Anna Campbell - A Rake's Midnight Kiss

“Perhaps he was blinded by your beauty.” Richard wasn’t entirely joking, even as he cursed her clever brain for narrowing blame for the burglary down to his real self.

She sent him a quelling glance. “He wasn’t much of a thief. We haven’t found anything missing.”

Bloody hell. What a stupid mistake. He should have lifted something worthless from downstairs. A burglar fleeing empty-handed aroused unwelcome curiosity. Too late now. “Would you rather he’d stripped the vicarage?”

“Don’t be absurd.” She sounded uncomfortable. Did she recall that thrilling moment when he’d held her close? It haunted his dreams.

He braced his shoulders. “Will you sell it to me? I’ll double Sir Richard’s offer.”

Silence crashed down. Even his heart seemed to stop beating. Shocked silvery gray eyes focused on him and the hands she laid on the desk closed into fists.

Her reply seemed to take forever. “It’s not for sale.”

His relief made no sense. He was here for the jewel. Buying the bauble after a few days counted as a major victory. Or at least it should.

He forced himself to continue negotiations. “You’d be welcome to keep it until you’ve finished your article.”

She already shook her head. “Thank you, but no.”

So the game played on. He tried to tell himself that he was disappointed. Even he didn’t believe that was true. It was a long time since he’d found a woman as intriguing as he found Genevieve Barrett. He wasn’t ready to abandon her.

Her eyes sharpened. “Can I have the jewel back, please?”

Surrendering the jewel felt like treason. In the transaction, his hand grazed hers. She jerked back as if his touch burned. Heat shuddered through him.

Her gaze leaped to meet his and he read renewed wariness in her eyes. “You offer more than the jewel is worth.” He shrugged and stared hard at her. “When I want something, I go to any length to get it.”

She paled. “You … scare me when you say such things.”

His eagerness threatened to send her fleeing in fright. If he wasn’t careful he’d lose both jewel and woman—it became increasingly inconvenient to remember that only a cad played fast and loose with a lady’s reputation.

He might be a bastard, but he wasn’t quite a cad. Or not yet.

“You mistake me. I merely found myself with a fancy to own a pretty thing.” Two pretty things, in fact. He adopted an innocent air as he stepped away from the desk to stretch ostentatiously. “I’m off for a ride before breakfast.”

“I trust you not to share anything we’ve discussed.” Unsurprisingly she regretted her confidences.

“You have my promise.” His carefree smile didn’t extinguish the doubt in her expression. “I’ll see you later, Miss Barrett.”

Beneath his nonchalance, his thoughts were troubled. Nor had he conquered the turbulent emotions that had stirred when he’d touched the jewel. After this morning, he knew more about the jewel and he knew more about Genevieve, but everything he’d learned fouled his path.

As everyone sat in the parlor before dinner, Genevieve watched Mr. Evans from her place on the window seat as unwaveringly as she’d watch a cobra. He played some silly card game with her aunt, who would be his willing slave even without her unconcealed ambitions for marrying him to her niece.

Within ten minutes of his departure from her study this morning, Genevieve had realized her terrible mistake. Why, oh, why had she been so forthcoming? She didn’t trust Mr. Evans. She hadn’t trusted him from the moment she’d seen his too-handsome face. Now he knew her authorship and her hopes for the future. Her recklessness placed her firmly within his power. Would he use his knowledge against her?

Years of thankless devotion to her father had taught her that the last thing she wanted was to subject herself to another man’s will. That was why she’d never marry—she longed to use her talents for her own purposes. Any husband would expect her to accept the helpmeet role she’d adopted too long with her selfish parent. Mr. Evans guessing her authorship wasn’t quite as onerous as submitting to a husband, but he still might try to influence her choices. Now that freedom beckoned, she could hardly bear that.

The vicar and Lord Neville swapped opinions over a table covered in folios. New acquisitions of his lordship’s, Genevieve supposed. She should be grateful that he shared his collection with the Barretts. But her charity with her father’s patron was in short supply. Since Mr. Evans’s arrival, Lord Neville had become a ubiquitous presence, like a grumpy rhinoceros guarding his territory. If she wasn’t tripping over one gentleman, she tripped over the other. She wished them both to perdition.

It had been a difficult week. She’d only just come to terms with facing down her charming but inexplicably inefficient burglar. She supposed she should be grateful that Mr. Evans’s arrival at least provided distraction. No longer did she jump at shadows. Instead she jumped at the sound of one particular baritone voice.

Mr. Evans glanced across to where she caught the evening light for her needlework. Behind her, the window was open in hope of attracting a stray drift of air. September had turned abnormally sultry and the parlor was stuffy. Or perhaps the crowded room was at fault. Her aunt, her father, Lord Neville, Mr. Evans. Not to mention Sirius and Hecuba.

Irritated with the heat, Genevieve brushed back stray tendrils escaping her chignon. Mr. Evans continued to stare. Did his gaze hold a conspiratorial light? Or was that her guilty conscience speaking? The secret of her father’s work wasn’t hers alone. She’d had no right revealing it to a stranger.

When the vicar had invited fifteen-year-old Genevieve to collate some notes on local churches into an article, she’d leaped at the chance. Any adolescent girl with pretensions to intellectual achievement would find such a request flattering. Especially motherless Genevieve Barrett who craved her father’s attention. Even more exciting when the piece she wrote appeared in a journal.

So the deception had continued and thickened until Genevieve’s work shored up the vicar’s fame and any suggestion that he share credit made him sulk like a child. Her resentment had curdled over the last year, as she realized that her father was content for this arrangement to last indefinitely.

Then Lady Bellfield had bequeathed her the Harmsworth Jewel and her research had uncovered interesting and potentially explosive facts about the object. The chance of independence from her father had finally become a reality and she meant to seize it with both hands. When she’d told the interfering Mr. Evans that her whole future depended on the Harmsworth Jewel, she hadn’t exaggerated.

But ruthless as she strove to be, that lost young girl still lurked in her heart. Even now when she was so angry that she could strangle her father with his clergy stole, she still loved him. She didn’t want to destroy his reputation, however unjustified it was. She just wanted to claim her work and use it as the basis for a life of her own.

How on earth had Mr. Evans recognized her authorship so quickly? A sharp brain lurked behind those languid manners, but nobody would call her father’s latest pupil an academic specialist. A premonition of disaster shivered through her—and Mr. Evans already made her as wary as a fox in hunting season.

Again she uselessly berated herself for succumbing this morning to guileless blue eyes and a ready smile and a voice that made her blood flow like warm honey. Mr. Evans had everyone dancing to his tune. Why was she the only person in this house to see that?