But he didn’t look snarlynow. A less perceptive lady might even make the mistake of thinking him harmless. His hair was tousled, as if he’d been dragging his fingers through it, and his cravat was undone. The long folds of linen hung limply around his neck, leaving the smooth, olive skin of his throat bare.
Oh, no. No, no, no. This was a mistake. Of all the people tucked under this roof, he was the last one she should be meeting in a dimly lit, deserted room. It wasn’t fair, really, that such a dastardly gentleman should be so shockingly handsome. It would be ever so much easier to pinpoint the scoundrels if only they looked the part.
No lady with any sense would trust herself alone with a man who looked likethat.
Slowly, she backed away from the doorway, but before she could reach the safety of the hallway, the deep rumble of his voice stopped her.
“Going somewhere, Miss Thorne?”
She froze, her eyes flying to his face.
She’d withstood any number of heart-stopping moments in her life. There’d been that time she’d taken a pair of scissors to her hair and poor Mrs. Braddock, their housekeeper at Thornewood, had fainted dead away at the sight of her shorn head. Or that time she’d ripped the seat of her breeches attempting to jump her horse over a fence, and a crowd of the village lads who’d been watching had seen her bare bottom.
But nothing—nothing—could have prepared her for the tension that sparked between them the moment their gazes locked. His eyes, already so very dark, went jet black, and his lips curled into a slow smile. “Do you always wear your cloak when you play billiards?”
It was no concern of his what she did, and she opened her mouth to say so, but the cutting rebuke never made it past her lips. “Are we going to play?” was what emerged instead. That might have been fine—it was a valid question, after all—but her voice was so low and breathy, warmth flooded her cheeks.
He straightened up from the billiards table and rested a hand atop his cue. His dark gaze roved over her, but he didn’t answer her question. Instead, he said abruptly, “Did you enjoy yourself at dinner this evening, Miss Thorne?”
Dinner? What did dinner have to do with anything? But if he even had to ask if she’d enjoyed herself, she must have put a better face on the evening than she’d imagined. “It was fine, Your Grace.”
“So, it’s to be Luttrell, is it? A loquacious sort of gentleman, Luttrell, but hedoesseem taken with you.” His eyes narrowed on her face. “As taken as he was with the fried artichoke bottoms, at any rate. He divided his time between gazing at them and gazing at you.”
For pity’s sake, who did the man think he was, making such an observation about another gentleman’s attention toward her? “I didn’t notice, Your Grace, and I confess myself surprised that youdid. I can’t see that it has anything to do with you.”
If he noticed her outrage, he paid it no mind. “Luttrell is well enough, I suppose, though not the most exciting gentleman—”
“He’s Lord Stoneleigh now, not—”
“Ah, so you’re angling for a title, then? As I said once before, you underestimate your charms, Miss Thorne. You’ve the face of a viscountess, at the very least.”
The face of a viscountess, indeed. What nonsense.
“I’m not angling for anyone at all, Your Grace.” It was both a lie and the truth at once, but really, it was too much, having to stand here and submit to his impertinent questions when she wouldn’t be obliged to marry at all if it weren’t for that blasted wager.
“Yes, you said so when I asked you that first night in Basingstoke’s study, but you seem to have changed your mind since then. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have spent all evening flirting so outrageously with Luttrell.”
“I wasn’t—” She broke off, sucking in a breath before she lost her temper entirely and cracked one of the pool cues over the Duke of Montford’s head. “Whatever my interest in Lord Stoneleigh might be, Your Grace, it isn’t any business ofyours.”
He shrugged. “True enough, I suppose.”
“You can be sure I’ve no intention of explaining anything to do with my marriage prospects to—”
“Do you fancy a game?”
Game? What game? What in the world was he talking aboutnow? “I don’t . . . what do you mean?”
“Agame, Miss Thorne.” He nodded at the billiards table. “Do you fancy one?”
“What, a game of billiards?”
“Do you have some other game in mind? If so, do tell.” He leaned a hip against the table, a faint smile teasing at the corners of his lips. “I’m open to suggestions, Miss Thorne.”
That smile was . . . well, no man should have a smile like that, wicked and teasing at once, and goodness knew Montford deployed it like the weapon it was, with the slow curl of it starting at the corners of his lips before it had its way with the rest of his mouth.
It didn’t coax a shiver fromher, of course, or leave a spray of gooseflesh onherskin.
“You seem to me to be a lady who enjoys games, Miss Thorne, but perhaps you don’t play billiards? Forgive me if it was an ill-considered invitation. It slipped my mind for a moment that most ladies don’t.”
