“Your mother and your brother haven’t an inkling what you do with your days, do they?” Good God, if Whit knew what Rhiannon had been reading and—worse—doing, he would be bloody apoplectic.
“I should think not, and I prefer it that way.”
“But as for depraved, my dear, we have barely scratched the surface.”
She held his gaze, challenge sparkling in her eyes. “Show me, then. You are conducting lessons for my edification, are you not?”
The minx. She had trapped him neatly.
“Yes, but there are limits?—”
“Nonsense,” she interrupted archly. “You are a very bad man. You’ve just told me so yourself. There should be no limits where you are concerned. You promised to educate me. I demand that you do so.”
His cock went positively rigid. “You demand, do you?”
“Yes,” she returned, defiant and bloody gorgeous. “But first, let’s have dinner. I find that I’m famished.”
The death of him, that’s what she was.
He was certain of it.
Aubrey reached for the lemonade he’d had the cook bottle for them, opening it to pour Rhiannon a glass. “Then let us begin.”
CHAPTER 13
Dinner was complete. Rain was still lashing the windowpanes in a rhythmic tinkle, and the occasional rumble of thunder split through the skies. It shocked him how comfortable he felt sharing an informal meal with Rhiannon. They had much to converse about, discussing everything from books to art to poetry and wine. He was more content than he had been in as long as he could recall.
Aubrey hadn’t anticipated the possibility of a storm trapping Rhiannon and him at the gamekeeper’s cottage when he had first settled upon this plan. But now that it appeared to be the inevitable outcome for the evening, he hardly minded.
Having her to himself all night long would be anything but a hardship. He had precious little interest in the naughty games or the players at the manor house. And he didn’t lie to himself about the reason for that—she was staring at him from the other end of the table.
She was all he had seen, all he had been able to think about, from the moment he had first spied her at Wingfield Hall.
“Will you now show me the den of depravity upstairs?” Rhiannon asked him.
He nearly spat the mouthful of lemonade he had just taken all over the food they hadn’t managed to eat.
Aubrey swallowed hastily. “Yes, but only if you walk up the stairs before me.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why?”
“So that I can watch your arse swaying in those trousers of yours.”
Her cheeks pinkened. “They’re not trousers. They’re bloomers.”
She was so damned lovely, and despite her bravado, she still was very much an innocent. He was enjoying every second of thoroughly debauching her, however.
“They look like trousers to me,” he argued mildly, enjoying himself.
She glared. “They look nothing at all like a gentleman’s trousers. Which is precisely why they are called bloomers.”
He grinned. “Whatever you wish to call them, they look positively sinful on you. A man cannot help but to think about peeling you out of them when he looks at you.”
But then, he also had that same feeling when he looked at Rhiannon, regardless of what she was wearing. So perhaps it wasn’t the bloomers after all, but him. He was naught but a randy beast in her presence.
She rose from the table, wincing. “Perhaps you might peel me out of my boots first. My poor feet ache.”
He didn’t doubt it, though he certainly had been guilty of admiring her in them. The heels were high, the flowery embroidery as flamboyant as her personality, the ankles impossibly narrow.
