The Devil Earl (12 page)

The tone that had been lulling Prudence’s mind into dazed submission to his will suddenly struck a false note,
jarring her into alertness.
Beautiful?
She glanced up, disbelieving, into those cloudy gray eyes, expecting mockery, but finding none.

Ravenscar was sincere. His face was taut, his mask gone, and his passions were evident as his black lashes drifted down over the promise of a storm more exhilarating than any she had ever experienced.

Prudence was stunned. No one had ever admired her looks. Nor had she ever begged compliments, and yet when Ravenscar looked at her that way, she almost
felt
beautiful. Licking lips that were inordinately dry, Prudence watched the corner of his mouth tighten in response, and her heart started beating at breakneck speed. Something momentous was going to occur. She could feel it deep in her very bones, and her whole being was singing with anticipation.

Afraid that even an indrawn breath might break the spell that held her in his thrall, Prudence remained still as Ravenscar leaned forward slowly, his wonderful hands reaching toward her. To her great disappointment, his goal was her glasses, and Prudence watched, in astonishment, while he eased them from her face.

“You cannot know how long I have wanted to do that,” he said, in a low drawl that conveyed a multitude of things Prudence did not understand. Why on earth would the man want to remove her spectacles? Holding them in one hand, he lifted the other to her face, his glove smooth against her cheek, his fingers finding the nape of her neck and resting there. Her hair was up, and Prudence could not remember ever being touched in quite that exact spot. She trembled.

Again, Prudence felt as if she had drifted into one of her stories, a helpless heroine caught under the influence of a tantalizing villain. But
this
was reality. The earl of Ravenscar, the man of her dreams, was pressing close to her, and it was more thrilling than any fantasy she had ever imagined. With a small gasp, Prudence lifted a hand to his black locks and urged his head down to hers.

Their lips met. Ravenscar’s were warm and dry and firm, and Prudence, who had never been kissed in her life, thought she just might swoon. Instead, she closed her fist in his hair and hung on for dear life.

His mouth slanted over hers, capturing first one lip and then the other, tasting and tugging in a fashion that Prudence would never have envisioned possible. It was astounding, this intimacy—more exotic and exciting than anything she could ever pen. She was alive for the first time in her life, every inch of her awakening and throbbing for Ravenscar. And then his tongue, warm and moist and exhilarating, touched her.

“Open for me, Prudence,” he muttered. “Dear God, open your mouth and let me inside.” The words were spoken in a rasping voice so unlike Ravenscar’s that Prudence immediately complied, fearful that he might expire without her cooperation.

With a low sound, he sent his tongue into her mouth, twirling and twining and stroking in the most amazing and intoxicating fashion. With her free hand, Prudence grabbed hold of his waistcoat and tried to anchor herself, for she was drifting, soaring up to the clouds on the storm that he had wrought within her.

Just as Prudence felt herself growing dizzy from lack of air, Ravenscar broke away. She lifted her lashes to find him staring down at her with something akin to astonishment. Gazing up at him with a shock that far exceeded his own, she could not decide whether she ought to let go of him or urge him closer.

“Oh, my,” she whispered.

“My thoughts exactly,” he answered. Passion darkened his gaze as his fingers tightened on her and he lowered his head again. Prudence waited, breathlessly, for the touch of his lips on hers. Instead, she heard a grating shout.

“Prudence!” Something about the sound penetrated her senses. She did not care for the voice; it was not Ravenscar’s
deep, tantalizing tone. She liked the interruption even less. She was of half a mind to ignore the call entirely and drag the earl forcibly back to her, but his warmth was already receding, and she opened her eyes to see him standing apart from her, his gloved fingers gone from the nape of her neck, his body no longer looming over her own.

Irritation and disappointment engulfed her as Cousin Hugh charged toward them. Even in the dim light, Prudence could see the red splotches of anger mottling his white face. “Prudence!” he said again, making her very name a rebuke.

“Miss Lancaster had something on her spectacles.” Ravenscar’s low drawl drew her attention to him, and Prudence glanced up to find that the earl had removed a handkerchief from his coat and was calmly cleaning her glasses.

“What?” Hugh exclaimed, apparently stricken nigh speechless by the scene he had just witnessed.

“Miss Lancaster had something on her spectacles,” Ravenscar repeated, pinning Hugh with a gray stare that dared him to argue. Under that hard look, Hugh seemed to squirm and shrink into himself, though his face remained just as red as ever.

“There, Miss Lancaster, I believe that should take care of the problem,” Ravenscar said, turning to her easily, and Prudence wondered whether he was talking about the glasses or about Cousin Hugh’s outrage.

She watched, wide-eyed, as he eased the spectacles back upon her face, gently hooking the earpieces in place. The brush of one of his gloved fingers against the rim of one ear made her tremble, and Prudence saw a brief, answering flicker in Ravenscar’s gray depths before he stepped back.

“Thank you,” Prudence whispered.

“You are very welcome, Miss Lancaster. I was more than happy to assist you. Indeed, please consider myself placed at your disposal,” Ravenscar said.

With a swift glance at the blustering Hugh, he smiled grimly. “I will leave you to your cousin…for now.” Ravenscar invested the innocuous words with all sorts of deeper meanings. Then, with a slight bow and a twist of his firm lips, he left the library.

Prudence stared after him, bemused, until Hugh’s voice broke into her reverie. “Debauchery!” he hissed.

Fighting an urge to put a finger to her swollen lips in delicious remembrance, Prudence stiffened herself to face Hugh, who was glaring after the earl.

“He is a debaucher of women!” Hugh nearly shouted, pointing an accusing finger in Ravenscar’s direction.

“Nonsense,” Prudence said. Calmly gathering her skirts, she walked right past him. “I am afraid you have been reading too many gothic novels, Cousin. You are confusing Ravenscar with the Count, who is but a character in a book.”

