Kasey Michaels - The Passion of an Angel

“Damn her for having seen the last thing I wanted her to see, the last thing I wanted to acknowledge, even to myself,” he grumbled aloud, reaching yet again for the wine bottle he had ordered sent up from the common room. It was his second bottle of the evening, and he might just order a third if this one didn’t do the trick.

Lusting, longing…and now a descent into spirits, a headfirst dive into a bottle. And all because of Angel MacAfee. It was lowering, distinctly lowering, and he filled his glass to the brim, just thinking about it, and ignoring the slight squeak of the door to the hallway as someone, probably Rexford, pushed it open.

“The lizard said you gave up drinking more than the occasional glass of wine ever since you got yourself so bosky you couldn’t think clearly enough to conjure up a way of slipping free of my brother’s request that you be my guardian. As far as I can see, the next time that woman’s right will be the first time, eh, Daventry?”

Banning swallowed the wine all at once, tossing it back as he would have done a stronger spirit, then glared at Prudence, who was still in the doorway, grinning at him across the darkness. “That large wooden contraption you are leaning against is called a door, Miss MacAfee. It is employed by civilized people as a method of ensuring privacy. It is also used to knock on, if a person of manners and breeding desires admittance to that place of privacy. Kindly close it behind you as you leave.”

“Certainly, my lord Grumpus,” Prudence said affably, leaving the door open as she crossed to the table plunking her shirt-and breeches-clad self down in the chair facing his, her forearms resting on the thick oaken arms, her legs splayed out in front of her in the way of a young buck settling in for a night of gaming and drinking. “But seeing as how I’m not planning on going anywhere just yet, maybe you’ll remind me again when I do leave. I’ve got the breeding, or so my brother assured me over and over, but my manners might still need a little work.”

“I suppose this unexpected visit to my private dining room means you no longer believe I have any designs on your virtue?” he asked, thankful his voice sounded light, teasing, and just a little condescending.

“Ah, Daventry,” she cooed, pushing the thick curtain of her hair up and away from her neck as she winked at him. “I’d be a damned fool to think an old man like you capable of even planning a seduction, let alone executing one. I was just trying to get your goat, that’s all, and I wanted to let you know you’d been looking. Guess it worked, huh?”

“You do enjoy baiting people, don’t you?” Banning asked, watching as she leaned forward and poured herself a glass of wine, then crossed her booted ankles in front of her on the table top, tipping her chair back slightly on its hind legs. “Or is it just that you take great pleasure in—you believe—shocking people with your uncouth behavior?”

She looked at him over the brim of her wineglass, then sighed in patently false impatience. “I’ve already demonstrated to you that I have a fine vocabulary, Daventry. I’ve already promised you that I will be a patterncard of all the finest and most stultifyingly boring virtues whenever I am with your sister. In truth,” she added, her smile as wide and innocent as a child’s, “I am by and large a most agreeable, friendly sort of person, really I am. But I’m afraid you probably will have to indulge me as I go about exacting a small spot of revenge aimed at punishing you for leaving me with Shadwell months longer than necessary. You cut it a slice too fine, so that I’ll have to rush myself into the season. Remembering that fact, I’m still fairly angry with you, but it’s a feeling that’s slowly wearing off as we draw closer to London. As to the lizard? Well, she just plain begs to be shocked.”

“All right,” Banning said, raising his glass as if in a toast, “I suppose I can withstand the slings and arrows of your childish tantrums for another day. As long as, in turn, you understand why I barely slow the coach as I deposit you at my sister’s doorstep.”

Prudence’s laugh was full-throated, not the simpering giggle of most society misses, and he found himself joining her in her amusement, feeling better than he had in several hours, several days.

“Just be sure to toss the lizard out first, so I can have the pleasure of landing on her. She wouldn’t be a soft cushion, God knows, but I have developed a nearly overwhelming longing to knock some of the bile out of her. I’m not used to having enemies, you know, and she has threatened to tell your sister that I’m incorrigible and past saving. The interfering bitch,” she ended quietly, taking a deep drink of her wine.

Banning sighed, wondering how he could be sitting here, fairly calmly, sharing the night with Prudence as if she were a young chum of his, listening to her swear, watching her drink, laughing with her. He was rather proud of himself and felt slightly foolish for his earlier thoughts, his earlier fears. It was remarkable. He felt no desire for her now, no longing to kiss her, run his hands along the tightly outlined sweep of her hips, press her body close against his own…molding her…shaping her…taking her…breathing in her fire, her vitality, her lust for life….

He sat forward and poured himself another drink, wondering whether the wine would be of any real benefit to him in merely sliding down his throat as he swallowed the lie he was trying to tell his better self, or if he would be better served to dash the contents of the glass in his slowly heating face, shocking his system back under some semblance of control, of sanity.

“This patterncard of all the finest virtues soon to be delivered on my sister’s doorstep,” he said after a moment’s internal battle, having reminded himself that he really didn’t have a single thing in common with Prudence MacAfee. “Will she likewise treat me with the respect and consideration owed one’s legal guardian? Or should I be watching my shins, on the lookout for childish kicks, whenever my sister isn’t in the room? Not that I’m worried, mind you. I just would appreciate having the rules laid out, so that we both know where we stand.”

Prudence unfolded her long legs and dropped her booted feet hard against the floor, tipping the chair to an upright position once more as she plunked the empty wineglass on the table, all in a single masculine, yet deceptively feminine, graceful moment.

Leaning forward so that she ended with her elbows propped on her knees, close enough now that, just for a moment, Banning thought he could see the devil peeking out from behind her golden eyes, she said, “I really bother you, don’t I, Daventry? You can’t figure out who I am, what I am—or what I want.”

She sat back against the wooden slats of the chair and began counting off on her fingers as she spoke. “Well, let me set your mind at rest. One: who am I? That should be obvious enough. I’m an innocent, hapless, helpless, penniless orphan, a sweet young bud doing her best to bloom in a cold, cruel, uncaring world.”

“I could argue with you on the helpless part of that statement,” Banning said, beginning to relax once more. She was a child. A precocious, faintly amusing child. “As for being sweet, well, I won’t even bother to refute such an obvious crammer. Please, go on.”

She nodded solemnly, her only acknowledgment that he had spoken, then went on, as if doing him a personal favor by speaking, “Two: what am I? Ah, the answer now becomes more involved, more difficult, as you perhaps have already figured out on your own, much to your chagrin. Care to count along with me this time?”

She needs a good spanking, that’s what she needs, Banning decided, finding himself caught up in her brashness, while feeling himself fascinated with her brutal honesty, her bald admonition that she was not in the least ordinary or even acceptable.