Derwent Hall, Essex, December 1823
"You will arrive at Mowbray Place on Christmas Eve, and not too late either. Mamma likes her dinner at five o’clock on the dot."
Selina Martin struggled not to wince at her fiancé’s hectoring tone. Was it her imagination that the walls of Derwent Hall’s library with their Etruscan decorations closed in on her? Whether they did or not, she felt suffocated. "Yes, Cecil."
She and Cecil Canley-Smythe had been guests at this luxurious manor in Essex all week, while Cecil and Lord Derwent discussed business matters. But the visit had not proven a success. The other guests had been a disreputable selection, however blue their blood, and Cecil hadn’t approved of the way they’d carried on with one another. Nor had the disreputable gathering approved of Cecil, with his propensity for laying down the law, even while in someone else’s house. Tonight at dinner when Cecil announced that he and his betrothed were leaving in the morning, Selina had noted a general air of relief.
"You will also speak to the boy about restraining any excessive high spirits over the Festive Season. Mamma cannot abide undue noise."
"The boy" was her nine-year-old son, Gerald. Sometimes she doubted whether Cecil even remembered Gerald’s name. A problem when he was about to become Gerald’s stepfather.
Selina told herself she could bear this. She could bear anything for her son’s sake. "Yes, Cecil."
"And I hope you’re not doing anything silly with your wedding dress. Mamma expects the ceremony to proceed with suitable dignity. You’re a widow, and I’m a respectable man of mature years. Any unseemly frivolity won’t reflect well on a person of my standing."
Mature years? He had that right. Despite how tightly he was tied to his mother’s apron strings, he was fifty-five. Selina was only twenty-seven, even if right now she might feel like she was a hundred and seven.
Curling her fingers at her sides until her nails bit into her palms, she kept her voice calm. "I’ve chosen a plain cream frock without a train, Cecil. Nobody will accuse me of extravagance or vanity."
Selina hadn’t selected her modest gown entirely because of Cecil’s dislike for frivolity. Even purchasing such a plain dress had stretched her meager financial resources.
"I’m pleased to hear it. Now after I leave tomorrow, I’ll be busy every day with my mills in Northumberland. Don’t look for any letters. I won’t have time to write to you."
"I understand. I won’t trouble you either, unless something urgent comes up."
"Urgent?" He frowned in displeasure. "I’m not expecting anything urgent."
Well, the bride might yet jump off Westminster Bridge to avoid her nuptials, but that probably wouldn’t count as urgent in Cecil’s estimation. Whereas if Selina sewed a scrap of lace onto her wedding gown, he was sure to class that as an emergency.
"I can’t imagine anything untoward will turn up," she said, with the meekness she’d learned to use during her first marriage to soothe her husband’s erratic temper.
A log popped in the hearth, making her glance past her hulking fiancé with his wet lips and balding head to where a long, high-backed settle faced the fire. The imposing piece of furniture with its solid mahogany back dominated the room.
"See that there isn’t." Cecil regarded her with a disapproval that she was sure she didn’t deserve. "Mamma has always been worried that your youth makes you unreliable. I told her that you’re a sensible woman, and that marriage to a rich man won’t turn your head. Don’t make me a liar."
Selina wanted to tell Cecil’s mamma to button her wrinkled lip, but defiance served no purpose. She chose this path with her eyes wide open. A show of spirit now would only toss her back to the wolves. Her and her son. "You can rely on me, Cecil."
His manner softened, and he gave her a smile. "I know I can, my dear. That’s why I asked you to be my bride."
He no longer sounded like a sergeant dressing down a tardy recruit, but somehow that was worse than a scolding. The "my dear" made her hide a shudder. Because while Cecil was determined that in public she behaved like a sober widow, she suspected his private intentions weren’t nearly so circumspect.
He wanted her in his bed. She’d known it from the first.
Lucky her.
"I’ll make you a good wife."
"If I had the slightest doubt, I’d never have proposed. The world has always praised your devoted care of your late husband, despite his unfortunate wildness, and your comportment in widowhood has been exemplary." He stepped closer. "Now it grows late, and we both have a long journey in the morning."
