Her bewitching eyes–more blue today than gray in the pale morning sunlight–met his. “No, just hideously ugly bonnets.”
Guilt cut through the surliness. Setting the hat box beside the tower of trunks, he turned back to Rosemary with folded arms and a shuttered expression. “A word, Miss Stanhope? I believe the library is currently unoccupied.”
They could have easily spoken in the foyer. While servants were milling about like bees in a flower garden, they were trained to turn a deaf ear to conversations above their rank. But Sterling didn’t want to share what little time he had left with Rosemary. Not with a maid. Not with a footman. Not with anyone. Besides, if he was going to apologize for his abominable behavior, he’d prefer not to have any witnesses.
“I don’t know if the library is the wisest choice,” she said, biting her lip.
He lowered his voice to a roguish whisper. “Afraid I am going to kiss you again?”
A delightful shade of rosy pink filled her cheeks. “Then you…then youdoremember.”
Remember?
How could he bloody well forget?
The act had been an impulsive one, as he generally did not make a habit of engaging in stolen moments of passion with blushing wallflowers. Married women who’d grown bored of their elderly husband and were looking for a bit of excitement, yes. Raven-haired actresses with French accents and enormous breasts, most definitely. But shy, plain innocents who turned red at the mere mention of akiss?
Never.
Until Rosemary, he’d been a wallflower virgin.
And for good reason.
Young, well-behaved girls from well-to-do families wanted one of two things out of a man like him. Love or marriage. As hard as it was to believe, some even wantedboth. But Sterling wanted neither, which was why he ordinarily avoided Rosemary and her ilk like the plague. He would have avoided her, too, if she wasn’t so damned easy to talk to. Then there was that mouth of hers. Pink and plump as a strawberry ready to be harvested. He’d never seen a fruit so tempting…and thus, not one to deny himself pleasure, he’d taken a bite. Just a nibble, really. Hardly more than a peck. Except a peck had never rocked him back on his heels with such force that he’d been left nursing a cockstand for a bloody hour afterwards.
So yes, herememberedtheir kiss.
It was all the others that he’d since started to forget.
“A quick chat,” he said, gesturing towards the hallway and the library beyond. “Then I’ll bid you farewell.”
When she continued to hesitate, he rolled his eyes.
“Don’t worry, Ruth. I’ve just enough decency left in me that I won’t repeat my prior lapse in judgment. You are safe with me.” He used his finger to draw an X over his cold, black heart. “I swear it.”
“Very well, but only for a minute.” Her gaze darted up the staircase. “My grandmother will be down soon, and she won’t be pleased if she has to wait for me.”
“A minute,” he promised as he followed her into the library and closed the door behind them with a subtleclick.
Filled with floor to ceiling shelves that held an untold number of books, the room was both vast and intimate, with comfortably oversized chairs upholstered in Italian leather, lush Aubusson rugs in varying shades of deep burgundy and gold, and an entire wall of windows that overlooked the pond where a pair of mated swans paddled through hazy fog that had yet to burn off the water.
Whether by incident or design, Rosemary went to the same settee that she’d been sitting on when he had cupped her chin and lowered his mouth onto hers. When he had temporarily lost his mind and found–just for an instant–whatever remnants of a soul he had left.
Sugar, he recalled. She’d tasted of spun sugar and innocence, with just a hint of spice. Had he not stopped himself when he did, he might have devoured her whole.
“What is it you care to discuss, Your Grace?” she asked, regarding him with the faintest etching of a frown. This time, she didn’t sit on the settee but rather stood beside it, gloved hands resting lightly on her hips.
“Ah…” Grabbing a book at random, he shuffled absently through the pages, needingsomethingto do with his hands lest they suddenly find themselves peeling that terrible traveling habit off the curvaceous little body hiding underneath of it. “Before you left, I wanted to say that I was sorry. For…ah…”
“Referring to our kiss as a mistake?”
He squeezed the back of his neck. “That probably wasn’t the best way to–”
“Continuing to call me by the wrong name?”
“What’s a little jesting between–”
“Throwing my bonnet out of the carriage?”
