“Does your quack happen to be employed by the devil?”
“Lean your head down, if you please.” There she went, paying him no mindagain. She might try to disguise herself as a wallflower, but nothing could hide that stem of steel. “It’ll only take me longer to finish if you don’t.”
He yielded, gritting his teeth as she proceeded to set the rest of the wound on fire. He tried to distract himself… and found it absurdly easy. For in her quest to have her way with him, dictatorial Miss Polly had ended up standing between his splayed thighs. The scent of her hair—apple blossoms and honey—wafted into his nostrils, his mouth watering. With his head pulled down and her hands raised as she fussed with his wound, he had an unobstructed view of her bosom, andwhata bosom it was.
Her modest bodices were a crime. The lapels of her chintz wrapper, however, confessed the true story: like the Red Sea, they parted to the holy power of her breasts, which were undoubtedly divine. The fine muslin of her nightgown couldn’t hide the shape of those magnificent bubbies, perfectly round and full, made to fill a man’s palms. As she moved about, swabbing his scalp, the lovelies gave a saucy bounce for which he’d endure a hundred other injuries for the privilege of seeing.
Christ Almighty, Polly Kent has a fine pair of tits.
His cock, that randy beast, twitched with interest. He was no stranger to lustful thoughts, but what was foreign to him was this sense of… curiosity. Over a female, of all things. Women were hardly a novelty, and reading their signals was a skill he’d honed over the years. They usually wanted one (or more) of the following from him: money, sex, or marriage. He was generous with the first two and never with the last.
Miss Polly, however, remained an enigma, a bundle of contradictions. Why did she care about his injury when she obviously couldn’t stand him? And why would she choose to cloak her loveliness with dowdy clothes? Was she as prudish as she made herself out to be—or as passionate as her body’s promise?
Not that he’d ever find out. He needed to get involved with a virgin like he needed to get shot in the head. The only honorable outcome of dallying with an innocent was wedlock, and God knew he wasn’t equipped to be a husband. Marriage, intimacy, emotional entanglements of any kind—he wanted none of it.Especiallynot with an interfering little prude who’d made him feel like a fool more than once, who wouldn’t even accept a damned gift without questioning it.
The subject of his musings took an abrupt step back, and against his will, he found himself in the thrall of her clear, blue-green gaze. For an odd, prickling instant, he fancied she could see through him—through the twisted maze of his inner workings to the devils at his core…
She jerked her wrapper closed, tightening the belt. “You’re patched up. Now why are you here?”
He gathered himself. “I told you. The headache.”
“I meant what is the purpose of your calling here tonight? And, please,” she said with a dismissive shake of her head, “don’t say it is social. Why did you wish to speak to my brother?”
It was her damned acuity, he decided, that had bothered him from the start. She had a way of making a man feel transparent—laid bare. Her perceptiveness had the opposite effect of flirtation: it felt unmanning and unpleasant. If she wished to ward away suitors, her keenness was a better shield than her frumpy get-up would ever be.
“If I have business with your brother, it’s not really your concern, is it?” he said.
“Anything that involves my family involves me.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and he’d wager his stables that she was oblivious to how that gesture thrust her tits up, emphasizing their spectacular size and heft. Of course, that led him to wonder about her nipples, if they would be plump or shy, fair as her skin or rosy as her lips… which were, unfortunately, still moving.
“… especially when your actions raise the hopes of my sister,” she was saying. “She doesn’t deserve to be dallied with by a hardened rake. I know the type of man that you are, my lord, and I doubt you have an honorable bone in your body.”
Her last words cut his lustful musings short. Normally, he didn’t give a damn what people thought, but her judgmental assumption got his back up.
Therefore, he drawled in a tone designed to annoy, “Ah, the fair Miss Primrose. She is a side benefit of this visit, isn’t she?”
“She’s not a side benefit to you or any other man.” Her eyes weren’t so calm and clear any more.Good.“Are your intentions toward her honorable?”
Up until this point, he’d had no intentions whatsoever concerning Primrose Kent. But he wasn’t going to give this holier-than-thou miss the satisfaction of knowing that.
Bridling his anger, he quirked a brow. “I thought I was a hardened rake, Miss Kent. What would I know about honor?”
“I will not allow you to hurt my sister. If you don’t treat her as she deserves, I… I will expose you.” Her cheeks flushed, her small hands forming fists. “I’ll tell my brother what I saw you doing.”
So they’d circled back to the bathhouse. He’d wondered if that would come up again. If she hadn’t said anything yet, however, he doubted she would do so now. It would take even more bravado than this little termagant possessed to confess she’d watched a man frigging himself. The idea that she thought she could shame him—blackmailhim—was laughable.
Didn’t she know who he was? The God of Revelry answered to no one.
“You’ll admit to your brother you spied on me during a private moment?” he inquired.
“I did not spy on you!” Her blush deepened. “I didn’t know anyone was in the bathhouse.”
“But you didn’t exactly avert your gaze, did you?” By the nervous way she wetted her lips, he knew he had her. “How long, precisely, were you enjoying the show?”
“I was not… enjoying anything! It was disgusting,despicable,” she sputtered. “Only a madman would do such a thing!”
He had to laugh. God, her naiveté. In truth, he might have found it charming had it not been coupled with the sort of prudish self-righteousness he despised. He’d been judged and found lacking by moral pundits all his life. The best way to deal with sanctimony? Being exactly what they accused him of being—andmore.
“If that were true, then all of mankind is mad,” he said.