While Cecil headed north, she returned to her humble lodgings in Marylebone to wait out the fortnight before the wedding on Boxing Day. The second week of that period at least offered Gerald’s company, once his school closed for Christmas. But while she loved her son, she wasn’t entirely looking forward to that either. Gerald had only met Cecil once, and he hadn’t liked him. He wouldn’t be slow to make his resentment of his future stepfather felt.
He was too young to understand why his mother gave herself into Cecil’s keeping, and she’d done her best to hide how desperate things were in the Martin household. Selina had so many doubts about her forthcoming marriage, but the tragic truth was that if she didn’t marry Cecil, she might end up on the streets. And if she did, she’d lose Gerald.
So she raised her chin and summoned a smile and battled to ignore how her stomach knotted with revulsion when Cecil kissed her cheek. In their eight weeks of betrothal, he’d never kissed her on the lips. But the reprieve was only temporary. She had no illusions that he’d keep his distance, once his ring was on her finger.
Damp lips skimmed her skin, and the overpowering scent of Pomade de Nerole made her dizzy. He stepped back before she could gag, thank heavens. "Shall I escort you to the staircase?"
She shook her head. "Thank you, but I need to choose a book, or I’ll never sleep. You go ahead, and I’ll see you in a fortnight."
Cecil was leaving early, so they wouldn’t meet in the morning. The prospect of two weeks of freedom both exhilarated and troubled her. Fourteen days without her fiancé shouldn’t feel like she dodged a death sentence. She had to reconcile herself to this marriage, or the years ahead would be too wretched to contemplate.
"Very well. It’s not long now. I know the waiting grows wearisome, but you’ll soon be my wife."
"Yes, Cecil." She hoped he didn’t hear the dullness in her tone.
The heady sensation of freedom had lasted a mere second. Now she was back to sitting inside the condemned woman’s cell, waiting for sentence to be carried out.
Once Cecil left, she moved across to one of the bookcases. Cecil liked women to read improving sermons, full of strictures on obedience and modesty. A spirit of rebellion had her pulling Tom Jones from the shelf.
"That was a remarkable demonstration of unbridled passion, if I ever heard one. When I listened to the two of you making such wanton promises to each other, you put me to the blush. My word, you did."
Oh, no. The deep sardonic drawl made Selina drop the book and whirl around with a horrified gasp. Cold hands reached out of nowhere to wring her stomach with a painful mixture of embarrassment and fear.
What on earth? The room was empty.
Then her glance fell on the solid-backed settle she’d already noticed. "You should rather blush at being exposed as a sneak and an eavesdropper, Lord Bruard," she said, too upset to guard her tongue.
Instead of the apology he owed her, the response was a soft chuckle that played forbidden music up and down her spine. "You recognize my voice. I’m flattered."
"You’re the only Scotsman in the party," she said stiffly, bending to pick up the book. It was a first edition. It deserved better than her flinging it to the floor.
In fact, she was the one blushing. Because while it was true that a trace of the earl’s northern roots was audible in his speech, she didn’t recognize his voice because of his accent. She recognized his voice because ever since she’d arrived at this house, she’d dreamed of him. In her fantasies, that insolent baritone whispered wicked suggestions that turned her nights to fire.
"Cruel beauty. I hoped you’d noticed me, yet now you depress my pretensions."
"I couldn’t miss noticing you," she said in an even icier tone. "You’re notorious."
"I am indeed." He didn’t sound like he considered that any cause for remorse. "Is that why you’ve been avoiding me, Mrs. Martin? For fear my reputation might corrupt your upstanding morals?"
Oh, dear. She had been avoiding him. But the knowledge that he’d noticed her skittishness was somehow threatening.
"There’s nothing wrong with my morals," she said hotly, before she reminded herself that a silent and immediate departure from the library was the wisest path.
"More is the pity."
It seemed she was in no mood to be wise. Clutching the book, she marched around the settle to confront him. "Lord Bruard, you…"
"Yes?" He was stretched full-length against the cushions, as relaxed and dangerous as a big cat. Not a lion or a tiger. There was nothing golden about his saturnine beauty. A panther, perhaps.
"A gentleman would have made his presence known." She hated how prim and stuffy she sounded.
A lazy smile curled his long, rather cruel mouth and set his dark eyes glittering. "I’m sure a gentleman would."
He paused for her to make the connection that he wasn’t a gentleman. She didn’t need reminding, God help her.
