The Lady Most Willing . . . (20 page)

She backed away a step as he performed this unasked-for service, clearly startled
by the liberties he’d taken. He took the opportunity for even more, tucking the collar
around her neck and gently teasing a tress of hair free from under his jacket. Then
he smoothed it along her shoulder, smiling down at her as he slowly followed her retreat,
step by step. Her shoulders bumped into the wall behind her.

“My pardon, Lady Cecily,” he said, coming to his senses. “I am simply doing my part
to see that Scotland stays au courant with London. Your lips were turning blue, m’dear.”

He didn’t mean to do anything more. But her golden eyes trapped him in time, and all
he was aware of was the beating of his heart, the sound of his own labored breathing,
and then, amazingly, impossibly, she leaned forward, tipping her head back, her eyelids
slipping shut, and her lips pursed in a delicious invitation.

A kiss. Something to remember her by. What harm a kiss?

He could no more have declined that wordless offer than he could refuse to breathe.
He lowered his head and carefully, gently pressed his lips to hers.

Chapter 22

D
esire exploded at the instant of contact, shooting like lightning through Robin. He
stepped closer, keeping his hands knotted in fists at his sides, wanting more but
certain that if he reached for her, she would bolt.

More kisses. That was all he sought. It was hardly anything, nothing at all, really,
just . . . everything.

She made some lovely, half-surprised, half-ravished sound, a sigh and gasp all at
once, and reached up, steadying herself with a hand flattened against his chest.

He edged closer still, his legs entangling in her heavy skirts, but trying not to
startle her. In an effort to restrain himself, he braced his forearm on the wall above
her head, angling his own to better access the perfect ripeness of her lips, to flick
his tongue along the sweet seam until—mercy!—her mouth opened and her tongue found
his own.

He groaned, surrendering to the pleasure of her untutored exploration. For long, glorious
moments he kissed her until he felt her hand creep up his chest and she linked her
arms around his neck, her fingers sifting through his hair. In reply, his body turned
rock-hard. Only a few inches separated her from becoming manifestly aware of his state
of arousal. He wanted to kiss her, not shock her. His jaw tightening with frustration,
he stepped back, releasing her mouth.

She blinked, startled by his sudden desertion. He looked away, taking a deep, steadying
breath. His emotions were chaotic and unfamiliar, an uncomfortable mix of desire and
the desire to protect. She shouldn’t be here with him. This was a mistake. A foolish,
masochistic indulgence.

“Good heavens, you
are
adroit at this seduction thing, aren’t you?” she whispered breathlessly.

“You didn’t know? Of course I am. My dear, I am the Prince of Rakes.” He glanced back
at her sardonically, the once amusing sobriquet coming like a curse to his lips.

Her arms slipped from around his shoulders. He looked down at her, prepared to offer
an arrogant curl of the lip, but the sight of her ruined the attempt. She looked puzzled
and somber, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright and unnervingly candid.

“Of course you are,” she said. “I mean, I had
heard
that. You do have a far-ranging reputation. But one hears so much about so many people,
and then when one meets the individual, one realizes that rumors have simply exaggerated
what is, in fact, not all that extraordinary.”

He laughed, startled out of his dark mood. She confounded him, robbed him of his intent,
his sangfroid, his reputation. She stripped away all his preconceptions about young
ladies, leaving him without a clue to guide him. She fascinated and mystified him.
What was she doing? What was she about?

“I see,” he said. “Rather a letdown, am I?”

“Oh no! Not at all. You
quite
exceed expectations,” she hastened to reassure him with such artlessness, such solicitous
concern for his rakish reputation, that he could not help but laugh again. “I have
never been kissed so . . . so
convincingly
.”

“Now ’tis you who are kind, Lady Cecily,” he said, though something about her use
of the word “convincingly” nettled him. She thought he’d been playing a role. In truth,
he had never before been so lost in a simple kiss and it annoyed him that she did
not realize it.

“But then, perhaps you should ask Miss Marilla’s opinion,” she said. “She may have
a different judgment.”

He started and stared, stunned she had alluded to the kiss she’d witnessed. A little
ember glowed in the depths of her amber-colored eyes.
Jealousy?

