“Perhaps.” It occurred to him that he could use this discovery to his advantage. “Here is what I propose, Lady Boadicea. I’ll hold on to your little book and keep it our secret. In return, you stay the hell away from Harry.”
At last, she withdrew her waiting hand, bringing it to her waist as she struck a defensive pose. “You mean to bribe me?”
Had he thought she possessed temerity? That wasn’t the proper word for the impudence emanating from the lush beauty before him. First, she’d dared to trespass upon his private library. Not to mention he’d caught the hoyden reading the sort of filth that should make any proper, unmarried female faint from horror. Instead of being duly chastised, she dared to challenge him. She stood, as fierce and defiant as the warrior queen who was her namesake.
No question of it.
The wench was as troublesome as she was comely. And he had neither time nor inclination for beauty or trouble in his existence. All the more reason to send her on her way. He needed to keep her far, far away from his nauseatingly romantic brother. Leave it to Harry to have his head turned by a luscious mouth, a beautiful face, and a prettily nipped waist.
He gritted his teeth. “Bribery is rather an ugly word, is it not? I prefer to think of it as bargaining to achieve our mutual ends. Keep away from my brother, and I’ll give your lecherous book back to you at the conclusion of the house party. No one ever need be made aware of your depraved nature, and Harry won’t find himself shackled to a wanton tart masquerading as a lady.”
The alluring pink that had clung to her skin vanished as she paled at his viciousness. He ought to be ashamed, he knew, to speak with such savage indifference to a lady, albeit one with unseemly tendencies and a vulgar reading habit. Had Millicent destroyed all the good in him so that there was nothing left save cruelty and ice? Or, a more troubling question prodded him, was there something about Lady Boadicea that unleashed the beast within him?
Lady Boadicea didn’t remain silent or pale for long. In a heartbeat, twin flags of angry red rose on her patrician cheekbones. “Did it ever occur to you that it’s Lord Harry’s prerogative who he decides to marry?” She paused. “Or, for that matter, that perhaps a wanton tart wouldn’t want to marry into a family with the reputation of yours?”
The arrow of her insult found its intended target with deadly accuracy. He stalked toward her, closing the distance between them before he could think better of it, and stared down into her upturned face. But she didn’t look at him, as some in polite society did, with fear or suspicion. Every bit of her, from the irritatingly lustrous auburn locks that had been woven into an intricate series of braids, to the firm set of her sensual mouth, oozed defiance.
“The family is one of the wealthiest and most well-known in England, madam,” he growled as another note of her airy scent swept over him. Tuberose.
She raised a brow, challenging him still, seemingly unmoved by his proximity. “Is it? I confess, I hadn’t realized.”
Without warning the words he’d read returned to him.I was well-pleased at the tumescence of the shaft I held in my hand.Bloody, bloody hell. The vulgar words and her scent entwined, inciting a fire in his veins that pulsed through him and shot straight to his groin. For a moment, he imagined that fine-boned, slender hand of hers—the one that had awaited her book’s return—on his cock. Stroking.
What the hell was the matter with him? His brother was wearing his heart on his sleeve for the vixen. Yet here he stood, the Duke of Bainbridge, a man who had not wanted any woman in three goddamn years, fantasizing abouther. A minx who was unacceptable in every way, who read obscene books in his bloody library and dared to defy him, whose name was as ridiculous and fierce and lovely as the rest of her. Hadn’t the last few years taught him anything?
The familiar coil of resentment and bitterness tightened within him as memories of Millicent returned to him again, chasing lust back into the dark recesses of his soul like Cerberus. He could control himself. His time of penance had cured him of the need to fulfill his desire.
He sneered down at her. “Hundreds of ladies would do anything to marry Lord Harry, and any one of them would be far more deserving of being his bride than you.”
But she refused to stand down like any rational, well-bred miss in her place would. Instead, her eyes flashed up at him. Her chin upturned with stubborn firmness. “Then perhaps he ought to ask for one of their hands, for the last thing I should like to do is marry a man with such an insufferable nodcock for a brother. Kindly return my book to me and go browbeat someone else with the misfortune of being beneath your roof.”
He didn’t bloody believe her. She still wanted the book. Still believed she could best him. Still tried him at every turn, as though she were in the right and he was the interloper here on his own turf.
“No,” he snapped. “Now get the hell out of my library and consider yourself lucky I don’t take this book and your behavior both to Lord and Lady Thornton.”
“Very well,” she said grimly.
But if he’d thought she had at long last chosen to show him deference and humbly go on her way, he was wrong. For in the next instant, she closed the final step between them. Her face was so near he detected a smattering of bewitching freckles over the bridge of her nose. Her full skirts swished against his trousers, and his cock went stiff again.
“My lady,” he warned tightly.
“Oh do shut up,” she said, and then she locked her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers.
Kissing the Duke of Bainbridge was a necessity, Bo told herself as she pressed her lips to his. She didn’twantto kiss the arrogant oaf. No, indeed. It was the most expedient way of killing two birds with one proverbial stone. Kissing him would distract him enough that she could fish her book from his jacket and it would silence his infuriating mouth at the same time.
A wanton tart masquerading as a lady.
His frigid words, so censorious and judgmental, mocked as his scent enveloped her. Who would have guessed that the Duke of Bainbridge smelled so irritatingly good, like pine and musk with a hint of masculine soap? She wasn’t meant to notice the way he smelled, drat it all.
Nor was she meant to be attracted to such a man, a hypocrite who dared look down his nose at her when his past was far more tarnished than her reputation could ever be. A man who would bribe her to keep her away from his brother, as though she wasn’t good enough to marry a duke’s second son.
But the strangest thing had happened the moment she’d looked up when he’d barged into the library with that commanding air and equally commanding stride. Some foreign, misguided sensation inside her had blossomed. Their gazes had locked, his forbidding green burning into hers. There had been—however unwanted—a searing connection in that moment. Until she’d dropped her book and he’d picked it up, read a few sentences, and deemed her unworthy of his brother’s attention.
Ah, yes, her whirling mind prodded. The book. She really did need to get it back. And he hadn’t pushed her away, had he? His hands had, in fact, gone to her waist. She felt the possession of his touch, those large hands, like brands straight through all the layers of her dress and undergarments. He held her tightly, as if anchoring her to him.
The duke was a large man, for he had a good two inches on her, and she was tall herself by a lady’s standards. The resulting fit of their bodies seemed too natural, as if they had been made for each other’s arms, and the knowledge rattled her. Once, she had possessed a romantic heart, and she would have been swayed by such a thing. But now she was older, wiser, made of sterner stuff. This man was no match for her.
Even if his lips were firm and well-sculpted.
