“Nothing, Mother!” Rosalie cried, barely managing to regain her footing before she stumbled into Lady Windermere’s rosebushes. “I was merely having a conversation with Mr.—”
“I can see with whom you are conversing!” Her mother cast a poisonous glare toward Lucian. “What were you thinking? You could beruined!”
Rosalie gaped at her mother. “Ruined? Really, Mama—nothing improper has occurred. We’re in full view of?—”
“That makes it even worse!” her mother shrieked. “Everyone can see you cavorting with this… this…” The duchess abandoned her sentence, apparently unable to think of a word sufficiently foul to describe Lucian.
Rosalie glanced at him, feeling embarrassed by her mother’s rudeness. But Lucian looked amused, rather than offended. Grinning, he shrugged as if to say,How can I argue? It’s true.
Rosalie dropped her voice low. “Please, Mama. If we are drawing stares, it is only because you are making a scene.”
“I am making a…” Her mother trailed off, glaring. “What I did to deserve this impertinence, I will never understand!” She seized Rosalie’s arm again. “Come, you ungrateful child. I intend to have a word with Lady Windermere. And you are never to speak to that awful man again!”
True to her word, Mama stormed up to Lady Windermere. It turned out that Lucian had not been on the guest list. How he had managed to infiltrate the garden party, no one knew. But when the footmen searched the garden in order to toss him out on his ear, he was nowhere to be found.
Rosalie figured that had to be the last she would see of Lucian Deverell. With the passage of each hour, it seemed more likely that she had imagined the whole strange interlude. After all, the notion that one of London’s most notorious rakehellshad sneaked into a garden party—agarden party!—in order to talk toher, seemed utterly absurd. It was far easier to convince herself that she had been suffering from heatstroke.
In London.
In April.
And so, two days later, at Lady Hollingsworth’s rout, when a hand emerged from a hidden alcove, seized Rosalie’s wrist, and pulled her behind a pair of potted palms, the thought,Oh! It must be Lucian Deverell, going to desperate lengths to speak to me!did not cross her mind.
She emitted a not-very-attractive yelp and went tumbling through the fronds, landing headfirst in Lucian’s lap.
Thank goodness my hands landed on his thighs! Now, there was a sentence Rosalie had never imagined she would have occasion to think. But it really was better than the alternative. Even now, her fingers were mere inches from his… his…
Abruptly, Rosalie’s brain resumed functioning. With a squawk, she yanked her hands from his person.
Unfortunately, it immediately became obvious that her hands had been the only things holding her up. Her slippers lived up to their name, sliding in opposite directions across the shiny parquet floor, and she discovered the only position more humiliating than clinging to his thighs as her face descended inexorably toward hisgroin!
She squeezed her eyes shut on the irrational hope that if she could not see him, he would somehow not be able to see her in this, the most humiliating moment of her life.
But before she fell face-first into areas she was not permitted to even mention, strong hands seized her beneath the arms. She was lifted and spun around—a dizzying sequence of events when one’s eyes were closed—and came to rest in an upright position.
She opened her eyes a tentative slit. She seemed to be… sitting on a bench.
How mundane, considering the extraordinary route she had taken to get there.
Lucian, who was sitting beside her on the bench, gave her a bland smile as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. “Good evening, Lady Rosalie.”
Her mortification was such that she could scarcely bear to look at him. “Is it?” she asked, cringing.
He laughed. “It certainly is. Come, now. Don’t feel embarrassed. That was entirely my fault. I’m the one who took you unawares.”
She smoothed her skirts. “Speaking of, is there any particular reason you have abducted me this evening?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “How else am I to speak with you? Your mother made it clear that she will not allow it.”
“So, you admit to thwarting the will of my mother.” Rosalie made a show of tutting. “You, sir, are a bad influence.”
He grinned his devil’s grin, and her heart began to pound. “I am the worst influence, and don’t you forget it.”
Rosalie tried—and failed—to make her voice breezy. “Which begs the question of why you would bother to seek out the company of an unsophisticated young lady such as myself.”
He leaned back against the wall. “Would you care to hazard a guess?”
“Hmm.” She made a show of looking him up and down. “You are attempting to compromise me because you are in financial trouble and are in desperate need of my dowry.”