As the smile deepened, a jolt of unwelcome attraction struck her like lightning. But how could she help it? He was almost sinfully beautiful, with his thick black hair and thin face, all cheekbones and jaw and long, aquiline nose. He looked like a fallen angel. She had no doubt that he’d sinned enough to merit damnation.
Without any conviction, Selina told herself that her response to his presence was no great matter. Any woman with blood in her veins would thrill to the way he looked. It was a natural reaction.
But the woeful truth was that she’d been responding for a week. She’d never felt like this before, like she was a stand of dry timber – and Lord Bruard was a blazing torch, primed to send her up in roaring flames. She’d reminded herself over and over that too many other women felt exactly the same, and if she had any pride she’d stifle this unwilling fascination. Good heavens, even Lady Derwent’s eighty-year-old maiden aunt went all silly and giggly at the sight of this infamous rake.
Selina’s existence had been grim and purposeful. The only happiness she’d ever known was founded in her love for her son. She’d never before fallen prey to an irresistible attraction. And to such an unworthy object, at that. She was disgusted with herself.
Although no amount of disgust changed the way the mere sound of the Scottish earl’s voice made her skin tighten in desire and her heart race with excitement.
He went on in a musing tone. "But if I had announced my presence, I’d have missed out on overhearing a very interesting conversation."
Interesting? His definition of the word must differ from hers. "Your entertainment trumps good manners?"
"Naturally my entertainment is paramount."
She shouldn’t find his complete lack of shame appealing. But she’d spent her life overburdened with rules and restrictions, and Bruard’s contempt for social niceties was alluring.
Devil take him, everything about him was alluring. She’d never met an out-and-out wrong ’un before. She’d never wasted her time thinking about handsome, idle, dissipated men. If she had, she would assume that her overdeveloped sense of right and wrong meant she’d abominate them. She’d certainly had no patience for her late husband’s attempts to ape the excesses of the upper classes.
What an innocent she’d been until she met Lord Bruard. One dismissive glance from those fathomless dark green eyes under their sweep of thick lashes, and all she wanted to do was get closer.
Much closer.
If she had an ounce of principle, she should despise Bruard. Cecil certainly did. Alone with Selina, he’d spent hours railing against the Derwents for daring to pollute the pure air of their country house with the sinner’s presence.
Selina didn’t despise Bruard. She wanted him. At night in her empty bed, she touched herself and imagined that the hands on her skin weren’t small and soft, but large and tanned and skilled, and that a deep, drawling voice murmured profane encouragement in her ears.
Memory of those forbidden moments assailed her now and made her blush again. She was too aware that it was late and that she was alone with a man whose reputation was bad enough to send respectable virgins shrieking for their mammas. Lord Bruard’s company was the closest thing to satanic temptation that she was ever likely to experience.
Selina swallowed to moisten a dry throat and set the book on the mantel with a shaking hand. "I must go," she said, and cursed the squeak in her voice.
"Must you?" Bruard didn’t sound as if he cared whether she stayed or not. He continued as if they were in the middle of a friendly conversation. "You shouldn’t let him bully you, you know. If he bullies you now, before he gets his ring on your finger, he’ll turn into a domestic tyrant when you marry."
She paused in the act of turning away toward the door. "This is none of your business, sir."
Unfortunately, it was also an accurate assessment of her future. Selina was no fool, and she didn’t deceive herself about how life with Cecil would turn out. But what choice did she have?
With a leisurely grace that made her foolish heart skip around inside her tight chest, Bruard sat up. She thought she’d committed her whole self to marrying Cecil, but now it turned out that her heart hadn’t signed up to the arrangement. Her heart cried out that she was still young and at last she had the chance to flirt with an attractive man. It insisted that if she ran away now, she was a filthy coward.
"That’s true." Again no shame. "But I’m telling you this out of pure altruism. Stand up for yourself now, or he’ll crush every ounce of spirit out of you."
"Pure altruism?" She gave a snort of amusement that would have shocked Cecil. "It seems the world is completely wrong about you, Lord Bruard."
The half-smile reappeared, accentuating the creases around Bruard’s deep-set eyes. The breath jammed in her lungs. Lord above, no wonder the ladies went insane for him. His appeal was extraordinary. He should have warning signs posted all over him.
