Nicola Cornick - Desired

They were not there.

SHE HAD THE PRETTIEST FEET he had ever seen.

It might not have been the first thing about Teresa Darent that most men would have noticed, but Owen Purchase, Viscount Rothbury, was never attracted to the obvious.

He handed Tess up into a hackney carriage and watched as she kicked off the lavender silk slippers and tucked her feet up under the gauzy skirts of the gown. The slippers were far too small for her—Owen had noticed that fact when he had held one of them for her to put on earlier. The gown also could not belong to her. Owen was no expert on feminine attire other than in the removal of it but he had a certain amount of experience of the female form and he knew that a woman with Tess Darent’s opulent curves—and Tess Darent’s flamboyant reputation—would not wear a gown that was two sizes too large. So the outfit was borrowed, which raised the intriguing question of what Lady Darent had been wearing when first she had arrived at the Temple of Venus and why she had needed to change her clothes.

Tess Darent interested Owen. She had from the first time they had met. It was not merely that she had the face of an angel and the reputation of a sinner. Public opinion held that she was as shallow as a puddle, mercenary, amoral, extravagant. She was an arbiter of fashion who had turned spending money into an art form. She simultaneously outraged and fascinated the ton with her profligate marriages and her decadent behaviour, and she was generally considered an utter featherbrain. There was no reason on earth he would find her interesting. Except that some stubborn instinct told him that she was not at all what she seemed….

“Thank you, Lord Rothbury.” Tess smiled at him prettily from the depths of the darkened carriage. The lavender silk gown shone ethereally in the faint light. Taken with the cloud of bright hair tumbling over her shoulders, it made her look impossibly alluring. Owen’s body reacted with an unexpected stab of desire. He wanted to peel that gown from her shoulders, to see it tumble to the floor as it had done before, to reveal the impossible curves and luscious, sensual plumpness of the body beneath. He remembered the pure line of her throat and collarbone when the gown had slid off her, so true and pale and tempting. He wanted to press his mouth to the hollow of her throat and taste her skin.

Which was not the matter on which he was supposed to be concentrating his attention.

“We’re hunting dangerous criminals here, Rothbury,” Lord Sidmouth had warned him when he had offered Owen the role of special investigator for the Home Office. “No bloody respect for law and order.” He had tapped a rather fine caricature that was lying on his desk, a drawing that had evidently been crumpled by Sidmouth’s angry and impatient hand. “Treason,” the Home Secretary had grumbled. “Sedition. Stirring up trouble, inciting the masses to riot. I’ll see them all hang.” His brows had snapped down. “You’re a British peer now, Rothbury, even if we had to pass an Act of Parliament to make you so.” He drummed his fingers on the cartoon. “Need your help against these traitors.”

“Yes, my lord,” Owen had said, a little grimly. The irony was not lost on him. Once, not so long ago, Sidmouth would have had no hesitation in branding him a renegade and a criminal. As an American he had been an enemy of the British state when the two countries were at war. That was before he had inherited a British peerage and turned into a slightly unlikely pillar of the establishment. He owed it to his family to uphold their honour now. Once before he had disgraced the family name under the most appalling circumstances. He would never do it again. Accepting his responsibilities now was his chance to atone.

Tess Darent shifted within the depths of the carriage, drawing his attention back to her as she pulled the peacock feather cloak more closely about her. Owen could smell her perfume, a crisp light scent, tart but sweet, rather like Tess herself. It was perfect for her, pretty and provocative, another element of her charming and flirtatious facade. Owen wondered what it was that she was hiding. Her wide-eyed pretence would fool nine out of ten men into believing her to be every inch as superficial as she appeared. It was a pity for her that he was the tenth and did not believe a word.

He had no grounds on which to arrest her, however. Visiting a brothel was not illegal and nor was carrying a pistol, and if she was a secret radical then he was the Queen of Sheba. The idea was absurd.

“Good night, Lady Darent.” He kept one hand on the carriage door. “I wish you a safe journey home.”

“And I wish you good luck in catching your miscreants.” Tess’s eyes were very wide and innocent. “What did you call them—madrigals?”

“Radicals,” Owen said gently.

“Whichever.” She made a little fluttering gesture with her hands. Her expression was blank. She even yawned. Owen wondered if she could possibly be as vacant as she seemed. If not, she was certainly an extremely good actress.

“Pray give my best wishes to Lord … Sidmouth, was it?” She paused. “Is he rich? Married?”

“Not at the moment,” Owen said.

Tess smiled. “Rich or married?” she queried.

“Yes, Sidmouth is rich and, no, he is not currently married,” Owen clarified.

Tess’s smile deepened. “Then I should like to make his acquaintance.”

“You’re looking for another husband for your collection?” Owen said ironically.

“Marriage is my natural state,” Tess said. “Is Sidmouth old?”

Owen laughed. “Probably not old enough to be relied on to die anytime soon.”

“A pity,” Tess said. “I always find that a useful attribute in a husband.” Her blue eyes mocked him, sweeping over him from head to foot in knowing appraisal. “What about you, Lord Rothbury?” she asked. “Are you seeking a rich wife to go with your pretty title? I hear that your coffers hold nothing but moths.”

“The gossip mongers have been busy,” Owen said shortly.

“It is their function,” Tess said. “Just as it is the job of every matron with an eligible daughter to parade her under your nose.”

“I don’t seek a wife at present,” Owen said. His feelings felt raw. Odd that Tess Darent’s clear blue gaze should, for a moment, strip away his defences. It was common knowledge that he had no fortune to go with his title. Only that morning he had had an awkward interview with his great-aunt by marriage, one of a host of elderly relatives his inheritance had also blessed him with. Lady Martindale was obscenely rich, eccentric and fearsomely opinionated. She had told Owen that if he wed, she would give him sufficient money to put his estates in order and would make him her heir. Owen knew he had reacted to her commands like a small, obstinate child; he had no wish to take a wife simply because Lady Martindale demanded it, and the alternative, to seek a rich heiress, was equally abhorrent to him. He had never yet met an eligible woman who did not bore him.

Except for Tess Darent. She was not precisely eligible but she certainly did not bore him.

The thought caught him by surprise .

Tess was watching him. Owen observed that she had the same lavender-blue eyes as her sister Joanna and the same heart-shaped face. Her hair was a few tones lighter than Joanna’s, red-gold instead of golden-brown, but the darkness of the carriage smoothed out all subtleties of shading. Years before, Owen had had something of a passion for Joanna Grant, before she had had the bad taste to prefer his best friend, Alex, to him. Now he felt something move and shift in his chest, a pang of sensation as though his emotions were playing games with him. His rational mind knew that Tess and Joanna were very different women, but gut instinct and desire were not so logical, nor so biddable. He could remember when he had first seen Tess and had been winded by the physical likeness between the two sisters. But Tess Darent was not her sister. He needed to remember that. He could not have the one and he did not want the other, except in the most fundamental physical sense because she was a very desirable woman.