The Art of Ruining a Rake (21 page)

He stroked his hand against her hip, settling her.
“Shh.”
His exhale sent a puff of white tumbling into the carriage. “I’m sorry to say I’m not leading the effort. At least a dozen men advise me. Engineers, lawyers and so on. Everyone in London has something to contribute. Except me.”

“That cannot be true,” she whispered against his shoulder.

He bolted upright. “You’re alert.”

She snuggled against him and pressed her hand on his stomach, as if to keep him cuddled beside her. He eased against the squab, on edge yet unwilling to remove himself. Perhaps if he sat very still, they’d never reach her house. They could go on and on like this, forever.

“What do I bring, then?” he asked.

She pulled her hand from beneath his palm and settled it on his chest again, just beneath the complicated folds of his cravat. “You’re their leader.”

He laughed into the dark. “And here I thought I was their secretary. You’ve no idea how much I
detest
correspondence.”

“I should like to see that.” He thought he heard a smile in her voice.

He cupped her waist more tightly, not unaware that his first finger rested along the curve of her breast. “Indicative of your astonishment, I hope, and not an attempt to call me a liar.”

She smiled against his arm. “Oh, I
believe
you.”

He placed his hand over hers. Over his heart. “You wound me greatly, Miss Lancester.”

She ducked her head against his shoulder, giving him nothing but an inky view of her curls. “Are you going to be very rich?”

“If you’re after my fortune, you’re about to be disappointed. We don’t have the money needed to bring in the excavation equipment. There aren’t many investors left to ask.”

She moved so quickly, he wasn’t prepared. In an instant she was on his lap, her legs turned toward the door opposite, as if riding sidesaddle. Her arm draped across his shoulders and she tucked her head against his neck. “You should try appealing to women for money. There are plenty enough of those.” Her free hand entwined with his and she played her thumb against his knuckles. “I’m sure you’d have enough in no time at all.”

He coughed as the wind whisked out of him. That was far too close to the truth. “Miss Lancester.”

She rubbed her lustrous hair against his cheek. “Lucy. Lucy-love.”

He cleared his throat. His cravat was feeling ten times too tight again. “Mr. Barton-Wright has been a generous donor. What do you think of him?”

“He likes to drink.”

Roman chuckled. “Amiable, is he? I suppose you might think that.”

She raised her head. “You sound jealous.”

Roman turned his head. Their lips were a mere breath apart. “He’s not to my tastes. I prefer tall men, with a bit of Town bronze on them. Don’t you?”

Her eyes caught his, enraptured as if spellbound. Her pink lips parted. “Yes,” she breathed. “Much more to my tastes.”

Her arse rubbed against him, and her lips were so close—but he
couldn’t
. She was lucid, but still drunk. Why else would she be sitting on his lap?

“I do like Mr. Barton-Wright,” she said abruptly. “He smiles at me.”

Roman’s pace quickened. He wanted to kiss those words right off her lips. “Edward Barton-Wright is a horse’s ass.”

“Mr. Barton-Wright,” she said primly, “is a gentleman.”

Roman leaned forward and captured her mouth in a kiss filled with the longing he’d suffered all night, the weeks of waiting to have her again. His arms wrapped around her waist and hugged her until her breasts were crushed against his chest and there was no hope left for his cravat. When the ache in his cock couldn’t take anymore, he drew back.

His eyes bored into hers. “He wants under your skirts, Lucy. That’s how things are. From now on, every man’s interest is suspect.”

Her fingers clasped his jaw. She decorated the side of his cheek with little, breathy kisses. “Even yours?”

He reached for her hand to stop her. “Yes.”

She pulled back. Her eyes were wide with befuddlement. “We’re j-just friends.”

He pulled her hand down into her lap and held her willing body away from his. “Confound it, Lucy. Don’t say that.”

“Why not?”

“
Why not?
Lucy,” he said, bucking his aching erection into her, “do I feel like your
friend
?”

“You did a minute ago,” she shot back. “I liked you better for it.”

He willed himself to calm. She was drunk. She didn’t know what she was talking about. Because at no time tonight, not in all the hours he’d desired her and admired her and wanted her for his very own, had he ever, ever felt like her friend.

And as long as she kept kissing him like this, he never would.

Chapter 10

THE NEXT MORNING, Lucy moaned as she slowly came into nauseating awareness in her own bed. She draped an arm over her eyes, blocking the cruel sunlight streaming between the curtains, and rolled onto her side.

Dear Zeus, her head ached. And
oh,
her stomach felt queasy. She drew her knees to her chest and moaned softly. If this was the effect of too much drink, she must curb her consumption in the future. This was a miserable existence.

Her maid arrived with a tray. After taking a powder tincture for her head and sipping a bit of tea to calm her stomach, Lucy began to feel more the thing. She coddled herself for the rest of the morning, until her indolence began to wear. Late in the afternoon, she dressed and settled at her escritoire. While she had not spoken to any writers at Madame Claremont’s salon, basking in their aura of ennui had made her itch to begin her novel.

Feeling like a genuine artiste, she squared a blank sheet of vellum before her and stared at it.

And stared at it.

Yes, well, she hadn’t thought this would be easy, had she? She had the entire rest of the day to finish the page. Furthermore, if she sat here through tea, she wouldn’t be forced to dodge Trestin’s questions about her embarrassing state of intoxication the night before.

And if she didn’t speak about that, she wouldn’t have to remember her appalling behavior in the hack.

Had she really
kissed
Roman?

