me. Usually by now on a picnic I’m unclothed. Are there other ‘safe’ topics?”

She looked up at him again, suspicion in her clear gaze. “The weather is the safest, being that everyone knows something about it. Fashion is controversial, unless one laments the new decadence of style, and—”

“Decadence. I like decadence.”

Evelyn smiled. “I know. And bemoaning the waltz is safe with the older generation, for the same reason. Also, no one likes Bonaparte, and the Americas are very gauche.”

“So it’s safest to like nothing.”

She hesitated for a moment, taking far too large a swallow of her wine. “And to approve of nothing, and to do nothing.”

“My, my, Evelyn. I had no idea you were a cynic.” He tilted his head, trying to read her expression. “That’s not it, though, is it? That’s just what you say to your brother’s odd selection of political Bedlamites. Because you, my dear, are far more interesting than the dull creation you describe.”

To his surprise, her eyes filled with tears, though the apology for whatever he’d said wrong this time faded on his lips at the sight of her warm smile. Some very uncomfortable things began happening to his nether regions.

“That, Lord St. Aubyn, is a very nice thing you just said.”

He reached into the basket to cover his sudden discomfiture. “How very unusual of me,” he muttered, and produced a sandwich. “Pheasant?”

T
he sun was edging the trees by the time Evie asked Saint to consult his pocket watch.

“Twenty minutes of four,” he said, shoving the expensive silver-etched timepiece back into his pocket as though it had done something he didn’t like.

She wasn’t terribly pleased by the news, either. Aside from the fact that she’d been enjoying the afternoon, she hadn’t even mentioned the children or the orphanage. He’d given her less than a month to convince him, and she’d just wasted nearly four hours. If she returned home late, though, Victor would make seeing Saint again more difficult than it already was.

“We need to go.”

With a scowl Saint climbed to his feet and offered her his hand. “I suppose kidnapping you is out of the question.” He pulled her upright, leaning to whisper in her ear. “That’s right, we tried something like that already, didn’t we?”

“Stop that,” she whispered back, protesting more because his intimate tone made her shiver than because of what he’d said. She’d begun to realize that he wouldn’t tell anyone their secret; if he did, he would lose some of the advantage over her that he valued so much.

He tossed the remains of their luncheon back into the basket, crumpled the blanket and dumped it on top, then hefted the basket up again. “I don’t suppose you’ll let me drag you into the shrubbery for a—”

“Saint!”

He glanced at Sally. “For a handshake, before we go?”

Of course her maid knew what the marquis meant, but Sally also knew his reputation and, Evie hoped, thought he made such scandalous propositions without provocation.

“No handshakes.”

She tucked her hand around his arm as they left Hyde Park. Even with Saint behaving himself, as he’d done to a remarkable degree this afternoon, she still felt like a kitten in the company of a sleek black panther. Claws sheathed or not, he was still a force to be reckoned with.

“I only have so much self-restraint, Evelyn Marie.”

The lustful expression in his eyes started heat between her legs. Heaven knew, at least a half dozen times during the picnic she had to stop herself from leaning over and kissing him. More than anything, she wanted to feel again the way she’d felt in his arms. If he knew that, though, she would lose what little control she had over him. It was a balancing act, and she kept teetering on the edge of disaster.

“Who else does your brother want to meet?” Saint asked, apparently realizing that she wasn’t going to jump into an alleyway with him.

“Wellington was his main target for a Cabinet post, but since we seem to have lost Gladstone’s support, Alvington is the one who can probably do the most to get him the West Sussex seat in the House. How did you manage Wellington, really?”

He shrugged. “I’d heard your brother wanted to meet with him, and I wanted to see you. Wellington likes fine sherry, and I own several cases of the finest.”

“My brother would make a fine member of Parliament, you know.”

Saint looked down at her. “And?”

“And so you did a good thing.”

“Yes, I did. I took you on a picnic.”

Evie grimaced. “You know perfectly well what I mean. Why do you refuse to admit that you did something nice?”

“Why do you think it was nice? I wanted something, and I did what was necessary to get it.”

She shook her head. “No. I refuse to believe that your only motive for sending Wellington into Victor’s path was to gain a picnic with me.”

He only smiled. “Tell me who else your brother needs in order to put together his campaign, and I’ll arrange it.”

She stopped, and he came to a halt beside her. Sally also stopped a few feet behind them, and in full hearing of whatever she might say. “And what would you expect in return for that?”

“More time with you.”

