“London,” he replied, spinning Aislyn in a tight circle before setting his heels into her sides. “I’ll be in London.”
“What areyoustill doing here?” Sterling asked sourly as he entered the library to discover Rosemary reading a book by the window, her head bent in concentration as she followed along the page with the tip of her finger.
It was strange, but in the swath of afternoon sunlight shining in through the glass, her hair didn’t appear quite as mousy as before. There were tawny streaks in it he hadn’t noticed. Ribbons of gold amidst all that plain brown. And the way she was sitting–curled on her hip, with one leg tucked beneath her and the other dangling off the edge of the settee–allowed him a glimpse at a slender calf clothed only in a sheer silk stocking.
Her leg was far more enticing than he’d imagined it to be, leading him to wonder what the rest of her body looked like beneath the oversized dresses she favored with all of their flouncing bows and nauseating ruffles.
Could it be?
Was Evelyn Thorncroft’s cousin actually…pretty?
Ordinarily, he had a good sense of these things. Put him in the middle of a crowded ballroom and he could pick out the most gorgeous woman before he tossed back his first flute of champagne. Give him a second glass and he’d have her on the moonlit terrace with her skirts rucked up around her waist.
But boring, bookish Rosemary presented an enigma.
A puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out.
At first glance, she was as true a wallflower as any he’d ever seen.
Shy, check.
Socially inept, check.
Blushes easily…double check.
And as a general rule, he didnotfind wallflowers attractive. Avoided them like the bloody plague, more like. But then why had he come to library, the one place he knew that Rosemary was almost certain to be?
“My grandmother is being seen by the doctor tomorrow, and we hope to be able to return home soon after.” A frown troubled her mouth. A mouth, Sterling noted, that was far more fascinating than he had first given it credit for.
Top heavy, plump, and with a distracting freckle right below the left corner of her bottom lip, Rosemary’s mouth wasn’t traditionally beautiful. Some might not describe it as beautiful at all. Why, then, was he–a rogue extraordinaire who prided himself on his collection of gorgeous bedmates–suddenly possessed with the urge to see if it tasted as sweet as it looked?
“I do pray the doctor permits us to travel,” Rosemary continued as a little line of worry etched itself between her brows. “I miss Sir Reginald dreadfully, and worry how he is faring without me.”
Was the little wallflowermarried?
Even more complexing, was that a spark of jealousy that he felt?
Surely not.
Sterling did not getjealous.
He had no reason to.
Women flocked tohim, not the other way around.
Even when Eloise had tried flirting with other men to get his attention when they’d first met, he’d experienced nothing more than a flicker of amusement, confident that, soon enough, she’d stop her silly games and they would get down to more serious matters. Which they had. Until she’d disappeared, leaving nothing behind but a room covered in her own blood.
Without knowing quite what he was doing–or why he was doing it–Sterling sat across from Rosemary and crossed his arms. “Who the devil is Sir Reginald?” he demanded.
As if it were a question she’d received many times before, Rosemary’s countenance was one of resignation when she said, “Sir Reginald is my pet squirrel. I found him when he was a baby and fell out of a tree after a storm. I nursed him back to health, but–”
“You have a rat for a pet?” Sterling was sure it was a nice story, but he’d stopped listening after “pet squirrel”. “Onpurpose?”
That plump mouth flattened ever-so-slightly. “Sir Reginald is not a rat. He is a member of the prestigiousSciuridaefamily which includes the American prairie dog and marmot. He is highly intelligent, and–”
“It’s a rat,” Sterling said blankly. “With a furry tail.”
Agitated enough to set her book aside, Rosemary swung both legs to the floor and sat up straight. Pink suffused her cheeks. A loose tendril of tawny gold tumbled over her temple. Her luscious lips parted in righteous indignation. “He isnota rat!”
