Anna Campbell: A Rake's Midnight Kiss

She stabbed her needle into her embroidery with a savagery that threatened to burst her bloated peonies. Neither her aunt nor her father heeded her suggestions that Mr. Evans should move back into Leighton Court. When Genevieve had insisted that she didn’t trust the way Mr. Evans infiltrated their life, both had said she was unreasonable. Her aunt had gone so far as to accuse her of jealousy now that Mr. Evans monopolized the vicar’s attentions. How ironic to hear that when Genevieve worked so hard to break free of her father.

“Your elephant grows apace, Miss Barrett.” Mr. Evans abandoned his card game and crossed the room to stand beside her, regarding her woeful embroidery with a quizzical expression. Sirius trotted after him to sit at his master’s feet. She liked Sirius. Genevieve wished the dog’s master was nearly as easy to stomach.

“You know very well it’s a peony garden, Mr. Evans,” she said frostily. After this morning, she’d prefer he kept a greater distance, physically and otherwise.

Her chill tone attracted her aunt’s notice, but no rebuke. Perhaps Aunt Lucy finally saw that her matchmaking was futile.

Mr. Evans remained unabashed. Of course. “That explains the pink. I thought perhaps the elephant was embarrassed.”

“You have no manners, sir,” she bit out, and bent over her embroidery frame, but not before she caught the unholy amusement in his eyes. He was a strikingly good-looking man, but when laughter lit his face, he was irresistible. Even she, who mistrusted everything about him, felt her heart beat faster.

“Sincerest regrets, dear lady.”

She knew he wasn’t sorry, so she didn’t grace his apology with acknowledgement. Furiously she stitched at the central flower which, now she checked, did rather resemble a pregnant elephant. A blushing pregnant elephant, curse Mr. Evans.

Despite lack of encouragement, Mr. Evans showed no signs of leaving. He sat without invitation—he was smart enough to know no invitation would be forthcoming. “Clearly my eyesight fails.”

He was dressed plainly, but even a country mouse like her noted his superb tailoring. He always made Genevieve feel a frump. Last night, she’d caught herself gussying up her yellow muslin with her mother’s silver brooch. She pinned it to her bosom before realizing what she did. With an unladylike imprecation, she’d flung the brooch onto her dressing table.

“Clearly.” She refused to give him the satisfaction of shifting away. Unfortunately, that meant remaining too near his long, lean leg, encased in fawn breeches, extended inches from hers. His boots were so shiny, she could see her face in them. How on earth was he turned out so beautifully without a valet?

Absently, Mr. Evans fondled Sirius’s head with one elegant hand. Yet again, she wondered at the contrast between the man’s sartorial perfection and the scruffy dog. Before she reminded herself that curiosity only inflated Mr. Evans’s pretensions, she spoke. “Your pet doesn’t befit your dignity, Mr. Evans.”

She caught his quick frown and for a moment, he wasn’t the impossibly polished man she feared, but someone considerably more intriguing. Then the expression vanished and he was once again someone whose motives she suspected to her last atom. “On the contrary, Miss Barrett. He’s far too good for a rapscallion like me.”

That she could believe. “I picture you more with a greyhound or a pug.”

His low laugh vibrated along her veins like a distant storm. She didn’t want to be aware of him as a male, but it became increasingly difficult to pretend that some deeply feminine and hitherto unrecognized element in her liked Mr. Evans very much indeed.

“A … pug ? A hit. A palpable hit, madam. You seek revenge for the elephant, I see.”

“A dog with a pedigree, at least.”

At the mention of pedigree, a haunted expression darkened his eyes. She couldn’t imagine why. He reeked of good breeding. “Pedigrees are overrated.”

She frowned. Something stirred below this prickly, half-flirtatious conversation. Why did he clam up at the mention of pedigree? “How did you become Sirius’s master?”

He smiled more naturally, confirming her instincts that discussions of bloodlines discomfited him. “I’m not sure I’m his master. His colleague, perhaps. He’s been with me for three years. He turned up not far from my estate and seemed of a mind to stay. I’m glad. He’s deuced good company. And far too clever for the likes of me.”

Against her better judgment, Genevieve’s hostility ebbed. It was hard to maintain virulent dislike for a man so openly fond of his dog. She reminded herself that Mr. Evans’s kindness to animals didn’t make him one iota more trustworthy. For once, the warning didn’t strike true.

He glanced up from patting Sirius to stare into her face, catching her brief softening. Without her usual defenses, her heart stuttered to a standstill. Her entire body vibrated to his presence. Speech deserted her. She could only look. And admire. Never before had she been so aware of a man’s beauty. The perfect planes of his face, the glittering dark blue eyes, the long, powerful body—all melted resistance. Mr. Evans was a dangerously beguiling man. Particularly dangerous if he drew this response despite her inchoate suspicions.

His gaze sharpened. “What is it, Miss Barrett?”

“I—”

With a sharp crack, her embroidery frame snapped in two. He frowned and reached for her hand. “Genevieve—”

Dear Lord, she couldn’t let him touch her. Not when she was so on edge. Even as she cursed her betraying reaction, she jerked away before he made contact.

Her aunt chose that moment to rise and lift Hecuba from her snooze near the empty hearth. The hallway clock struck six. “Perhaps we should move through to the dining room.”

Only the greatest exercise of will stopped Genevieve from bolting for the door. Anything to escape Mr. Evans and that terrifying interval where attraction had turned her into a lunatic.

Pride straightened her spine and insisted that she had nothing to fear. Then she risked a backward glance. Mr. Evans lounged on the window seat and his expression as he watched her tied her stomach into sick knots. She’d expected her erratic behavior to bewilder him. But he didn’t look surprised. He looked like a man who eyed a prize for the winning. He looked like a man who put some great purpose into effect. He looked invincible.

Another chill rippled down her spine and she tore her gaze away. She revolted at the possessiveness that she read in his face. Even as unforgivably, unacceptably, excitement coiled low in her belly, reminding her that she might be a scholar, but she was also a woman. And the woman responded to Christopher Evans in ways that had no truck with intellect.

Slowly, his heavy eyelids lowered, hiding triumph. Her lips tightened and she whirled away to find Lord Neville regarding her with unmistakable disapproval. Her color rose and shame gripped her throat. As though she’d been caught dancing naked in a tavern or kissing a married man in church. For the love of heaven, was her every move under observation?

On a spurt of temper, she marched through to the hallway. Lord Neville followed. When he took her arm, sensitive as she currently was to overbearing males, she resented his proprietorial air. She tried to withdraw, but his grip tightened. Shocked, she looked up. The parlor door had swung shut, closing Mr. Evans and Sirius inside. Ahead past the stairs, the light from the dining room hardly penetrated this dark corner. For a fleeting moment, Lord Neville’s expression struck her as menacing.

What a fanciful idiot she was. Clearly she still wasn’t as easy with last week’s burglary as she’d hoped. Although perhaps she should blame Mr. Evans rather than the thief for her nerves. She’d known Lord Neville most of her life. He wasn’t her favorite person, but he had never hurt her. Nonetheless, she dearly wished he’d unhand her. And stop looming. She forgot what a substantial figure he made until he stood close.