A Rake's Midnight Kiss (6 page)

They retired to the parlor for tea. Richard fell into conversation with Mrs. Warren. Aunt Lucy liked him. As did Hecuba, the man-hating cat, who purred on his lap. Sirius was tied up outside, sulking. What a pity the vicar’s daughter was as far from purring as Richard was from Peking. He had no idea what he’d done to raise her hackles, but she watched him as if expecting him to purloin the silver. She couldn’t recognize him as her burglar. He’d been masked that night, his hair was now a different color, and Sedgemoor had vouched for him.

In fact, it surprised Richard how easily everyone accepted him as rich Mr. Evans from Shropshire. He wasn’t used to
meeting people without the scandal surrounding his birth tainting introductions. It was both appealing and galling, reminding him yet again of the barriers his bastardy placed between him and the world.

“Genevieve, leave those dusty books and help me sort my wools,” Mrs. Warren called.

“Papa wants to show me this document.” Genevieve didn’t shift from the table where she, Lord Neville, and the vicar pored over a manuscript.

“Tomorrow. You’re neglecting our guest.”

Richard caught the twinkle in Mrs. Warren’s eyes. He knew what she was up to. And she knew that he knew. Genevieve was aware too, but without overt rudeness, couldn’t ignore her aunt’s request.

He watched Genevieve approach. Today before arriving, he’d wondered whether he’d idealized her attractions, but one glance at that beautiful face, severe in his presence, and he knew that this was a gem worth the mining. A treasure to rival the Harmsworth Jewel. This afternoon, she’d played the cold goddess. Now in candlelight, she was all gold and shadows.

The pity of it was that she was a respectable woman. Honor precluded seduction. Although with all the lies he told, his honor grew grubbier by the hour.

“More tea, Mr. Evans?” Genevieve’s chilly question made him want to shiver theatrically.

“Please, Miss Barrett.”

Mrs. Warren turned to him. “Were you in Little Derrick for last week’s excitement, Mr. Evans?”

“Aunt, I’m sure Mr. Evans has no interest in local trivialities,” Genevieve said repressively.

“On the contrary, I’m all ears.” He hid a smile when she all but lashed her tail. Everything indicated her inexperience
with men. A more worldly woman wouldn’t fling challenges with every flash of those arctic-gray eyes. She hoped to freeze him into retreating, whereas with her, ice burned.

“Genevieve saw off a thief!” Mrs. Warren’s breathless announcement earned a derisive glance from her niece. “Only shooting at the rascal saved her.”

Richard regarded Genevieve with exaggerated admiration. “Good heavens, Miss Barrett, you’re Boadicea reborn.”

Her lips flattened as she refreshed his tea. Heat bubbled in his veins as he remembered holding her. She’d been soft and fragrant. Her hair had slid against his skin like warm silk. Hecuba complained as his lap firmed. He stroked the cat and strove for control.

“The man was a coward. When he discovered the house occupied, he scarpered with his tail between his legs.”

For shame, Miss Barrett. It seems I’m not the only liar in the house.

“Isn’t my girl brave?” The vicar left Lord Neville at the table.

“Hardly, Papa,” Genevieve said uncomfortably. “I told the fellow to leave and he went. By then, he’d probably guessed that there was nothing worth stealing.”

She deuced well should be uncomfortable, fibbing to her nearest and dearest. The encounter mightn’t have gone completely Richard’s way, but she hadn’t scared him off like a panicked rabbit.

“You’re quite the heroine,” Mrs. Warren said. “I would have fainted into his arms with terror.”

Richard was pleased to note the color lining the girl’s slanted cheekbones. She hadn’t fainted, but by Jove, she’d been in his arms. At the time, he’d considered kissing her. He’d certainly wanted to.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t, Aunt. He was a most unimpressive
specimen. Skinny and half-starved. Why, Hecuba could have taken him.” She glanced at Richard. “Are you all right, Mr. Evans?”

He realized he’d replaced his cup on its saucer with a loud clink. The urge to wring her neck—after kissing her within an inch of her life—rose. His voice remained even. “Perfectly, thank you, Miss Barrett. I’ve realized how late it is.”

