How outrageous — as if she were a judge of how to kiss!He had done things she could never dream about, and he was beginning to wish he could show her one or two of them. He hadn’t felt as tempted by a maid since he was in his teen years. Since then, he’d taken his pleasure either with available ladies of his class, both willing young vixens and frustrated widows, or more often with Cyprians.
Nothing was more enjoyable than paying for a night with an experienced whore who could — and would — do anything, leaving him free to walk away when finished without looking back.
With the maid’s greenish-gold eyes fixed on him, he felt the urge to explain.
“Miss Waltham and I were not strangers. Her father and I have a business arrangement. Moreover, we’d eaten dinner within five feet of one another more than once, and we’d played charades. And there was nothingsloppyabout the kiss. If I were to demonstrate, you impertinent rattle-pate, you would agree. In any case, we shouldn’t be discussing this. It is crass. Vulgar even.”
“Kissing isn’t vulgar,” she protested.
Ah-ha! She wasn’t quite so innocent. Maybe that’s why he found her enticing.
“You are correct. It is not, yet discussing it most certainly is, especially talking about a lady. I don’t speak at my club about such things for I am a gentleman, and I don’t wish to speak any more about such things with you.”
He folded his arms.
“I see what you mean,” she said. “Discretion and honor and such.” When she paused, Philip hoped she would finally leave him alone.
“Do you think Miss Waltham wishes to marry you?” she asked, continuing her investigation.
He sighed. “I believe she is in trouble up to her earlobes and isn’t thinking clearly. It has been my experience that most young ladies do not.”
MIRANDA WOULD HAVE been annoyed at such an unfavorable statement if she didn’t partially concur. Her own sister was a ninny. Grace had never cared for anything more than playing cards and discussing fashion. Besides, having a verified rake at her disposal was too wonderful to ignore without getting as much out of him as she could. Stomping off in a huff over an impudent slight to the female of the species would get her nowhere.
She wanted to write a little starry-eyed story, maybe even one of those stimulating novels women were always warned about, only for her favorite romantic-minded cousin to read. And Lord Mercer was the perfect font of information.
“Do you think people would read a book if it didn’t contain Miss Austen’s perfect comedy of manners or Mr. Defoe’s and Mr. Swift’s adventures?” she asked him. “I suppose you don’t read novels anyway, my lord.”
He stared a long while before he looked away.
“When did you say Sir William might return?”
“One never knows,” Miranda told him, intending to be vague to keep the man from hurrying off.
“Sometimes he is gone for hours,” she added. “Sometimes just a short while. He might come through the door to help you within a very few minutes. But let me understand you. If Miss Waltham holds her tongue, then she shall not be pressed to marry the scoundrel, as you call him. On the other hand, she might end up married to you if you’re not unlucky enough to be killed in a duel by her father.”
“Unlucky?” Lord Mercer echoed. “I would consider such an event a great deal worse than unlucky.”
She waved her hand, dismissing his words. “I fail to understand the reasoning behind the lady’s silence. It helps no one. You might die, and she will still be disgraced and alone. Or you may live, and she’ll be forced to wed you, and she won’t end up with the man she loves. That is, if she does love the scoundrel. And vice versa.”
“Vice versa?” he repeated, frowning.
“It means something along the lines of a change in the order.”
“I know what it means,” he snapped.
“Then why did you ask?”
“I did not,” he professed. “I wondered to what you are referring.”
“I see.” Miranda hoped to be clear for she was truly trying to understand this other woman’s motives. “I mean if the scoundrel loves her, too, he won’t end up with Miss Waltham unless she confesses tohisinvolvement. Neither of them wins by her silence. And thus, I wonder why she does not simply tell the truth?”
“It is a world which you do not understand,” he said superciliously.
Lord Mercer was probably right, and Miranda was ever so pleased he was going to explain it to her.
“If Miss Waltham were to let on about the existence of another man apart from myself, with whom she was seen in an embrace, then she would be considered irreparably immoral, loose, and sullied, and the scoundrel would be considered dastardly beyond reform.”
“Areyouconsidered dastardly?” she asked.
