She still, after all he had done to persuade her otherwise, was determined to give her innocence away as if it were a frock that was out of fashion.
“Now I’ll have your answer,” she demanded.
Through the blood rushing in his ears, he almost failed to hear her.
“What answer?” he rasped.
“Do you have a mistress?”
“No,” he managed. “I don’t.”
Because he didn’t prefer to have the same bed partner for too long. Lovers were well enough. Mistresses inevitably had expectations of tenderness and affection, and he couldn’t give them that. But he kept all this to himself.
“Then perhaps I could offer myself for the position.”
He stared at her, lust and a yearning more potent than any he’d ever known intersecting within him. The result was combustible.Hewas combustible.
And tempted.
My God, he was tempted. More than he had even realized possible.
Whit would murder him. She wasn’t mistress material. She didn’t even know what she offered. And besides, she was marrying the staid Carnis. God, he hated the thought of someone as passionate and lovely and wild as Rhiannon consigning herself to a lifetime of being a proper wife.
The music died around them, signifying that the dance was over. He stood there like an imbecile, doing everything in his power to will away the cockstand that was threatening to rise there in the middle of the ballroom.
“Until the house party is at an end,” the minx added. “When we get back to London, it will be as if it never happened. I shall go on my way, and you’ll go on yours.”
And then she dipped into a curtsy before walking away, leaving him standing there as if she hadn’t just set flame to his world and everything in it.
CHAPTER 10
The ball was still well underway as Rhiannon struggled to remove her borrowed gown in her bedchamber, trying not to wallow in humiliation as she did so. Her heavy wig had been the first, and easiest, to go. Now her hair was free of the hairpins holding it in its confining style, if nothing else.
Following her ignominious dance with the duke, she had fled, embarrassed by her immense failure. What had she been thinking, offering to be Richford’s mistress? Did her foolishness know no bounds?
And to make matters worse, she had done so right there, in the midst of the ballroom, surrounded by others, where anyone could have overheard her. Meanwhile, what had Richford done? He had stared at her silently, saying nothing.
Not. A. Single. Dratted.Word.
“No doubt, he was at a loss,” she grumbled to herself. “He has already made his opinion of me known.”
It didn’t matter that he had kissed her or that he had touched her that day in the viewing room. He was a rake. Were they not ruled by base lust? Had anyone else been in her place, his reaction likely would have been the same. There was nothingspecial about her. Richford didn’t return her feelings. That much was more than apparent.
Rhiannon huffed a frustrated sigh as she continued her efforts. The fastenings on her friend’s bodice were small—a neat row of tiny buttons down her back. When she and Lady Blue had convened to make the exchange, they had helped each other dress, giggling and chattering like schoolgirls.
But now, with sore feet, an aching back, and desperately tattered pride, she was struggling to undo the last of them. She couldn’t seem to reach, no matter how hard she struggled to stretch her arms.
Likely, Richford had been horrified by her suggestion. That had been the reason for his silence. She hadn’t even bothered to find Lady Blue following that wretched dance. It had taken all the confidence she possessed to hold her head high and sail from the ballroom without bursting into tears.
Rhiannon blinked furiously. She wouldn’t cry. Not now. Not until she had her gown off. Then she could crawl beneath the bedclothes that still smelled like him and continue feeling sorry for herself in the darkness until she fell asleep. Perhaps in the morning, she would do what Richford had been demanding she do from the first night. She would return to London.
Her friend had forced her to make some realizations this evening. Namely, that she didn’t want anyone else. She had come here for one reason only, and it was a golden-haired rake with emerald eyes, a sinner’s mouth, and a beard she longed to feel rasping over her throat as he pressed heated kisses to her bare skin.
“Stupid, stupid,” she chided herself, snagging a button, only to have her fingers slide off before she was able to remove it from its mooring. “Blast!”
Cursing felt good.
“Damnation,” she added, struggling to get her fingers back on the button. “Ballocks. Cock. Son of a swashbuckler!”
