A Rake's Midnight Kiss (19 page)

G
enevieve was astounded to see the welcome that Mr. Evans received from Mrs. Meacham replayed throughout Little Derrick. She’d always assumed he spent his days with her father or riding the flashy gray thoroughbred that, along with his chestnuts, looked so out of place in their humble stables.

She marched up the village’s single street, past the few shops and the tavern. Behind her trailed Sirius and behind him, whistling and looking hideously pleased with himself, Mr. Evans strolled. He swung her now empty basket as though he hadn’t a care in the world. Which wasn’t quite true. Those reports of Richard Harmsworth’s caperings had upset him. A tightening over his cheekbones. A hint of chill in the blue eyes. His reaction intrigued her, given her suspicions that he played the libertine baronet’s cat’s paw.

Which stirred other doubts. It worried her to see a man she mistrusted making friends in the village, although how could she blame the local ladies for succumbing to Mr. Evans’s charm? Even Genevieve found him charming, when
she forgot that he was a mendacious snake. She desperately wanted to maintain her anger, if only because it stopped her longing for his kisses. Or at least it should.

She paused at St. Catherine’s. Miss Brown had given her some embroidered hassocks to replace the church’s worn furnishings. “I’ll only be a few minutes,” she said to the man behind her. “Please go ahead.”

She didn’t linger for a reply, but went inside, inhaling the incense-laden coolness. She glanced up at the stained glass window depicting St. Catherine with her palm frond and wheel. From red and gold glory reminiscent of the Harmsworth Jewel, the saint regarded her with disapproval.

“I can’t help it. He annoys me,” Genevieve muttered. Even in the church, she felt hedged in, confined, unable to evade Mr. Evans. Worse, she couldn’t stifle the constant awareness that prickled at her skin and made her blood rush. “Everybody will talk about us.”

Until today, despite Lord Neville’s insinuations, she doubted if even the most avid gossips had suspected Mr. Evans of designs on the vicar’s bluestocking daughter. Now any matrons with matchmaking instincts would be alert for an announcement.

“Can you use your influence to send him away?”

Before I do something I regret. Before I forget that he’s a liar. Before I let him steal my heart as well as whatever else he’s set his sharp eyes on purloining. Before he marks my soul so deeply that I never forget him.

The saint’s face remained cold, untouched by murky mortal concerns. That was once how Genevieve had felt. Before Mr. Evans had disrupted her world. She longed to return to the time when she’d known exactly who she was and what she wanted. Now she was torn between her old desire for
independence and the yen to explore the sensual pleasure Mr. Evans offered, whatever disaster that promised.

Tugging her bonnet off, she slid into a back pew and surveyed the empty church. Loving the past as she did, this dim stone space always calmed her. Since the eleventh century, the people of Little Derrick had come here for comfort and counsel and to mark important occasions. Yet today she found neither comfort nor counsel, and Mr. Evans’s larcenous arrival was an occasion she could never mark publicly.

Finding no route through confusion, she sighed and stood. In a matter of minutes, she replaced the old hassocks with the beautiful new ones. Miss Brown was an artist with a needle and her work put Genevieve’s sorry efforts to shame. She wondered if she had the hubris to present the bilious peony cushion to the church. Ostensibly that was her intention, but surely she’d gain more points in heaven if she burned it and scattered the ashes on the vegetable garden.

She took far too long tugging a few wilting flowers from last Sunday’s arrangement. She knew she was hiding. But since Mr. Evans’s arrival, she’d lost so many of her sanctuaries. Her study. The pond. Whenever she set foot in Little Derrick after today, she’d see the humor in his eyes and hear his warm baritone.

It wasn’t fair. Before he’d appeared, she’d been content. She already knew that when he went—as he inevitably would; men of fashion didn’t linger in rural backwaters—he’d leave her fatally unsettled. He made her wish for things she’d never had. He made her resent her narrow life in this isolated village. He made her aware of her body in an extremely improper manner for a woman standing in a church.

