Julia James - The Lady Most Willing

He laughed, startled out of his dark mood. She confounded him, robbed him of his intent, his sangfroid, his reputation. She stripped away all his preconceptions about young ladies, leaving him without a clue to guide him. She fascinated and mystified him. What was she doing? What was she about?

“I see,” he said. “Rather a letdown, am I?”

“Oh no! Not at all. You quite exceed expectations,” she hastened to reassure him with such artlessness, such solicitous concern for his rakish reputation, that he could not help but laugh again. “I have never been kissed so . . . so convincingly .”

“Now ’tis you who are kind, Lady Cecily,” he said, though something about her use of the word “convincingly” nettled him. She thought he’d been playing a role. In truth, he had never before been so lost in a simple kiss and it annoyed him that she did not realize it.

“But then, perhaps you should ask Miss Marilla’s opinion,” she said. “She may have a different judgment.”

He started and stared, stunned she had alluded to the kiss she’d witnessed. A little ember glowed in the depths of her amber-colored eyes. Jealousy?

Then she smiled at him with such dazzling unaffectedness that his breath caught in his throat and he lifted his hand to touch her, but she’d already turned away and started down the gallery. He hastened to her side, once more offering his arm. She took it with a nonchalance that startled him, coming so close on the heels of their heated kiss. At least, he thought in growing consternation, he’d considered it heated . . .

“Truth be told,” she continued as if there had been no break in the conversation, “I don’t know many rakes.”

“I should hope not,” he said, once again caught off-balance by the turn of the conversation. She should be blushing or berating him for taking advantage of her, or perhaps enticing him to try his luck again, responses he was used to and expected. She should not be acting as if the preceding moments hadn’t happened, as if their kiss were insignificant. It was significant to him!

He’d never been in such a situation before. She had him at sixes and sevens, his assumptions challenged, his body taut with desire, his aplomb all but vanished, and his heart thundering with something that could only be described as a mad craving . . . to touch her, to kiss her.

“In fact,” she went on, “I’ve only known two bona fide rakes: you and a far-removed cousin whose exploits we only speak of sotto voce.”

“Do not tell me there is a rival for my crown?” he said, struggling to match her insouciance. “Surely his reputation does not equal mine?”

“Oh, it is far worse than yours,” she said comfortably. “I have it on good authority—those being the miscreant’s own words—that he has seduced upwards of eighty of the ton ’s most well-respected ladies.”

“He told you this?” Robin asked, surprised she had been allowed to converse with a known rake, let alone that the conversation had been on such a subject.

“Yes,” she said. “Though not when anyone else was about to hear. Certainly not within earshot of my parents. Oh no,” she said, surprising him by chuckling, “they would not have been happy to hear about that conversation. Not at all.”

Nor was Robin. Acid-bright jealousy curled in his belly. Had this unknown libertine kissed her? And, afterward, had she been this cavalier?

“No,” she continued, “he waited until he had me all to himself at my parents’ country ball in Surrey last year. They were occupied with greeting their guests when Marmeduke convinced me to walk out onto the terrace with him.”

Marmeduke? She was on such intimate terms with this blackguard she called by his Christian name?

“There was no one else about and he took ruthless advantage of our unexpected privacy.” She darted a glance at him. “I suspect I should have left at once. We were absent from the ballroom for far too long. But his stories were so fascinating that I couldn’t resist staying to listen. I am sure our guests must have begun wondering what had become of us,” she finished.

He doubted this, if only for one compelling reason: had Lady Cecily disappeared onto a terrace with a known debauchee long enough to provoke questions, her reputation would never have survived. Yet, apparently, it had.

He’d made a mistake. He had misjudged her. He’d thought her awake to all suits, an uncommonly sophisticated ingénue, but she seemed as unaware of how close she had skirted disaster as a toddler hurtling by a steep flight of stairs. She was a danger to herself. Someone should have been guarding her reputation, and clearly, no one had been.

Far be it from him to interfere, but he could not allow her to go careering about society with no one to guide or protect her. When her father showed up to collect her, Robin would see to it that they had a chat wherein he outlined the gentleman’s paternal duties for him.

What was he thinking? He wouldn’t be here when her father arrived. But . . . but he could go to London.

Tongues wagged quite freely in London’s less salubrious gentlemen’s clubs during the off-season, when there was little else to do but gossip. As soon as he returned to town, he would find this . . . this Marmeduke and have a conversation with him and make sure that the bastard understood the meaning of discretion. Because while Robin’s reputation for seduction might be exaggerated, his reputation as someone not to be trifled with was not.

“What is my rival’s full name, may I ask?” Somehow, he managed to sound no more than curious.

“Marmeduke, Lord Goodhue.”

He frowned. He could have sworn he knew every roué in London. “I don’t believe I’ve ever met the gentleman.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised. He rarely visits London, staying solely in Surrey,” she replied.

“He lives near your family’s country estate?” he asked. Where in Surrey? He’d always meant to visit Surrey.

“Not near our house. In our house. He became our permanent houseguest after having become insolvent a few years ago and having nowhere else to go. Indeed, my parents assigned him chambers right next to mine.”

He stared at her, an odd sensation rising within him. Damnation, he believed he was shocked . He hadn’t been shocked since he was fifteen and the Latin teacher’s wife had offered him different sorts of lessons.

“Well, we couldn’t very well put him in the servants’ hall,” she said defensively. “Though I have little doubt he’d much prefer it. The chambermaids are always threatening to give notice as it is.”

It wasn’t simply a marvel the girl’s reputation was intact; it was a bloody miracle .

“Damn, you say,” he muttered under his breath, and she burst out laughing. Her whole face bloomed with merriment, her eyes dancing, the laughter bubbling from her lips, her teeth flashing in an open grin. She took his breath away.

“Of course, as he’s eighty-three years old and suffers from gout, he stands a better chance of winning the Derby than he does catching a housemaid,” she managed to say between giggles. “Or me. Not that he’d ever make an attempt. He has some standards, as do all rakes.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “Or so Marmeduke assures me.”

She started laughing again and damned if he didn’t join her. She’d been leading him along all the while, paying him back for making her praise his kisses.

“ Touché, ma petite ,” he said, when they finally stopped laughing. He offered her his arm and she took it, and once again they commenced their much-protracted journey down the frozen hallway.