Chrissakes, there she went with prattle about him being thoughtful again. He truly had to disabuse her of the notion that he was anything other than a dark-hearted villain who was bedding her for purely selfish reasons.
“We’ve been through this, have we not, my dear?” he reminded her. “There isn’t a modicum of thoughtfulness in me.”
She arched a golden brow, still looking at him as if he were noble. “I think that is what you would like for me to believe, but this is the second time you are feeding me a meal today alone.”
Damn it, perhaps arranging this idyll for them had been a mistake. Except, being alone with her didn’t feel like a mistake. It felt like a bloody relief. It was refreshing to have her where he wanted her without having to hide behind masks or steal into her bedroom. He wanted to enjoy her thoroughly before he hadto leave Wingfield Hall and pretend as if none of this had ever happened.
Still, she needed to understand who and what he was. He wasn’t thoughtful or considerate or caring. He was the son of a madman. He was a selfish sybarite. A dishonorable scoundrel who had betrayed Whitby—his own friend—and had taken his sister’s virginity. Not just that, but he intended to bed her as many times as he possibly could to get her out of his system until they parted ways.
“I like to eat. I like to fuck.” He waved a hand toward the picnic dinner. “Here we are.”
“Why do you do that?” she asked, studying him with her vibrant blue gaze in a way that made him feel as if she saw him.
Saw him far too well.
“Do what, minx?”
“Try so very hard to persuade me that you are irredeemable when we both know the opposite is true?”
“Ah, but Iamirredeemable.” He started moving them toward the table in an attempt to distract her. “If I weren’t, what would I be doing here with you?”
“Just because I am Whitby’s sister doesn’t mean that you cannot desire me,” she pointed out.
“It means that I shouldn’t. You’re my friend’s sister. A lady and an innocent. Yet I’ve treated you like a seasoned mistress, all to slake my own lust. That ought to convince you, if nothing else.”
He stopped before her chair, pulling it out for her. She seated herself, and the tempting scents of jasmine and bergamot mingled with rainwater and fresh air reached him.
“Has it never occurred to you that I have lust also?” she asked sharply. “That perhaps I have a mind of my own and that I am not so much an innocent lamb as a lioness who has decided to seize what she wanted?”
He stared at her, awed by her boldness. One part menace, one part goddess, she was intoxicating.
“I can honestly say that no, it has not.” He inclined his head. “Perhaps I stand corrected in that regard.”
“As every lady at this house party confirms, women can experience lust every bit as strongly as our masculine counterparts,” she continued. “Being a lady doesn’t make one incapable of feeling desire, and neither does being a virgin. You may feel guilty all you like about what has happened between us, but don’t think for a moment that you somehow seduced me into bending to your sinful whims.”
Wryly, Aubrey seated himself at the opposite end of the small table. “Believe me, my dear, I am more than aware who seduced whom when it comes to the two of us.”
It had been her, of course. He had been no match for a determined Lady Rhiannon Northwick. He hadn’t the willpower to deny her. Even today when she had approached for their ride together, she had all but brought him to his knees. Sweet Christ, that bloody bloomer suit of hers had nearly proven his undoing. He’d had half a mind to take her then and there against a tree. Call them whatever she liked, but Rhiannon in trousers was a bloody revelation.
“There. Now, if you would please cease all attempts to persuade me that you’re Beelzebub so that I may enjoy dinner, I would greatly appreciate it,” she said.
But he wasn’t finished warning her yet. “I’m not a good man, and the sooner you accept it, the better off you shall be. I’m not kind, and I don’t do anything if it doesn’t benefit me.”
She smiled. “If you say so.”
“I do, and had you any idea how depraved I truly am, you wouldn’t be sitting here at this table with me,” he continued sternly. “You’d be on your bicycle pedaling as fast as those delicious legs of yours could possibly manage.”
“You think my legs are delicious?”
This bloody hoyden. What was he to do with her? He knew what hewantedto do with her—keep her here in this cottage and shag her like mad for the next few weeks at least. Long enough to ease the poison of lust from his veins. But that was impossible.
“Quite,” he bit out. “But you are missing the point entirely.”
“Which is?”
“That I’m a very bad man, the sort you ought not to know, and absolutely the kind you shouldn’t welcome into your bed.”
She arched a brow. “I fear you are a bit tardy with that particular warning. Moreover, I hardly think that you are as depraved as you suggest. Why, you’ve scarcely shown me anything thus far that I haven’t already come upon in the bawdy books I have managed to read.”