Because he was right about her avoiding him, this was closer than she’d ever ventured to the wicked Lord Bruard. This was certainly the longest she’d spent talking to him.
And danger bristled in the air.
So remaining in this room made no sense. Yet remain Selina did.
He fixed a disturbingly assessing gaze on her. "No, my lovely little ghost, the world isn’t wrong about me."
The power of his attraction made her stomach cramp with nerves, as she remembered all those depraved fantasies that had worn Lord Bruard’s intense dark face. Did he know she’d thought of him in the privacy of the night? She had a sick feeling that he must.
"G-ghost?" she stammered.
He shrugged. How could such a prosaic movement make her heart somersault? Except his shoulders were broad and hard, and she ached to run her hands along them and down those strong arms, displayed to advantage in the best of London tailoring.
He wore black. But then didn’t the devil always come in black?
"That’s how I think of you. With your neat little gray frocks, and the way you watch every word you say, and never miss anything that goes on around you."
This time, genuine fear spurred her unsteady pulse. She hadn’t thought she’d be of the slightest interest to such a libertine. It turned out she was wrong. It seemed that just as she’d watched him, he’d watched her.
She gulped for air to clear a swimming head and raised an unsteady hand to her bosom, before she realized how revealing the movement was. "You shouldn’t think of me at all."
His gaze grew more focused, and she faltered back a step. She should flee, pride or no pride, but it was as if her feet were tacked to the parquetry floor.
"Nor should you think of me, when you’re marrying that ponderous oaf in a fortnight, and you’re obviously a woman who guards her chastity the way a miser guards his gold."
Heat blazed in her cheeks, and she avoided his eyes. How could he make her virtue sound like the worst of sins? "I don’t think of you. I…"
Oh, what was the use? All of a sudden, coyness seemed too shabby to countenance. As he uncoiled and rose to his feet, Selina made a helpless gesture. "I don’t want to think of you," she mumbled.
His soft purr reeked of satisfaction. Selina raised her gaze to his face, expecting smugness, but he stared at her as if he tracked every beat of her heart. Heaven help her, he probably did.
A man this experienced with women must register her terrified fascination. The fact that she’d tried so hard to keep out of his way told its own story to someone who paid close attention. To her astonished dismay, Bruard had paid close attention.
He was tall and all whipcord strength. She wasn’t a small woman, but he towered over her. "That is no doubt true. But sometimes it’s impossible to obey common sense, isn’t it?"
"How would you know?" she asked with a trace of heat. She started to resent feeling like a butterfly caught on a collector’s pin.
"Brava." To her surprise, this time he smiled properly. "I knew there was more to you than, ‘Yes, Cecil.’"
Reminder of her duty forced a guilty gasp from her. "I shouldn’t be talking to you."
Cecil would have a fit if he caught her alone with this debauchee. Even if someone came in and discovered her with Bruard, the story would be sure to reach him.
She turned once more to go, while some heretofore silent corner of her soul pleaded with her to remain. This short, spiky conversation with Lord Bruard counted as the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. And wasn’t that an indictment on a dull, wasted life?
"No, you shouldn’t." He reached out and caught her arm. "But all the same, I’d like you to stay."
Heat sizzled up her arm and down through her middle until it settled in a great molten lump in the pit of her stomach. "Let me go," Selina muttered, cringing to hear how her voice wavered.
"Stay. Please."
Shocked, she stopped in her tracks and stared up at him. "You don’t sound like you say please very often."
Self-derisive humor glinted in his eyes. "I don’t."
He kept hold of her arm. If his touch had been demanding or possessive, she’d have jerked away. But it was gentle as a man’s hand never was when it touched her. She told herself Bruard knew the power of gentleness and he used it against her. But even conceding that, the contact was so sweet, she couldn’t bring herself to pull free.
"I can’t see why I’ve caught your eye," she said in bewilderment.
"Can’t you?" he said in a neutral voice.
"Is it because I’ve tried so hard to stay away from you?"
She’d noticed the ladies at this large house party were inclined to cluster around him. He’d never looked very interested. But then the first thing she’d noticed about him, apart from his spectacular looks, was the air of boredom that hung about him. She suspected too much had come to him too easily, and life lost its flavor.