Blindly she stared at the carved stone altar, telling herself she could resist him. After she published her article and, if
all went to plan, the world lost interest in owning the Harmsworth Jewel, everything would return to normal. She just needed to keep her head and outlast Mr. Evans. He was a patient man—and a kind one, she’d reluctantly noted when he visited her lonely old ladies—but surely he’d tire of this dull village before too long.

She shivered. It was cold in the church, and much as she might like to, she couldn’t skulk in here all day. She wanted to work for a couple of hours. She’d almost finished the article. One last visit to Dr. Partridge at the Ashmolean Museum tomorrow and she was ready to draw the threads together.

The prospect of escaping the vicarage and the village and, above all, the back bedroom’s troublesome tenant, beckoned like a green shore to a drifting ship. Perhaps from a distance, she’d view things differently.

A day away from Mr. Evans. She could hardly wait.

Smiling at St. Catherine, she tied on her shabby straw bonnet. The saint had been generous after all. With a lighter step than she’d managed since the night Mr. Evans had surprised her at the pond, she walked from the church and through the churchyard. To bolster optimism, the clouds broke up and sun lit the grassy area.

She approached the lych-gate with a swing of her skirts, assuring herself that her torments wouldn’t last forever. Life would return to its gentle, even pace and she’d forget whatever madness had possessed her when she’d kissed a rake in the moonlight.

After the brightness outside, the gloom under the lych-gate left her momentarily blind. But sadly not deaf.

“I wondered if you’d sneaked out the back, you took so long.”

Happiness instantly dissolved and the hunted feeling returned. She blinked to accustom her eyes to the dimness
and saw Mr. Evans lounging full-length on the wooden bench that ran along the wall of the small stone building. Sirius sat in the corner near his master, still as a statue on a medieval tomb. Mr. Evans cradled her empty basket on his lap.

“You waited,” she said flatly, stepping back although she knew she couldn’t avoid him. Thank goodness, the church was at the village’s quieter end and the only people likely to pass sought either the vicarage or private worship.

He’d tipped his hat forward as if napping. “Of course.”

“I wish you hadn’t.”

Slowly he raised one hand and brushed his hat back. His eyes were steady and his voice was serious. “I see I must express my purpose blatantly, Miss Barrett. I’d assumed a smart woman like you could guess my intentions.”

Humiliatingly, her heart accelerated like a bolting horse. All at the mention of ‘intentions,’ when she knew any intentions he harbored were of the worst.

“You’re out to nettle me. Any fool can see that.” She hoped he didn’t hear the quiver in her voice.

That familiar half smile appeared. “Well, of course.” He paused. “And I’m keeping you safe.”

Shock turned her motionless as a pillar of salt. Briefly he didn’t appear the louche, decorative creature she fought so hard to resist. Instead he looked like a man she could rely on, more fool her. “What?”

He sat up and placed his feet flat upon the ground, bending forward to dangle linked hands between his powerful thighs. “You’ve had two break-ins at the vicarage. Each time, they targeted your study, nowhere else. Someone’s after the jewel. Someone ruthless and determined.”

Yes, you are
.

She fought the urge to challenge him with her knowledge
that at least one of those break-ins was his. But she was still curious about his purpose. Once she accused him, he’d be on guard. He might even scarper, leaving her at Lord Neville’s mercy.

“Will you let me keep it for you?”

She retreated toward the far wall. Was his protection just another ruse to get the jewel? “No.”

“Then will you tell me where it is?”

“No.”

He looked regretful, as well he might. “I’m sorry you mistrust me.”

This cut too close to the bone. She released an unladylike snort. “I can imagine.”

Mr. Evans looked as grave as she’d ever seen him. “Please heed my warnings. For men like Fairbrother, possession is everything. The jewel would be his dirty little secret and he’d derive as much—no, more—pleasure from his illicit treasure than from announcing it to the world.”

She desperately wanted to argue. Unfortunately over the last days, her longstanding wariness of Lord Neville had cemented into fear and dislike.