Great Zeus, she had. She needed to busy her fingers before they recalled the softness of his hair or the tantalizing, ribbed tautness of his stomach. But it was too late. She did remember his mouth against hers. Hot and desperate. Warning her that all men felt as he did. Wanted as he did.

Wanted
her.

A Novel of Infinite Merit,
she scrawled with shaking hands.
By: A Woman.

There. This could be done. She needn’t waste the day thinking about
him.

Charlotte
Elizabeth
Miranda walked along the creek. She swayed her skirts about her knees and tried not to think too hard on
the arrival of a certain polished man about town
the perfectly pleasant bachelor her father had selected for her. Mr. Pratt

Lucy pulled a face at the thought of the only Mr. Pratt she knew—her dull, married neighbor—then scratched out Pratt, too. At this rate, she’d have fewer words by dinner than she’d drafted in the whole of her day.

After pondering the next sentence until her eyelids drooped, she set her pen alongside the page and went to the window. The busy street churned while her mind scrambled to devise a viable idea for her novel.
A young lady and a handsome viscount. A young lady and a chimney sweep. A young lady and a fisherman. A young lady and a dashing lord.

She almost didn’t hear the knock at her door. She spun just as Carson, her lady’s maid, entered. “Yes?”

“There are
two
gentlemen here to see you, miss! Lord Trestin is beside himself.”

Lucy raised a finger to the very lips Roman’s kiss had seared. “Is one Lord Montborne?” she asked, before she could stop herself.

But of course, if he had come to call, she’d want to know it so she could avoid him, wouldn’t she?

Miss Carson shook her head no. She was only a few years older than Lucy, and her brown eyes sparkled at the thought of not one but two gentlemen callers. “No, miss. I have their cards here. Lord Steepleton and Mr. Tewseybury. They claim to have been introduced at the salon.”

Lucy smiled with relief. Oh! How lovely to have left an impression, even if she didn’t recall
them.
There had been so very many men, and she’d been so very, very drunk. But she longed for friends, so she was delighted to have any callers at all.

Hurrying to her wardrobe, she tugged a shawl around her shoulders and dashed from the room.

“Lord Steepleton and Mr. Tewseybury,” Lucy said, greeting her callers with a welcoming smile and not concerning herself with Trestin’s censorious look. She glanced from one to the other. Yes, these were the men who’d been conversing so emphatically when she’d arrived. She did remember them. “I wasn’t expecting you to find me at home.”

“No one expects the…” Lord Steepleton tugged the sleeves his bottle-green coat, “wholly unexpected.”

It was easy to discern which was the earl and which was the gentleman. With narrow hips and a head of wavy red hair, Lord Steepleton was the dashing opposite of his friend Mr. Tewseybury, who sported plain brown attire and a thin moustache—and trousers. Lucy tried not to stare. She’d never seen loose breeches anywhere but on a fashion plate.

“I hope we aren’t interrupting you,” Mr. Tewseybury said with a brief bow, taking her hand to kiss the air above her knuckles. “We thought you might be game for a stroll in the park. I chew on the end of my pen myself, when I’m not occupied by presswork at W. E. Tewseybury and Company. I know how bottled up one feels when one has spent hours hunched over a page.”

Lucy turned to Trestin. “I’d like that.” A statement, not a question, for asking would have made it seem she needed his permission.

By the deepening of his displeasure, she knew he’d heard her correctly. “That wasn’t part of the agreement.”

“Am I to understand,” Lord Steepleton said, his hands on his hips and his nose in the air as he availed himself of a turn about the room, “that our Miss Lancester may gad about with a known scoundrel at night, but isn’t allowed to join two well-intentioned gentlemen on a walk through the park in the middle of the afternoon?”

“Don’t make trouble, James.” Mr. Tewseybury’s voice was pleasant yet firm.

Trestin stepped closer, into the fray. “Lord Montborne is a family friend.”

“A very
close
family friend,” Lord Steepleton speculated, leaning to inspect a porcelain shepherdess gathering dust on a side table. “Perhaps one you hope will become more like a brother.”

“James!” Mr. Tewseybury scolded. “We are Lord Trestin’s
guests
.”

Two spots of color appeared on Trestin’s cheeks. His hands were fisted at his sides. “Not,” he said through clenched teeth, “anymore.”

“Trestin!” Lucy moved toward Mr. Tewseybury. “He didn’t mean it.”

Lord Steepleton turned his nose up. “I
absolutely
meant it. This explains everything.”

Lucy worried the inside of her lip. One look at Trestin’s black expression and she knew Lord Steepleton had hit upon something he hadn’t meant for her to know. “What could you mean by that, my lord?” she asked.

“Lucy,” Trestin ground out. “Leave it alone.”

“I can’t possibly.” She looked at Lord Steepleton expectantly.

The earl shrugged and crossed his arms. “No lady of good breeding would be entrusted to Lord Montborne’s care, with or without her reputation intact. Therefore, I conclude Lord Trestin desires a match between his uncooperative sister and our errant marquis.”

Lucy turned to her brother, aghast. “Is that true?”

Trestin’s spots of color blanched to an enraged white. “Get out,” he ordered Lord Steepleton.
“Now.”

This time, Lucy was too stunned to protest.

Mr. Tewseybury offered her a sympathetic look as he took his leave. Lord Steepleton sauntered toward the exit without apology.

When they were alone, she turned to her brother. “I don’t believe this!”

A muscle tensed at his jaw.

She pressed the back of her hand against her brow. How mortifying! Trestin was as bad as the determined mamas on the Marriage Mart. Worse, he’d lied to her. “Does Roman
know
?”