He was from a great Scottish family. He was rich. Lovers vied to share his bed. He drew women to him, without having to lift the little finger on that elegant hand. No wonder he looked as if the whole wide world was a complete yawn.
Except one of the most unsettling elements of this unsettling encounter was that right now, he didn’t look bored at all. Right now, he bristled with purpose. She’d likened him to a drowsing panther. Now she’d awoken the big cat, and he was on the hunt.
Mad as it seemed, his quarry was frumpy, undistinguished Selina Martin. Of all tonight’s surprises, that had to be the greatest.
"No. I noticed you the moment you set foot in this house." The purposeful look he sent her blasted another bolt of heat from her crown to her toes in their satin slippers. His grip tightened on her arm. "Just as you noticed me."
It was true. They’d gone past the point where she could deny it.
She remained trembling in his grasp, a host of giant grasshoppers leaping around in her stomach.
"Yes." The word was a mere breath.
Selina waited for triumph, for Bruard to sweep her into his arms. Because surely her reckless confession must beggar restraint. She almost wished he would act the way she expected a Lothario to act. All grabby hands and slobbery kisses.
If he took her admission as a signal for seizing her, she might summon up the will to leave. But those hard, long-fingered hands didn’t grab, and that thin, expressive mouth didn’t slobber.
A light glittered in his green eyes. "Are you really going to marry that clodhopping dunderhead?"
"He’s…he’s not a dunderhead. He’s one of the cleverest men in England."
At least when it came to making money. Cecil had mills all over the north of England, and coalmines and a fleet of ships. All built up from a modest inheritance from his yeoman father. Cecil, by rights, wasn’t wellborn enough to socialize with the Derwents and their circle, but Lord Derwent was seeking investment in an iron foundry. Money talked louder than breeding, however much the other guests made it clear that Cecil and his dowdy fiancée were here only on sufferance.
"I don’t believe it. If he is, he has no idea how to handle a woman. Especially a woman as exquisite as the one he’s caught."
Exquisite? Nobody had ever called her that before. During her life, most of the vanity had been beaten out of her. But praise from such a connoisseur of beauty would spark pleasure in even the world’s most self-effacing lady.
All pleasure fled when Lord Bruard went on. "Give the sod his marching orders. You’re too fine for him."
Horrid reality crashed down over her like a wave of freezing cold seawater. She might be too fine for Cecil, but she was too poor to think of giving him his marching orders. She broke away from Lord Bruard and slumped down onto the settle.
"Is becoming your mistress a better option?" Bitterness edged her voice, although she wasn’t angry with Bruard. Not really. "I doubt it."
Selina was however furious with herself. She knew what was at stake in her engagement to Cecil. Too much to risk everything on a flirtation with a rake, bored with easy conquests.
Bruard would get bored with her, too. Right now, she’d captured his interest because she’d tried to stay out of his way. Once he’d had her, any novelty would soon wear off. And with the novelty, whatever obscure charm he saw in her.
He didn’t try to take her arm again. "Perhaps you should wait until I ask you."
"I’m inexperienced with dalliance." She gave him a direct look. "But this feels like you’re getting ready to invite me into your bed."
His laugh held a note of reluctant admiration. "By heaven, you’re brave. I’ve already seen so much in you, so much that every other idiot here has missed, but I didn’t see that."
Selina didn’t warm to the backhanded compliment. "Have I got this wrong? You’re not asking me to sleep with you?"
That sensual smile curled his lips once more. "I had more in mind than sleeping, but, no, you haven’t got it wrong."
Her mind exploded with a thousand glorious ways Lord Bruard could fill her nights. Longing knotted her stomach – and regret, because she couldn’t say yes. Not when she had Gerald to worry about.
"I have to marry Cecil," she said in an uncompromising tone.
Her conscience told her to leave the library. Instead, she leaned against the back of the settle. She’d never have another chance to be alone with an attractive man. The temptation to linger overcame self-preservation. In the barren years to come, she’d take out her memory of this night and treasure it. For one glittering moment, she’d wanted a man and he’d wanted her in return.
Lord Bruard regarded her with displeasure. The expression made him look like a sulky pasha, unimpressed with the seraglio’s offerings. "Because he’s rich, I suppose."