Then she smiled at him with such dazzling unaffectedness that his breath caught in
his throat and he lifted his hand to touch her, but she’d already turned away and
started down the gallery. He hastened to her side, once more offering his arm. She
took it with a nonchalance that startled him, coming so close on the heels of their
heated kiss. At least, he thought in growing consternation,
he’d
considered it heated . . .

“Truth be told,” she continued as if there had been no break in the conversation,
“I don’t know many rakes.”

“I should hope not,” he said, once again caught off-balance by the turn of the conversation.
She should be blushing or berating him for taking advantage of her, or perhaps enticing
him to try his luck again, responses he was used to and expected. She should
not
be acting as if the preceding moments hadn’t happened, as if their kiss were insignificant.
It was significant to him!

He’d never been in such a situation before. She had him at sixes and sevens, his assumptions
challenged, his body taut with desire, his aplomb all but vanished, and his heart
thundering with something that could only be described as a mad craving . . . to touch
her, to kiss her.

“In fact,” she went on, “I’ve only known two bona fide rakes: you and a far-removed
cousin whose exploits we only speak of sotto voce.”

“Do not tell me there is a rival for my crown?” he said, struggling to match her insouciance.
“Surely his reputation does not equal mine?”

“Oh, it is far worse than yours,” she said comfortably. “I have it on good authority—those
being the miscreant’s own words—that he has seduced upwards of eighty of the
ton
’s most well-respected ladies.”

“He
told
you this?” Robin asked, surprised she had been allowed to converse with a known rake,
let alone that the conversation had been on such a subject.

“Yes,” she said. “Though not when anyone else was about to hear. Certainly not within
earshot of my parents. Oh no,” she said, surprising him by chuckling, “they would
not have been happy to hear about
that
conversation. Not at all.”

Nor was Robin. Acid-bright jealousy curled in his belly. Had this unknown libertine
kissed her? And, afterward, had she been this cavalier?

“No,” she continued, “he waited until he had me all to himself at my parents’ country
ball in Surrey last year. They were occupied with greeting their guests when Marmeduke
convinced me to walk out onto the terrace with him.”

Marmeduke?
She was on such intimate terms with this blackguard she called by his Christian name?

“There was no one else about and he took ruthless advantage of our unexpected privacy.”
She darted a glance at him. “I suspect I should have left at once. We were absent
from the ballroom for far too long. But his stories were so fascinating that I couldn’t
resist staying to listen. I am sure our guests must have begun wondering what had
become of us,” she finished.

He doubted this, if only for one compelling reason: had Lady Cecily disappeared onto
a terrace with a known debauchee long enough to provoke questions, her reputation
would never have survived. Yet, apparently, it had.

He’d made a mistake. He had misjudged her. He’d thought her awake to all suits, an
uncommonly sophisticated ingénue, but she seemed as unaware of how close she had skirted
disaster as a toddler hurtling by a steep flight of stairs. She was a danger to herself.
Someone should have been guarding her reputation, and clearly, no one had been.

Far be it from him to interfere, but he could not allow her to go careering about
society with no one to guide or protect her. When her father showed up to collect
her, Robin would see to it that they had a chat wherein he outlined the gentleman’s
paternal duties for him.

What was he thinking? He wouldn’t
be
here when her father arrived. But . . . but he could go to London.

Tongues wagged quite freely in London’s less salubrious gentlemen’s clubs during the
off-season, when there was little else to do but gossip. As soon as he returned to
town, he would find this . . . this Marmeduke and have a conversation with him and
make sure that the bastard understood the meaning of discretion. Because while Robin’s
reputation for seduction might be exaggerated, his reputation as someone not to be
trifled with was not.

“What is my rival’s full name, may I ask?” Somehow, he managed to sound no more than
curious.

“Marmeduke, Lord Goodhue.”

He frowned. He could have sworn he knew every roué in London. “I don’t believe I’ve
ever met the gentleman.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised. He rarely visits London, staying solely in Surrey,” she
replied.

“He lives near your family’s country estate?” he asked.
Where
in Surrey? He’d always meant to visit Surrey.

“Not
near
our house.
In
our house. He became our permanent houseguest after having become insolvent a few
years ago and having nowhere else to go. Indeed, my parents assigned him chambers
right next to mine.”

He stared at her, an odd sensation rising within him. Damnation, he believed he was
shocked
. He hadn’t been shocked since he was fifteen and the Latin teacher’s wife had offered
him different sorts of lessons.

