To make matters worse, Georgie and Poppy weren’t here.Georgie was traveling with her new husband, and Poppy probably hadn’t been invited.With her mother’s reputation, Poppy was often left off a guest list.
Bea turned toward the rose bushes, willing her cheeks to cool.She told herself she was here as a test.Did Nicholas truly care about her thoughts on politics, or was he merely asking her about Manchester to get her to agree to meet him?She supposed she’d soon find out.
“There you are.”
She spun around.
Nicholas stepped out of the doorway, his emerald-green coat open, hair just slightly tousled by the breeze.He was smiling.
“I confess,” he said, “I half thought you wouldn’t come.”
Her chin lifted.“And yet here you are.Why?”
“Hope,” he said simply, “is a powerful thing.”
That earned him a reluctant, entirely unwilling smile.
Nicholas approached slowly, hands behind his back like a man with no particular agenda, which was surely untrue.
“I must admit,” he said lightly, “I’m flattered.”
“By what?”
“That I am, apparently, impossible to resist.”
“Oh, Iamresisting you,” she said crisply.
His smile was smug.“You’re doing it from a moonlit veranda, alone, with me.”
Bea glared at him.“You really are insufferable.”
“So I’ve been told.”He took another step closer, not touching her but near enough that her pulse did something deeply unhelpful.It jumped.“So…about Manchester.You said?—”
“Wait.I don’t want to talk about politics.I have a question for you this time.”
He arched a brow.“By all means.”
She turned to face the garden again.“You said something yesterday.In the curricle.”
“Only one thing?”he drawled.
She spared him a quick look.“You said the middle should come last.And the last should come in the middle.”
“I did.”He nodded.
“What did you mean?”
He was suddenly very near, his voice a dark, amused murmur.“I fear I’d scandalize you if I told you.”
She turned her head, one brow arching.“You vastly overestimate my fragility.”
He exhaled a slow, pleased breath.
Then his voice dropped into something wicked and velvet-smooth.“Very well.What if I told you I have every intention of seducing you?”