Her lips tightened, although it would do her no good to deny the truth. "I assume you despise me for that."
"It was ever thus." He shrugged. "Gold buys beauty. Beauty buys gold. No, I don’t despise you."
Because she saw he was sincere, whereas she very much despised her mercenary motives, she explained, and devil take discretion. "I’m not far off indigent. My late husband was a gambler. And I have a son to care for."
He sighed and ran his hand through that disheveled mass of silky, dark hair. "I understand."
"Do you?"
"Of course. But even with all his riches, you must be able to do better than Canley-Smythe."
Bleak humor twisted her lips. "I’m a poor widow with no influential connections. How many fabulously wealthy men do you think swim into my acquaintance? How many even moderately solvent men? Beggars can’t be choosers, Lord Bruard. A beggar I’ll be, if I don’t go through with this wedding on Boxing Day."
After all this time, it was a relief to be honest. Even if the last person she’d ever imagined she’d confide in was a man notorious throughout the land for his sexual exploits.
But Lord Bruard spoke to her as if she was human, as if she had a brain in her head, and her shocking confession of marrying for money hadn’t repelled him.
"I’m sorry," he said in a quiet voice.
"Because I’m not free to throw myself into your unreliable arms?" Again that hint of anger.
"My arms are perfectly reliable." His marked black brows rose. "It’s my character that you can’t trust."
She released a huff of shocked laughter. "You’re honest at least."
"I can’t see the point of being anything else."
He sat beside her. He wasn’t close enough to crowd her, but his nearness sent desire prickling across her skin. "Did you love the late Mr. Martin?"
"Love seems an odd word on your lips."
He shrugged. "Humor me."
"Why?" Baffled, she spread her hands. "You must know your wiles are wasted on me."
Bruard leaned back and stretched his long legs toward the fire. He folded his arms over his chest and went back to looking like a sleepy panther. "You leave me to worry about my wiles, Mrs. Martin."
Selina stared down into her lap where her hands twisted together in an agitated dance. She waited for Bruard to pursue the question about Roderick, but he seemed content to remain silent. And because he was patient – a quality lacking in most of the men she knew – in the end, she answered.
"No, I didn’t love him." Her voice was low, and her hands clenched around each other.
When Lord Bruard didn’t respond, she found herself explaining. "My parents arranged the marriage. Roderick’s father was a well-to-do merchant in Lichfield. My father was a doctor in a village outside the town. He was much older than my mother and not well, so when he saw a chance to settle my future, he took it."
"How old were you?"
"Just seventeen. Papa died a month after the wedding. I’m sad that he never got to meet my son Gerald. They’re very alike." As always when she thought of her son, the weight in her heart eased, so her words emerged more smoothly. "But I’m glad Papa never knew that he’d given me to a man who was a faithless drunkard and a wastrel. I had nine years of unhappiness with Roderick."
"I’m sorry," Bruard said again.
She turned to study the earl. On paper, he was cut from the same cloth as Roderick. Except he wasn’t. Bruard possessed a strength and integrity that her husband had never come close to owning. Bruard was the kind of man Roderick had aspired to be, but instead her husband had never grown beyond being a spoiled child.
"So am I."
Bruard regarded her with grave eyes. "I’m particularly sorry that you’ve never known an ounce of joy."
Damn her for these maudlin confessions. Her pride revolted at the idea of Lord Bruard pitying her. "I was a happy child, if a little lonely. I had no brothers and sisters, because Mamma was delicate. It’s one of my great regrets that Gerald is also an only child."
"Unless you and Cecil have children."
She struggled to mask a grimace at the thought of the making of those children. "Yes."
Cecil wanted sons. He’d told her.
She could endure it. For Gerald’s sake, she could endure anything.
When she saw that she hadn’t managed to conceal her distaste, she rushed on. "And I love my son. There’s joy in that."
"I’m sure." Bruard’s discontented expression persisted. "But that’s the mother’s joy. What about the woman’s?"
Every drop of moisture dried from her mouth. She’d been frank with him, way beyond what their short acquaintance justified. Now she should tell him to mind his own business, but she found herself revealing the truth in an embarrassed mutter. "I’ve never known it."
Which wasn’t entirely true, she admitted in silent mortification. Although while the touch of her hand might ease her aching frustration, it never came close to joy.
