“Oh, I wasn’t laughing at you, love.” He grinned, and it did wicked things to her senses, that grin. “It was the absurdity of the moment. Surely you don’t think to entrap me into marriage by arranging this tableau?”
“I didn’t invite you to molest my person,” she reminded him, flushing. Of course, she had—she was ashamed to admit—been enthralled by him. It was as if he’d cast a spell over her with his beauty and his knowing touch.
“Of course not, but I must be excused for imagining that my reputation precedes me, and that only a certain sort of woman seeks out my company at this time of night.” His voice was low, suggestive. “That sort of woman seeks pleasure, not wedding vows.”
Pleasure. The mere words on his lips sent a frisson of something wanton and altogether alarming settling over her. The things he had said. Lord almighty, but she’d never heard the like in her entire life. The man was everything she’d heard and, quite probably, worse.
“I sought you out for simple reasons, my lord.” She decided to strive for bald honesty in the hopes that she could avoid any further references to matters of the flesh.
“Pray forgive me if marriage seems the inherent opposite of simple,” he purred.
He was a dangerous man, impossible to read. So beautiful at this proximity that she ached just looking upon him. Hardly any wonder he had bedded half the women in the aristocracy if rumors were to be believed. No woman could look upon him and not melt on the inside.
“I’m not looking for a true marriage, my lord,” she explained.
He caught her chin in his thumb and forefinger, holding her still for his unsettling inspection. “What are you looking for then, dear girl? Cease talking in riddles and place all your cards on the table.”
“A marriage in name only.” She met his gaze, unflinching.
“Ah,” he said softly, stroking her jaw as he spoke the single syllable, drawing it out as though the next moment held great import. “What makes you think I’d sell myself for one hundred thousand pounds? You cannot believe you’re the first to attempt such an arrangement?”
She’d been certain she would’ve been the first. His words gave her pause. Clara had thought out this plan with meticulous care. She had researched, planned, chosen the man before her because he’d seemed an indolent voluptuary and was rather infamously pockets to let. An easy sell, she’d been certain.
But the earl she’d watched these last few weeks, the man who flirted with other men’s wives and drank too much at balls, who courted scandal at every turn, that earl was nowhere to be seen on this dark night in the privacy of his study. For the real Earl of Ravenscroft had a wit as sharp as a Bowie knife and the personality of a coiled rattlesnake. She’d ventured where she didn’t belong. Had imagined him to be a different person entirely.
But she’d come this far, hadn’t she? Her father and stepmother and their legion of servants were not easily fooled. Sneaking out with the aid of a bribable driver her father had recently hired had taken an endless amount of daring and tenacity. She’d made it here, into his study, past his sour-faced butler. She couldn’t simply turn tail and go home.
“I may not be the first to present you with such an offer, my lord, but I believe my offer to be the best.” There. She could brazen it out. She could make him see reason. She hadn’t a choice. Ravenscroft was her only hope of escape now, for if word of her failed attempt at freedom reached her father, he’d change the terms of her marriage settlement as he’d threatened, leaving her with nothing and no recourse. No way of ever returning home. “I understand that you’re in need of funds. You have sisters in desperate want of a season. I neither want nor need anything from you. A great deal of wealth shall be settled upon me after I marry, and I’m willing to give you a hundred thousand pounds of that wealth unencumbered so long as you allow me to return to Virginia.”
“I thank you for the offer, my dear, but the answer is a resounding no.” His fingertips skimmed down her throat. Such a light caress, barely even there, and yet the effect was maddening. “It’s a damn shame you aren’t someone else’s wife. I could have shown you so much.”
He had refused her, yet he hadn’t released her. He touched her with a familiarity she hadn’t ever known, not even with Henry. Now she understood the whispers. Understood why ladies spoke about him behind their fans and sent him longing glances. He could make a woman feel as if she were the most desirable woman in the world, even as he was telling her no.
“Will you not even consider it?” she asked him. “I believe that one hundred thousand pounds could solve a great many of your problems.”
He smiled without mirth, watching his fingers as they settled in the hollow of her throat and then swept lower still, across the bare expanse of her breast that he had revealed with such skilled ease. “Not the biggest problem, I’m afraid. But that is neither here nor there. How much longer will you stay, love? I cannot in good conscience encourage you to linger. If I ruin you tonight, I won’t go to your father in the morning begging for your hand. It really is in your best interest to go. Now.”
But his fingers skated a path of fire near her nipple even as he warned her, and he lowered his head so that she could smell his cologne and feel his hot brandy-scented breath upon her lips. Would he kiss her? It didn’t matter. She forced her mind back to the task at hand, convincing him of the wisdom of his capitulation.
“Wouldn’t you like to see your sisters have the seasons they deserve? You must love them very much. You could see them settled forever. You could return your estates to their former glory, and I would barely require anything from you for your cooperation.”
“There is only one way in which I’d like to offer my cooperation at the moment, and it is this.” He cupped her face with his other hand and that quickly, his mouth was upon hers. The kiss was not anything like Henry’s had been. It was masterful, a revelation. His lips angled on hers, his tongue sweeping the seam of her lips before coaxing her to open. He tasted of brandy and sin. His fingers slipped from her cheek to her hair, loosening the heavy plaits, holding her in place. His other hand slid beneath her chemise and corset, finding her hardened nipple without err.
She gasped at the sensation, arched into his hand. His kisses slowed. He nipped at her lower lip then sucked on it gently. He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, to her ear, his tongue darting out to trace the shell and lick the sensitive area she hadn’t known existed just behind her earlobe.
“Why did you come here, little dove?” he whispered into her ear. “Tell me what you want.”
He had turned her mind upside down. She couldn’t think. His shoulders were broad beneath his waistcoat and shirt. She hadn’t even realized she was touching him, but she opened her eyes now and stared. This had not been her plan. Not at all. He was never meant to touch her, and yet he was sucking the tender flesh of her throat, kissing a path to the curve of her shoulder, nipping her with just enough pressure to send an unwanted flood of something primitive and wholly foreign straight through her veins. Her pelisse was somehow on the floor, her bodice partially shucked. Lord God in heaven. What manner of scrape had she gotten herself into now?
“My lord, will you not see reason?”
“Is it reason that brought you here to me tonight?” he whispered and then continued his path of fire down the curve of her breast. He dragged her corset down with both his hands, nearly exposing her.
“Yes.” And no. But largely yes. She forced herself to think, to recall all the things she’d meant to say. “I want my freedom. Do you not also want yours, my lord?”
Another tug, and her corset was beneath her breasts. He shocked her by sucking on her nipple through her chemise. He captured it between his teeth and tugged, sending an answering pull of want low in her belly. When he released her, he glanced up, meeting her gaze, and she couldn’t help but notice how lucid and direct he was. He’d been toying with her again, she realized, and she had fallen so neatly into his trap. Had he even been affected?
“Freedom is an illusion,” he said coolly. “Perhaps you’re too young to have realized that yet, but the truth will inevitably come to you. We are all trapped here in one way or another, and the only escape is death.”