As if to confirm that it wasn’t late at all, the hall clock struck nine.

“Must you go?” It was Mrs. Warren, not her niece, who asked. The niece’s expression indicated that she was happy that he left the vicarage and she’d be even happier if he left the neighborhood for good.

We don’t always get what we want
, Richard thought as he rose. “Indeed I must. Thank you, Dr. Barrett and Mrs. Warren, for your kind hospitality. Lord Neville.” He bowed to Genevieve. “Your servant, Miss Barrett.”

“Are you sure you won’t stay? Our groom has gone for the night. It’s no trouble to make a bed.” Mrs. Warren gazed at him as if he carried the map to the Promised Land. Poor Genevieve, if her aunt subjected every male visitor to such matchmaking. No wonder she was testy.

He needed to regroup, to shake off Genevieve’s surprisingly powerful influence. And something told him his strategy was better served by leaving. “I can manage my carriage.”

“If you insist.” The vicar didn’t hide his disappointment.

“Genevieve, show Mr. Evans out,” Mrs. Warren said.

Flushing with chagrin, Genevieve put down her tea. “Very well. Mr. Evans?”

“Miss Barrett.” He took her arm as she stood.

She stiffened beneath his touch and the instant they’d passed through the door, she jerked free. “It’s only three steps.”

Genevieve abhorred this fluster. She’d always considered herself above female foibles; the thrill at spying a handsome man, the primping and preening. Yet even now, she was painfully conscious that she’d spilled ink on her sleeve and her hair hadn’t seen a comb since this morning. Next to Mr. Evans’s perfect tailoring, she felt shabby and disheveled and inadequate.

She shut the door to keep Hecuba in the parlor. Mr. Evans stopped, blast him, in the flagstoned hall. The space had never felt so small. He turned to her, puzzlement darkening his features. “Why don’t you like me, Miss Barrett?”

She couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “Hasn’t anyone ever disliked you?”

He had the grace to look slightly shamefaced. “If I say no, I’ll sound like a complete ass.”

“Although nobody ever has disliked you, have they?”

He shrugged. “Generally not young ladies.”

Her lips quirked with wry agreement. “I can imagine.”

He stepped closer. With difficulty she held her ground, although every feminine instinct screamed to run. “I’d like us to be friends.”

Now it was her turn to be puzzled. “Why?”

“Your father hasn’t told you?”

A chill presentiment of disaster oozed down her spine. “Told me what?”

“The vicar has invited me to study with him. I’m moving out of Leighton Court tomorrow and coming here.”

“Oh, no.” Genevieve only realized she’d spoken aloud when humor turned his face to brilliance.

“Tell me what you really think.”

No other man made her blush like this or provoked her to say such idiotic things. And their acquaintance only started.
The idea of sharing the same roof made her stomach cramp with dismay. Still, she’d been appallingly rude and to give him credit, he’d taken it in good spirit. “I’m sorry.”

Mr. Evans collected his hat from the stand. “Perhaps you’ll like me once we’re better acquainted.”

And perhaps cows might sing Rossini. But she kept that thought to herself. Was she learning discretion? She’d need to if Mr. Evans became her houseguest. She consigned her father to perdition, not for the first time, for his impetuousness. But he was the master of the house and he expected his womenfolk to obey his whims. The task that currently engaged her became more urgent with every day.

“How long are you staying?” she asked stiffly.

Something about Mr. Evans’s smile made her step back. She’d feel less foolish if she could identify one particular element in his manner that unnerved her. Well, until he smiled at her the way he smiled now. He looked like a hungry tiger contemplating a lamb chop. Trepidation shivered along her veins and her heart thumped chaotically against her ribs.

“As long as it takes,” he said softly. His eyelids lowered, lending him a disconcertingly saturnine air. For most of the evening, he’d played the perfect guest. But in the space of a second, he transformed into a man who clearly intended seduction.