"You’ll never know it with Canley-Smythe. And you’re the sort of woman who won’t take a lover, once you’ve pledged your faith to the blockhead."
"He’s not a blockhead," she said, cursing her hesitation. When Lord Bruard didn’t reply, she went on with a trace of desperation. "You seem to imagine you know me."
That cursed alluring smile curled his lips again. "Did you ever play that reprobate Roderick Martin false, despite his infidelities?"
Heat rose in her cheeks, as if she was about to confess some misdeed. When it was just the opposite. "No, of course not."
"You’ll be just as faithful to old moneybags."
"You make that sound like a bad thing," she protested.
"When a beautiful, spirited creature like you submits to a clod like Cecil Canley-Smythe, it is a bad thing."
Selina stared appalled at Bruard. "You haven’t been watching me as closely as I thought. Nobody in their right mind would describe me as spirited. The ladies at this house party call me the dullest woman in England. I’ve heard them say it."
To her surprise, he looked angry. "Toplofty little bitches."
She should object to his language, but she’d suffered too many snubs from the nasty cats to waste time defending them. "I am the most boring woman in England. I stay where I’m put and I do what I’m told."
Bitterness edged her tone, because it had always struck her as the waste of a life. The only worthwhile thing she’d ever done was give birth to Gerald.
He looked thoughtful. "You don’t have to follow the rules all the time."
She slid along the settle to lengthen the distance between them. "I’m not throwing over my engagement for the sake of your smile, Lord Bruard, however charming it might be."
He surveyed her as if he could read every inch of her soul. Selina had an uncanny feeling that, despite her taunts, he had come to understand her over the last week. Then she reminded herself that he was a rake, and he knew just what to say to a woman to win her over.
"I could show you joy," he said in a soft voice that played more of that devil’s music up and down her backbone.
"I’m sure you could," she said flatly. "But I won’t let you seduce me in Lord Derwent’s library, where anyone could come in and discover us."
"It would put paid to your reputation for dullness, at least."
Despite everything, she laughed. "You’re incorrigible."
"I am." He paused, and his expression grew so intense that fear made her breath accelerate. "Anyway, my ambitions reach further than that. I want more of you than one hurried tumble in another man’s house, before the servants come in to snuff the candles."
"You must know that’s impossible. I’ve told you what’s at stake." Selina paused, feeling let down. Which was stupid. The world knew Brock Drummond, the Earl of Bruard, was a wicked man. She couldn’t complain when he lived up to his reputation. "You seemed to understand my dilemma. Or was all that compassion just a libertine’s trick, so I’d let you have your way with me?"
Surprise lit his dark eyes. And something that looked like appreciation. "You don’t mince your words, do you?"
Suddenly weary, she stared into the fire. "What’s the point?"
"None that I can see, but most ladies wouldn’t agree." She wasn’t looking at him, but she could hear that he was smiling. "How on earth does anyone think you’re dull?"
"I mind my tongue most of the time. I should have minded my tongue tonight."
"That would have been a pity."
She stood and smoothed her skirts. This had gone far enough. Since they’d started talking, danger had flickered in the air. Now it flapped around her with huge, black wings.
"I should go to bed. Alone." In case Bruard imagined that was an invitation. "It’s been an entertaining encounter, my lord."
He rose to face her, his expression intent. "To Hades with that. Do you dare to dismiss me like an importunate creditor, madam? I’ll be damned if you will."
Startled, she stared at him. She faltered back. "I told you I can’t…"
He sounded annoyed. "No, you can’t tonight. But for the next two weeks, Cecil is safe in the north and you’re within reach in the south, and I find myself at your disposal."
"To do what?"
"Why, to show you what you’ve been missing."
His smile made him look a complete scoundrel. She shivered with nerves, and with the force of the attraction assailing her. When he seized her hand, the contact blasted her like fire.
She regarded him in consternation and tried to pull away. "It’s impossible. Even if I wanted to say yes, Gerald comes home from school in a week."
"Then give me a week. A week when you come to me as my willing lover. A week when you’re not Roderick Martin’s neglected wife or Cecil Canley-Smythe’s obedient helpmeet." His voice lowered into an enthralling murmur. "A week when you’re Selina, the woman I desire above all others."