Virginia Heath - The Disgraceful Lord Gray

Instinctively, she folded her own arms, mirroring his casual pose. ‘I hardly think I am flirting, Lord Gray.’

‘Gray will do just fine. And you are most definitely flirting, Miss Cranford. I’m afraid I recognise all of the signs.’

‘Really? Pray enlighten me, for I confess I am at a loss.’

He shuffled closer on the bench and leaned in conspiratorially, smelling sinfully of sunshine and spicy cologne. ‘To the unobservant, it would be difficult to tell, but there are subtle clues. Your insistence on reminding me of this morning, for example. Unconsciously, despite all my very proper clothes, your mind is scandalously picturing me naked.’

She scoffed, bristling, wondering if he really could read her mind. ‘I most certainly am not! Ewwwgh!’ She shuddered for effect. ‘I can assure you my brain has far better things to think about than the unsavoury picture of you in the altogether, although even if I was, which I most definitely am not , a person’s private thoughts hardly constitute flirting.’

‘The coquettish side glances and pretty pink blushes which accompany them does.’

Thea turned her head and stared him dead in the eye. ‘I’m a redhead and if I am a bit pink, then I have clearly been in the sun a tad too long, my lord.’

‘A plausible denial, to be sure—but it doesn’t fool me. And I thought we agreed you could call me Gray going forward, seeing as you’ve seen me in the altogether? But...your preoccupations with my impressive, manly nude body aside, there are other damning clues which only a true connoisseur in the subtle art of flirting would pick up. A moment ago, for instance, when you brought your finger to your lips... Why, it was obvious you were doing so to purposely draw my eyes there and set me wondering if they are as soft and inviting as they look.’

She had touched her lips quite innocently, or so she had thought, but now they tingled. ‘You are delusional.’

‘Right now, we both know the position of your arms has only one true purpose.’

She didn’t unfold them. ‘To show you I am not a fool, nor suffer fools gladly?’

‘To display your figure to its best effect.’ She hastily uncrossed her arms and gathered the shawl tighter, irritated at the missish response when he reacted with a knowing chuckle. ‘And...’ The word came out in a sultry whisper as his head leaned closer still before he paused and failed to finish his sentence.

‘And?’

‘That was a test and, I’m sorry to tell you, you failed.’

‘I did?’

‘Indeed. Because you leaned closer, too, obviously eager to hear what I had to say despite my intimate, wholly inappropriate conversation and my close proximity to your unchaperoned person being most impertinent.’

‘You are impertinent.’

‘I am—but you’d like to kiss me regardless.’

She would—which came as a huge, unwelcome shock—but she most certainly wouldn’t.

Ever.

On principle.

‘Oh, Lord Gray, you are labouring under the most fanciful of misapprehensions.’ With purposeful, indifferent, possibly flirtatious slowness, Thea stood and shook her head pityingly. ‘Perhaps it is you who needs to be mindful of the sun’s rays and ration them going forward, for today they have clearly addled your mind.’

‘Did you have to bring that dog?’ Lord Fennimore glared at Trefor’s rapidly wagging tail and grimaced.

‘Miss Cranford was very taken with him. I reasoned his presence would only help our cause.’

‘They won’t let him in the house.’

‘He will be perfectly content tied up outside for the duration of our visit. He loves to sleep in the sun.’ Unbidden, images of Miss Cranford lying in the garden instantly sprung to mind and he found himself smiling. Granted, flirting with her yesterday might well have been foolhardy and counterproductive to their mission—undeniably his superior would castigate him for the misdemeanour if he knew and a truly sensible spy would have avoided it—but Gray had enjoyed it immensely. She was tart, sharp and tasty. A glorious, intelligent and feisty armful and he would not regret the overwhelming, yet too-brief indulgence in the slightest. In that moment, it had felt right and life was too short for regrets. ‘Besides, as we are posing as country gentlemen, he gives us an air of the authentic. What says Suffolk more than two robust fellows striding across the fields with their faithful hound in tow?’

‘We could have ridden instead. It would have been a darn sight quicker than constantly stopping and waiting for that dog to continually sniff the air.’

‘Trefor is rusticating. Which is what we are supposed to be doing.’

They turned on to the Viscount’s short drive, both lapsing into silence as they mentally prepared themselves for the task in hand. Again last night they had meticulously gone over their backstory. Lord Fennimore was still convinced the closer Gray stuck to the truth of his past, the more chance he had of manoeuvring himself into Gislingham’s inner circle. With the Viscount’s extensive web of criminal contacts, it would be simple to make enquiries and the truth would be swiftly and categorically confirmed. Lord Graham Chadwick was a ne’er-do-well of the first order and had been since birth. He had lost his twenty thousand-pound inheritance at the gaming tables in just three short months. He had been understandably disowned by his only brother and his father, the upright and blemish-free Marquess of Talysarn, and then disappeared off to sea when he had worn out his welcome and his line of credit in the capital. After that, nobody really knew what had happened to the lad...

Before the men had left for Suffolk, the necessary lies had been sprinkled among a few reliable government allies and in the browned pages of certain parish records. The errant Lord Gray had returned after a scandalous decade of adventuring and been taken under the wing of Lord Fennimore—a distant cousin of Gray’s dead mother—in the hope of encouraging him to tread the path of the respectable going forward. To that end, and to keep him away from the seductive mischief of town, Lord Fennimore had rented a property deep in the countryside.

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