She told herself she let the fright she’d suffered from the burglary turn her into a nervous wreck. Surely she mistook him. A dull bluestocking past first youth couldn’t attract this Adonis.

“Stop flirting,” she said firmly. “You’re only doing it because there isn’t another woman here.”

This time he laughed out loud. The sound was attractive. Open. Joyful. Genuine. “You defeat me, Miss Barrett. How am I to work my wiles when you undo me at every turn?”

She didn’t smile back, although something in his unabashed
delight tugged at her heart. “I don’t want you to work your wiles, Mr. Evans.”

“Your aunt likes me.”

Genevieve’s huff approached a snort. “My aunt likes any man who’s breathing and unmarried.”

Curse him, he shouldn’t laugh again. Her glare did nothing to quell his amusement. “The longer we’re alone, the keener she’ll be to see your ring on my finger.”

He slouched against the newel post and regarded her as if she provided marvelous entertainment. She was sure she did. He probably hadn’t toyed with such an awkward female since his first dance lessons. Among the reasons he set her bristling like an angry cat was that she felt irredeemably gauche in his presence.

“You mention marriage with disdain worthy of a rake,” he said drily.

“You’d know.”

He arched one eyebrow. “I’m merely a country gentleman pursuing intellectual interests.”

“Not even I’m green enough to believe that.”

“Ah,” he said softly. “So it’s not that you don’t like me, it’s that you don’t trust me.”

She retreated until she collided with the wall. For one frantic moment, she wished she’d spent fewer nights over her books and more at the local assemblies. She was completely out of her depth with this urbane man. “Can’t it be both?”

He stepped closer. “Is it?”

She stared at him, her heart racing. She’d never been kissed. Until this moment, she hadn’t marked the lack. Right now, she had a horrible feeling that her unkissed days were numbered. Might perhaps end this second. She wondered why the prospect left her excited rather than outraged. She should itch to slap this Lothario’s face.

“Please go.” She cursed her husky tone. “Aunt Lucy will post the banns if I’m not back in the library within the next five minutes.”

“You’re not really at your last prayers, are you?”

Color flooded her cheeks and she spoke sharply. “I’m not praying at all. I’m not interested in marriage.”

“Miss Barrett, you shock me.”

She frowned, then realized he’d misunderstood. Deliberately. “I’m a scholar, not a courtesan,” she snapped.

Did he lean a fraction closer? Or did her imagination play tricks? Heaven help her. He was moving into the vicarage. Eons of this torment stretched ahead. How on earth would she survive?

“Pity.” He straightened and set his hat at a jaunty angle. “Until tomorrow, Miss Barrett.”

And the day after that, she thought despairingly. Her father welcomed a wolf into the sheepfold.

She drew herself up, reminding herself that she was clever and strong and had never fallen victim to a man’s stratagems. Not that the distant adoration she’d incited in her father’s previous students compared.

She spoke with commendable conviction. “I can’t see what amusement you’ll find with a country vicar and his ape-leader of a daughter.”

Did she mistake the sudden fire in his eyes? “I’ll let you know if I’m bored.”

“What do you want, Mr. Evans?” she asked dazedly.

He stepped back and bowed with an aplomb she envied. She must have mistaken that brief, intense flash of sexual awareness. A deep breath loosened the invisible band around her chest.

“Miss Barrett, once I thought I knew. But now? Now, the game has changed.” He touched his hat with a confidence that reminded her why he irked her. “Good evening.”

He lifted a candle with a gesture that stirred memory. Somewhere, sometime recently she’d watched a man like this lighting a candle in a shadowy room. But in her agitation, she couldn’t tease any sense from the scrap of recollection.

“Good evening, Mr. Evans.”

She wished she didn’t sound so breathless. Dear Lord, he hadn’t touched her, hadn’t come within a foot of her. Yet she dithered like a besotted milkmaid. She needed to rush upstairs and bury herself in something dry and dull like the local shire rolls. Something as dull as she’d promised Mr. Evans his stay at the vicarage would prove.

Instead she lingered in the hall after he left. She didn’t shift until she heard his carriage rattle away over the cobblestones.