Her first impulse was to shout at him that she was tired of being parlayed to men in exchange for political influence. At the same time, though, she realized that Saint had only seen what Victor had been doing for weeks, and had decided to use it to his advantage.

“You might just have said that you were being helpful, with no ulterior motives.”

“That would have been a lie. I was under the impression that you valued honesty.”

Evie continued, walking beside him for a long moment in silence. Saint
was
honest. He’d never made any pretense of what he wanted from her. Even his honesty, though, wasn’t for its own sake; he used the admission of his mercenary qualities to gain her approval. Everything was so complicated, but if she meant to continue delivering her lessons to him, she needed to figure out how to convince him of the merits of doing a deed for its own sake.

“My lady,” Sally hissed from behind them, “Mr. Ruddick.”

She looked up. Victor stood on the front portico, his open pocket watch in his hand and a scowl on his face. “Oh, dear.”

“We’re not late,” Saint said, following her gaze. “He acts like a procurer. Shall I remind him that you’re not someone’s whore?”

The tone was mild, but Evie heard the steel beneath. Saint was angry at Victor—and on her behalf. A low thrill ran through her. “You will do no such thing. It would only put him in a foul mood, and it certainly wouldn’t benefit me.”

“Perhaps not, but it would greatly improve
my
mood. I don’t enjoy being told how long I may spend with someone.”

“Saint,” she muttered as they turned up the short drive.

“I won’t enlighten him tonight,” he murmured back, “but please remember what I said about my flagging self-restraint.”

He was teasing. Evelyn wanted to kiss him on the cheek—or better yet, on the mouth—but then Victor would faint. “I’m not likely to forget.”

“I trust you had a pleasant afternoon,” Victor said, pocketing his timepiece as he came down the front steps.

“Yes, it was lovely,” she answered.

He took Evie’s free arm, and she abruptly worried that Saint would refuse to relinquish her and the two men would tug her in half. The muscles along Saint’s arm tightened beneath her fingers.

“Your sister is delightful,” the marquis drawled.

“Yes, she’s always quite charming.”

Evie cleared her throat. “My goodness, so many compliments. I thank you both. And I thank you for a lovely picnic, my lord.”

With a stiff nod, Saint relaxed his arm, letting her pull her hand free. “Thank
you
, Miss Ruddick,” he returned. “And you were correct.”

“About what?” she asked, turning to keep him in view as he took a step back down the drive.

“About daylight. It’s exceptional. Ruddick, Miss Ruddick.”

“St. Aubyn.”

As the marquis and his picnic basket returned to the street and whistled down a hack, Victor tightened his grip on her other arm. Evie made herself look away from Saint and face her brother.

“What was that about?” Victor asked, towing her up the steps and back into the house.

Langley closed the door before she could give in and see whether Saint looked back at her again or not. It wasn’t important, but she was vain enough to want to know if he thought about her, spared her a single
thought, even, once she was out of his sight. “What was what about?”

“The comment about daylight.”

“Oh. I told him that he should attempt to emerge into the sunlight on occasion.”

“Ah.” Victor released her, heading upstairs to his office, where he’d probably spent all afternoon plotting.

“You might try it yourself,” she called after him.

He looked back at her from the top of the stairs. “Try what?”

“Sunlight.”

“Just because St. Aubyn introduced me to Wellington, don’t think you’ve talked me into a friendship with the scoundrel. He did me a favor, and so I allowed you to be seen with him on a picnic. Don’t get used to it. I don’t owe him anything more.”

Evie sighed. “In case you were wondering, he was a perfect gentleman today.”

“So long as you were a lady. I suppose I should congratulate you on your determination to upset me. Evie Ruddick, advocate of the unwashed masses, dining with a man set to tear down an orphanage.”

Not if she had any say in the matter
. “Yes, Victor,” she called, strolling into the morning room, “thank you for reminding me.”

Saint took a seat at the main faro table at the Society club. “What the devil is a ladies’ political tea?”

Tristan Carroway, Viscount Dare, finished placing his wager, then sat back, reaching for his glass of port. “Do I look like a dictionary?”

“You’re domesticated.” Saint motioned for a glass of his own, despite unfriendly looks from the tables’ other players. “What is it?”

“I’m not domesticated; I’m in love. You should try it. Does wonders for your outlook on life.”

“I’ll take your word for it, thank you. But if you’re so in love, why are you here, and where is your wife?”

Dare drained his glass and refilled it. “A political tea, I believe, is an arena for ladies to discuss how they might best support and further the political aims of their…men.” He pushed back his chair. “As to your other question, it’s none of your damned affair where my wife is, and I suggest you stay the hell away from her.”

