“It is mine.”
“I can see that now,” she said weakly, keenly aware of the window at her back and his big body between herself and the door. “I apologize for the inconvenience.”
“You expect me to believe you innocently wandered into the wrong room?”
“Yes.”
“You? The lady notorious for all her matchmaking escapades, for catching couples in compromising positions, had no notion of which room she was entering?”
She smiled encouragingly. “Yes.”
“Ha!” He barked out a vicious, bitter burst of laughter so sudden and loud it caused her to flinch. “You must think me the world’s greatest idiot.”
Her mouth moved, unable to form sentences for a moment. In truth, she did think him an idiot, but for a different reason entirely.
“Perhaps not the world’s greatest,” she allowed, unable to hold her tongue.
The Marquess of Dorset simply had that effect upon her. He was a bitter rake who was handsome and knew it too well. Who had left a trail of broken hearts in his dazzlingly elegant wake. He was the sort of man a lady of intellect never dared trust.
“Do you know what I ought to do, Lady Clementine?” he asked, stroking his jaw idly, as if he had all the time in the world to corner her here against the window of his bedroom.
“Yes,” she said tartly. “You ought to step aside so that I may go.”
“Not yet, I don’t think,” Dorset said smoothly.
She considered a means of escape, but he was standing so close, and she feared that movement in any direction would lead to either her bringing down the drapes or brushing against him.
“Dorset,” she protested pointedly. “Surely you realize that my lingering here is a risk neither of us should dare to take.”
“Hmm,” was all he said, a troubling glint entering his eye. “Why not, Lady Clementine?”
“You know precisely why.”
“What if I don’t? Explain it to me, if you please.”
Her panic was rising. The longer she remained trapped in his room with him, the greater the danger of discovery.
She took a step to the right, her bustle brushing along the windowpane and catching on something. Dorset took a step as well, his countenance bordering on fiendish.
He was enjoying her entrapment, she realized. Enjoying her discomfiture.
“My lord,” she tried again, seeking mercy and reason, two traits which he apparently lacked.
Dorset smiled, and she couldn’t deny the effect it had on her. “Enlighten me. I’ll wait.”
Her cheeks were vexingly hot. If she’d been carrying a fan, she would have put it to excellent use. And perhaps also used it to poke him soundly in the eye.
“If I am seen leaving your room by any of our fellow guests, scandal will be unavoidable,” she gritted through clenched teeth. “I haven’t come to this house party to set tongues wagging or find myself entrapped in a marriage of convenience.”
“Do you imagine any of your past victims sought to be trapped?” he asked sharply.
Victims? Why, he made it sound as if she were a murderer stalking the streets in the darkest night, claiming souls.
“I haven’t any victims,” she countered coldly. “Now if you please, move so that I may pass and remove myself from this dreadful situation.”
“Always interesting when the spider gets caught in her own web,” he said.
And Clementine quite lost her patience.
