Ridgely’s nostrils flared and his hands balled into fists at his sides. “That scoundrel. I’ll challenge him to a duel for this. How dare he importune my ward with his unwanted attentions? This will not stand.”
A duel? Good heavens. She hadn’t supposed he would be so inflamed by her falsehood that he would challenge Mowbray to pistols at dawn.
“You mustn’t,” she said lamely. “It would cause a dreadful scandal.”
“No more a scandal than daring to take liberties with you in his phaeton,” Ridgely countered. “I’ll tear off his shirt points and stuff them down his gullet.”
Oh dear.
How had her trip to the library so dramatically drifted away from its intended port of call?
“He didn’t do it,” she admitted on a shamed rush.
“Are you denying the kiss so that I will change my course?” he asked grimly.
“No.” She tore her gaze from his, staring at the designs on the Axminster. “Lord Mowbray didn’t kiss me in his phaeton. Nor did he kiss me anywhere else. The only man who has kissed me is you, and you have been ignoring me, you insufferable, arrogant, book-thieving lout!”
The moment the words left her lips, she clapped a hand over her mouth, shocked at the furor of her own response. She hadn’t intended to reveal so much. Hadn’t wished for Ridgely to know just how deeply what had happened between them had affected her. Most definitely hadn’t wanted him to realize his absence had been the source of such consternation and hurt on her part.
Everything was fast unraveling. And she had only herself to blame.
* * *
Trevor oughtto have been ashamed, he knew, for the surge of possessive pride that swelled in his chest at Virtue’s cross revelation that Mowbray had not kissed her in his phaeton as she had initially claimed. The chit had been lying, and quite boldly. There was no reason his discovery of her duplicity ought to leave him with a hard cock save one.
He was depraved.
Depraved enough to be absurdly pleased at the knowledge that he was the only man who had ever kissed Lady Virtue Walcot, the ward who had driven him to the very brink of madness with desire. The woman he had spent nearly every waking hour thinking about since she had pleasured herself on the Grecian divan in his library. He had stroked his cock into submission more times than he’d believed possible to the memory of those dainty fingers working over her swollen clitoris, her creamy thighs open to reveal the pink petals of her sex.
She had a hand pressed over the lips that had also featured quite prominently in his sordid fancies. Her honey-brown eyes were wide, and well they should be. She’d lied to him and then insulted him. Any other man in his position would have been outraged.
But he was not any other man. And all Trevor wanted was to press her down on the window seat behind her and slide into her dripping cunny until they were both mindless and she forgot the existence of every other man.
Especially the Viscount Mowbray.
“You lied,” he said softly, instead of giving in to the foolish urge.
Her hand fell away, and a look of guilt crept over her expressive features. “Yes. Forgive me. I shouldn’t have. Mowbray was quite the gentleman. He doesn’t deserve to face you at dawn for a sin he didn’t commit.”
“To the devil with Mowbray,” he said. “Tell me why.”
“To make you angry, I suppose,” she admitted then paused, nibbling pensively on her succulent lower lip before continuing. “I was vexed with you, and you have made your disapproval of the viscount plain. I seized the moment, not thinking of the consequences.”
Now was the time for him to accept her apology and take his leave of the chamber. He never should have ventured to the music room alone with Virtue to begin with, let alone engaged in a conversation about kissing. She could bloody well find her own book. Lingering with a cockstand and the diabolically tempting ward he couldn’t seem to stop touching was nothing short of madness.
But Trevor was a Bedlamite. Because he had to know. He had to stay. He had to keep testing his own resolve just a bit more.
“Why were you vexed with me?” he asked, newly fascinated by the trim on her bodice, anXwhich crossed over her bountiful breasts and somehow served to make them appear larger.
Good God, were her nipples hard? Could heseethem through her gown and stays?
The answer hit him as he forced his gaze upward, back to her lovely face and moving lips. Virtue wasn’t wearing any stays.
“You disappeared,” she said. “After the library. It was…you kissed me so…and then nothing. Lady Deering warned me you’re a rakehell and that you seduce a different woman every day. I dare say I should have listened.”
Frowning and hugging herself about the waist as if she were holding in her emotions, Virtue made to slip away from him.
“Don’t go,” he ordered, catching her elbow and keeping her from fleeing as she’d intended. “Wait.”