With a glance Saint took in the tense expression on Dare’s face, the half-full bottle still gripped in the viscount’s hand, and the wagers being discreetly exchanged at neighboring tables. “I’ve set my sights elsewhere than your wife, Dare. If you wish a fight I’ll be happy to oblige you, but I’d prefer to share a drink.”

The viscount shook his head. “I’d prefer to do neither with you, Saint. Evie Ruddick is a friend of mine, and you seem to have nothing good in mind for her. Agree to stop bothering her, and I’ll drink with you.”

A few weeks ago Saint wouldn’t have thought twice about informing Dare and anyone else who cared to listen precisely how much of his attentions Evelyn Marie Ruddick had enjoyed. Tonight, without caring to examine too closely why he declined to speak about it, he stood. “Neither it is, then. For tonight.”

He left the Society in a roar of speculation behind him. Let them wonder what he had in mind for innocent Evie Ruddick. She wasn’t quite so innocent any longer, but that was none of their business. Nor did they need to know that he still craved her body, her voice, and even her warm, sweet smile. He supposed a ladies’ tea, political or not, would be off limits to someone of his sex, but there was still Shakespeare at the Drury Lane Theatre.
He would see Evelyn again tomorrow, no matter who didn’t want him to.

As he rode home, still fresh enough from imprisonment that even the cold, foggy evening felt good on his face, he ran the day through his mind again. If a month ago someone had told him he would be going on a picnic with a proper chit, he would have laughed in the prophet’s face. But not only had he done so, he’d enjoyed it, and more than he felt comfortable admitting.

By his usual standards, the evening was still young. As had happened over the past few nights, however, he wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself. His usual haunts—the gaming hells, the bawdy houses, the hellfire clubs’ lurid soirees—would only just be beginning their fun in earnest. Where once any attractive, semi-interesting female would have served, though, Saint didn’t want to ease his frustrated lust on some other woman.

The low, flowing heat in his veins was for one woman in particular. The sensation invigorated him, made him feel more aware—more alive—than he could remember feeling in years. In her presence, seeing her and talking with her and being unable to touch her as he wanted, the torture was exquisite, and only bearable because he’d already promised himself that he would have her again.

Cassius slowed and stopped, and Saint realized he’d managed to detour around to Ruddick House yet again. Only one window upstairs glowed with candlelight, and he wondered whether Evelyn’s night was proving as wakeful as his. He hoped so, and he hoped she was thinking of him.

With a quiet cluck he sent the bay forward again. Whatever it took, he would have Evelyn Ruddick as his mistress. He didn’t want anyone else, and he wouldn’t
accept that she might choose to decline the offer. By now he knew what she liked, and he would simply convince her.

Evelyn managed to evade both Victor and her mother, and left Ruddick House for her aunt’s political tea early enough to accommodate a stop at the Heart of Hope Orphanage.

It seemed far longer than two days since she’d last set foot in the glum old building, and from the children’s enthusiastic greeting any observer would have thought she’d been away for a year.

“Miss Evie, Miss Evie!” Rose cried, flinging her arms around Evie’s waist. “We thought you’d been hanged!”

“Or beheaded!” Thomas Kinnett added, wide-eyed, still scaring himself with his proclivity for gruesome tales.

“I’m fine, all in one piece and very happy to see all of you,” she answered, hugging Penny with her free arm.

“So’d he escape, or did you let him go?” Randall asked from the deep window sill, where he sat whittling.

She remembered Saint’s warning about the older boys, but Saint was jaded and cynical. These boys had risked more than any of the other children in helping her, after all. “He escaped. But I also have his word that he will give me another four weeks to convince him to spare the orphanage.”

“Four weeks ain’t much time, Miss Evie. And if you couldn’t convince him in chains, what makes you think ’e’ll change his mind now?”

“He agreed to the four weeks without argument. I think that’s a very good sign.”

“Should we give him back his pictures?” Rose asked, finally lifting her face from the folds of Evie’s gown.

“What pictures?”

“The drawings he made.” Molly went to her bed and pulled a handful of papers from beneath the mattress. “We hid them so no one would know.”

Know what?
Evelyn began to ask, then stopped the question as Molly handed her the papers. She’d seen Saint scribbling a few times, and he’d asked for additional paper twice, but she’d thought he was merely doodling to pass the time, or drafting letters to his army of solicitors about his imprisonment.

“You look very pretty,” Rose said, taking a seat beside Evelyn as she sank onto the edge of one of the beds.