Page 3 of Seduced By a Scoundrel

He was immovable, even as footmen scurried past him to serve drinks, members shouted insults, stumbled drunkenly past him. He stood, still as an anchor unbothered by the crashing waves. Only a twitch to avoid the spill of port wine a duke’s grandson sloshed dangerously near Keir’s boot.

He looked up and noticed a younger man playing cards, red-faced and sweating. One of the other players sneered. “Collingwood,” Keir called out, easily heard through the din. “I wouldn’t.”

Collingwood swallowed, hand dropping away from his pocket. Sybil imagined to be caught cheating was bad enough for the reputation, never mind by a man impersonating a mountain.

Keir was formidable.

She knew it for a fact, seeing as he was her neighbor and had been for as many years as she could remember. She also knew the frown he was shooting at her, as if he wondered where she’d come from and how soon it would be before she could be dispatched back there. She had grown rather fond of needling him.

It was so much more comfortable than having her feelings hurt.

It hardly mattered that he did not care for her enough to acknowledge her in Society. It made no difference to her. He was not the first to disdain her and would hardly be the last. She was not a fool. She knew she was not easy to be around, especially for a person who wanted calm and control as much as he did. He was a marquess, after all. Even if his mother did come from the Highlands and had generally refused to set a single toe south of Hadrian’s Wall. Keir often wore the plaid kilt of her family, which had always enraged his father. But his father was a lout. A dead lout.

And still nothing had changed between them.

Keir was wearing his plaid right now, which was clearly the only reason she was briefly fixated on his knees, the flex of his calves. Even as he continued to scowl at her as though it were his duty. King and country, and all that.

She beamed her brightest and most obnoxious smile in his direction.

He paused.

Just for a brief moment. Those green eyes focused so intently on her that she felt an inexplicable tingle in her limbs. A shiver sneaking through her. Must be the cold, damp wind sneaking in the open door behind her.

Or the relief of finally doing something addling her wits.

Doing something utterly mad, to be clear.

But what better distraction than Lady Sybil Taunton launching herself at Lord Blackburn, who did not care for her but secretly could not resist her? Just as she could not resist him, more’s the pity.

It would create just the right amount of fuss and bother were she to confront him. Also known as: massive. Nearly as massive as Keir’s chest, which she refused to be distracted by. A chest was a chest. An arm was an arm.

Theoretically.

She knew the gentle strength of those arms, the gleam of that chest in the firelight looming over her.

Sybil nearly apologized to the butler for the oncoming storm but then he sniffed down at her. Her spine turned sharp, her smile a sword. He swallowed, recognizing danger even if he did not know the form it was about to take.

Keir also recognized it, pushing away from the wall a moment before Sybil caught his eye and opened her mouth to screech: “Lord Blackburn!”

The king himself could have marched through the club with an accompaniment of armed guards and a parade of trumpets and no one would have glanced at him. Ladies of Mayfair did not breach these walls.

Ladies of Mayfair did not screech.

Ladies of Mayfair did not enjoy themselves.

Well, down with the apple cart to that, as they said in the rookeries.

While everyone around them paused, cards in hand, glasses frozen partway to lips, Keir only raised an eyebrow at her. Expectant, mildly exasperated. As if he knew her well enough not to trust her.

Well, she had released that ferret into his townhouse. Accidentally.

Mostly accidentally.

Never mind that now. Sybil considered squeezing out a tear, maybe a winsome tremble of her lower lip, but discarded the idea almost immediately. She was a fine enough actress, but the men in this particular establishment knew her a little too well, even if only through word of mouth, or a casual acquaintance with her father. They knew she was not winsome, that she did not tremble. Not even when chained to a wall in a damp cellar. That part was not public knowledge, at least. It would have made going undercover so much more difficult.

And so she settled for the snap of temper, the stubborn, defiant tilt of the chin. “How dare you, my lord? After proposing to me.”

Keir blinked at her once, nonplussed.