“Well, we couldn’t very well put him in the servants’ hall,” she said defensively.
“Though I have little doubt he’d much prefer it. The chambermaids are always threatening
to give notice as it is.”

It wasn’t simply a marvel the girl’s reputation was intact; it was a bloody
miracle
.

“Damn, you say,” he muttered under his breath, and she burst out laughing. Her whole
face bloomed with merriment, her eyes dancing, the laughter bubbling from her lips,
her teeth flashing in an open grin. She took his breath away.

“Of course, as he’s eighty-three years old and suffers from gout, he stands a better
chance of winning the Derby than he does catching a housemaid,” she managed to say
between giggles. “Or me. Not that he’d ever make an attempt. He has some standards,
as do all rakes.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “Or so Marmeduke assures me.”

She started laughing again and damned if he didn’t join her. She’d been leading him
along all the while, paying him back for making her praise his kisses.

“
Touché, ma petite
,” he said, when they finally stopped laughing. He offered her his arm and she took
it, and once again they commenced their much-protracted journey down the frozen hallway.

For long companionable minutes they were silent and he drank in the sensation, the
warmth of her fingers resting on his arm, the elusive scent of vanilla and jasmine
that tickled his nostrils every so often, the simple pleasure of her company . . .

“It may be chilly, but Finovair does have considerable charm,” she said after a while.
“Yet I take it you think your bride will be happier in London than here.”

He should have demurred, let her comment pass without replying but he needed to tell
her—no, he needed to remind himself of how very far above him she stood.

“Bride?” he echoed. “My dear Cecily, I have even less to offer a wife in London than
here.”

Any other girl would have blushed or apologized or at the very least looked on him
with distaste. After all, he’d just committed one of society’s cardinal sins: he’d
acknowledged his poverty. But he was growing used to the unexpected from her, and
so it was now.

“But you must want to marry and have a family,” she said earnestly.

“I must,” he agreed. “But I have been told that when one takes a wife, one also has
an obligation to take her wants into account, too. Wants I have scant hope of fulfilling.
I may be a rake, Lady Cecily, but I am not a scoundrel.”

She stared at him for a long moment and then her eyes flashed and she said, “I see.
So, you see your future being similar to that of Marmeduke’s?”

Hell and damnation,
no
. But before he could rebut this noxious notion, she hurried on in the manner of one
trying very hard to be encouraging about a very dismal prospect. “Not that there’s
anything wrong with that,” she said, adding under her breath, “I suppose.”

Dear God, in her imagination was he predestined to go hobbling after chambermaids
in his old age, gnarled fingers extended in hopes of pinching one last fleet-footed
wench? Is that how she saw him? “You horrify me.”

“I do?” she asked. “Why is that, I wonder?”

“I meant your vision of my future horrifies me.”

“Oh? Why? Marmeduke’s really rather a pet,” she said. “He’s a great favorite amongst
my younger sisters.”

The idea of dangling cherubic little girls on his knees while offering them well-censored
bedtime stories about his youthful exploits sent nearly as great a shiver through
Robin as the idea of him chasing chambermaids, and so he ignored her question, asking
one of his own instead. “Do you have many siblings?”

“Four. I have two younger brothers, twins. They were sent to Eton last year and I
miss them a great deal, as my younger sisters consider games that require physical
dexterity beneath them. Though I think they would find such games delightful if they
were any good at them,” she confided with an arch twinkle in her eye that he found
adorable.

“Have you any brothers or sisters?” she countered.

“No.”

“But you had Oakley to keep tally of your sins?”

He smiled at that. “No. Not really.” His smile faded. “Oakley and I were kept apart.”

Robin hadn’t met Byron until they were adults. After Robin’s parents had died of influenza,
pride, not compassion, had prompted Byron’s father to pay for Robin’s education. However,
the old tartar had seen no reason that his heir should hobnob with some impecunious
Frenchman’s get. So while Byron went to Eton, Robin been sent to Rugby. He had never
been invited to spend holidays at Oakley House. Instead, Rugby’s headmaster had been
paid to take Robin to his own home during those periods.

But there was no reason to bother her with such details.

“How many sisters?” he asked.

She regarded him thoughtfully for long seconds before answering. “Two. One is nineteen
and the other, who is seventeen, was launched just this past season. Quite successfully,
too,” she said, with a touch of pride.