“He’s not getting it.” Her voice hardened. “The jewel is mine. You know why it’s important to me.”

Mr. Evans straightened against the wall, staring at her. “I’m still happy to buy it. Or if you sold it to Sir Richard, I’m sure he’d let you keep it until you finished your research. Given the family connection, he’d appreciate having the jewel’s history confirmed.”

She almost laughed. Mr. Evans was so clever and cunning and underhanded. And so utterly wrong about the jewel. She almost told him the truth about the artifact, just to put him in his place. Then she recalled what a coup her article promised, the kind of coup that launched a brilliant career, and she stifled the impulse. “I’m sure.”

He frowned at her ironic tone, but couldn’t, for once, read her thoughts. “Despite that balderdash you heard this morning, he can be a reasonable man. Sedgemoor knows him.”

“The jewel isn’t for sale.” She couldn’t, in conscience, take money for it.

“Then my company is yours until the threat passes.”

“You tempt me to sell the jewel,” she said drily.

He didn’t smile. “Genevieve, I think the danger is genuine.”

If he was behind the second break-in—and surely that was the most logical assumption—she didn’t. Her suspicion that Mr. Evans worked for Sir Richard solidified with every day. But for all his plotting to frighten her into relinquishing the jewel to his employer, she knew Mr. Evans wouldn’t hurt her.

She swallowed to moisten a dry throat. “Nobody is likely to leap on me in the middle of the village.”

“Perhaps not. But you’re not always in the middle of the village, are you?”

Her cheeks turned so hot, she thought they’d burst into flame. The reference to her midnight revels spiked her voice with resentment. “I haven’t been back to the pond.”

The smile that lit his face set her heart skipping, however much of a rogue he was. “I wish you would.”

“I thought you feared for my safety when I’m alone.”

Eyelids lowered over brilliant eyes. His smile developed a wicked edge. An edge that shifted her pulses from headlong charge to wayward tarantella. “Who says you’d be alone?”

His silky tone seeped through her skin. It was as if he put his arms around her the way he had beside the pond. Inconvenient heat swirled in her belly. “Stop flirting,” she said in a hard voice, while her innards melted to warm syrup.

His smile deepened and with it, her liquid response. “I
can’t help it. I tell myself I’ll be strong, then you frown at me as if unsure whether to kick me or kiss me, and I’m snared again. You should take pity.”

Her lips firmed against the impulse to smile. “I pity any woman who listens to your nonsense.”

He collapsed against the stone wall behind him and closed his eyes with theatrical agony. “You never think I’m sincere.”

She edged toward the street, partly because the impulse to jump on him and beg him to kiss her was so overwhelming. “You never are.”

“Sometimes I am.” He rose, sending the basket tumbling to the ground. In the enclosed space, she was unbearably aware of his height. His voice lowered and despite her accusation of insincerity, something in her opened to that persuasive baritone. “Genevieve, I mean it—take care. I’d hate anything to happen to you.”

She told herself that his seduction was a means to an end. Obtaining the jewel. And if he got to tumble her too, well, that was a bonus. Her mind recognized the truth. Her body wanted to press against his tall frame like a hot iron flattened linen to the kitchen table.

She turned to go, but faster than a striking adder, he caught her hand.

Struggling to bolster fading resistance, she tried to escape. “Don’t call me Genevieve.”

“I can’t address a woman I’ve kissed as Miss Barrett. It’s against the laws of nature.”

She summoned a scowl. “I prefer the laws of society, sir.”

He laughed softly. “No, you don’t, you little hypocrite. You’re perfectly happy to bend the rules when it suits you.”

She glanced around frantically, hardly listening. “Please. If anyone sees us, my reputation will be in shreds. I know you
think I’m past the age of scandal, but this is a small village and people will say that something’s going on between us.”

“Something
is
going on between us, or do you intend to deny that too?”

“Blast you, Mr. Evans, let me go.”