Chapter One
Oxfordshire, 1813
“While your offeris tempting, I must regretfully decline, my lord.”
Surely Miss Grace Winter, undeniably the most stubborn chit Rand had ever met, had not just turned down his proposal.Nofemale had ever turned down a proposal he had made.
Ever.
Granted, his proposals were ordinarily of a far seedier nature, and the females in question were demimondaines, but still.
He must have misheard her.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Winter,” he said, frowning at her from where he stood in the Abingdon House library, “but I do believe I mistook your acceptance for a rejection.”
She sighed, almost as if she found him tedious. “You did not mistake anything, Lord Aylesford. I told you no.”
He frowned at her. “Women do not tell me no.”
Miss Winter’s lips twitched. “On the contrary, I stand before you as evidence they do.”
Her lips were soft and full and the most maddening shade of pink. Every time he stared at them, he wondered if her nipples matched. But now, that mouth was laughing at him.
Laughing at his proposal.
Mockinghim.
The daring of the chit was not to be borne. He ought to kiss her, he thought. Or turn her over his knee and spank her delectable rump. But he would do neither of those things. Because she was an innocent, virginal miss, decidedly not the sort of lady he preferred. And she was denying him.
“Why will you not agree to be my feigned betrothed?” he bit out.
“Because you are a rake,” she said. “And one with an insufferable sense of his own consequence. If I am to be your betrothed, even yourfeignedbetrothed, I will be required to spend time in your presence. To dance with you, to pretend as if I find your sallies amusing, that sort of nonsense. I would rather read a book, to be perfectly honest.”
The devil.
She thought he was a rake.
Well, to be fair, he was. He had earned his reputation—that nothing in skirts was safe from him—the delicious way. He had bedded more women than he had bothered to count. The list of his conquests was longer than the Thames.
But she found him conceited? She did not want to dance with him?
“What is wrong with my sallies?” he demanded. “Why would you need topretendto find them amusing?”
He was vastly amusing. All the ladies in his acquaintance told him so. They laughed at his every quip. Quite uproariously.
“I am making an assumption, of course,” she said, waving a dismissive hand through the air, rather in the fashion of one chasing a bothersome fly. “I have never heard you tell one. But you do not look like the sort of gentleman who would tell clever sallies. You look like the sort who expects everyone around him to be easily wooed by his face and form.”
Here, now.The baggage was not truly suggesting there was something amiss with his face? With his form? He engaged in sport whenever he could—riding, boxing, fencing, rowing. He was lean and tall. His muscles were well-honed from his exertions. And as for his face? Why, he was widely considered one of the most handsome men in London.
“I do notexpectthem to, Miss Winter,” he informed her, his voice frosty with indignation for the series of insults she had paid him. “Theyarewooed by my face and form. With good reason.”
She cast a dubious glance over him. “Your face and form are acceptable, I suppose. If one does not mind dark hair and blue eyes. I have always preferred blond hair and brown eyes, myself. There is something so delightful about the combination. And you are a bit thin, my lord. You might consider eating pie more often.”
His face and form wereacceptable?She was bamming him. She had to be.
He scowled at the impertinent chit, and in all his ire, he could only seem to manage one word. “Pie.”
“Yes.” She smiled sweetly. “Any pie you like. Consuming sweets ought to help you appear more substantial and far less gaunt, over time.”