Ravenscar, on the other hand, was flesh and blood, and much more exciting.

“D
ebauchery!” Hugh declared again, shaking his fist in the air, as they entered his apartments. He rounded on Prudence when she headed toward the stairs, effectively cutting off any escape to her room, as Mrs. Broadgirdle had done.

“That man is a devil! The Devil Earl I have heard him called, and so he is, Prudence,” Hugh continued, firmly stationed at the foot of the steps.

“Nonsense!” Prudence replied. “The Devil Earl was an appellation given to his ancestor, a wicked pirate who is long dead.”

“Obviously, this…this murderer is living up to his namesake! And I do not care what flummery he spouts about spectacles and such, Ravenscar had designs upon… upon your person!”

Hugh was positively crimson by this time—whether with outrage or mortification, Prudence was not certain—and her total lack of interest in his speech was obviously inflaming him further. She tried to think of something calming to say, but, really, she was too weary. She had yet to become accustomed to town hours, and although Hugh had whisked them away from the soiree immediately following the incident in the library, it was still so late as to be early
morning. Phoebe yawned pointedly, but Hugh was not finished.

“I forbid you to see him again!” he declared suddenly.

Prudence eyed her cousin curiously. Perhaps her years of independence had changed her into an unnatural female, but she had no intention of obeying Hugh, or any other man, for that matter. An image of Ravenscar flitted tantalizingly in the back of her mind, and Prudence decided to reserve judgment. It would depend upon exactly what the man was ordering her to do, she thought, a bit giddily.

Hugh crossed his arms in a petulant pose that reminded Prudence of a small boy determined to have his way. She was sorry to disappoint him, but, in his efforts to protect them, he was going too far. “I am afraid I cannot acquiesce, Hugh,” Prudence replied calmly. “I am in a quest to clear the earl’s name of the inadvertent blight my novel caused, and so I simply must be seen with him.”

“One wonders just how many people saw you in the library, or is the ruination of your reputation part of your plan?” Hugh sputtered.

“Oh, stop it!” Phoebe cried, covering her dainty ears with her gloved hands. “I am sick to death of hearing about that odious man and that ghastly book! What about me? Does no one care what I did this evening?”

“By Jove, yes! What kind of an example are you setting for your sister, Prudence?” Hugh said, refusing to relinquish the subject.

“That is quite enough, Hugh,” Prudence said firmly. All she wanted to do was to fall into bed and dream of Ravenscar, but instead she took Phoebe by the arm and guided her into the drawing room. “Come, Phoebe, tell us your impressions of the soiree.”

Phoebe did not need further urging. “Oh, I met the most charming young man—cousin to the duke of Carlisle, I’ll have you know. He was simply splendid, so handsome and
attentive. I had but to wish for something and it was immediately at hand, an ice or a bit of cake or my fan.”

Phoebe blushed prettily as she rhapsodized about Mr. Darlington—his auburn hair, which was upswept into the latest fashion, his ornate watch fob, and his glittering rings. He sounded to Prudence woefully like a dandy, and try as she might, her attention drifted from Phoebe’s gentleman back to her own.

Hugh, it appeared, from her glance toward him, was of the same mind, for the scowl he had been wearing since they had left Lady Buckingham’s remained fixed upon his pale face, unyielding. Apparently, even Phoebe’s sweet voice could not divert him from his contemplation of the earl.

And so, just as Phoebe predicted, the interest in her own exploits and the well-favored man she had met was less than what she wanted. Everyone, it seemed, thought only of Ravenscar.

After a day of rather childish sulks, Hugh seemed to recover his aplomb, and once again the Lancaster sisters were squired around town, to visit the British Museum, the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. Although Prudence took a writer’s interest in these historically significant sites, Phoebe complained of boredom between flirting with Hugh and looking for famous personages. Her behavior was beginning to annoy Prudence and, Prudence suspected, Hugh, as well.

Luckily, Prudence’s literary achievements were gaining them entree into the social world, and invitations trickled in each day. The difficulty was in accepting them, for Hugh, as he made quite clear, did not approve of the ton in general, and those who pursued Prudence in particular—especially Ravenscar.

So, when the earl sent round a note, Prudence felt, for one giddy moment, like secreting it away. Nonsense! she told herself. She was a grown woman who had been keeping
her own household for years. She had nothing to hide, nor would she be reduced to sneaking around like one of her own heroines, involved in some clandestine affair!

Her decision made, Prudence read Ravenscar’s request for her company without hesitation. Although it was curt and phrased in the earl’s usual arrogant way, his manners did not offend her as Hugh’s might. Prudence stopped to consider this capriciousness, and she came to a very simple conclusion. Ravenscar’s demands mirrored her own, and thus, his high-handed behavior was acceptable. Hugh’s directives, on the other hand, rarely coincided with her own wishes, and so she was forced to assert herself with her cousin.

It was all very simple, Prudence decided. There was really no need to take into account the way the earl’s voice lulled her into acquiescence or the way those stormy eyes of his drew her to him. Or the way the very thought of him stimulated her blood as nothing else, not even Wolfinger itself, ever had.

Grateful that Hugh was not present to see her flushed face, Prudence calmly wrote out a reply for the messenger, agreeing to the outing. But she was not to have her pleasure so easily. Before Ravenscar arrived, Hugh got wind of her plans and made his views known in no uncertain terms.

If Prudence insisted upon keeping company with such a disreputable person, then she must have a chaperone with her at all times, Hugh decreed. Despite Prudence’s claim that she was well-nigh a spinster, her cousin would not be swayed, and, rather than precipitate a full-scale argument, she acquiesced.

Prudence told herself that Mrs. Broadgirdle’s presence, although it might cast a pall upon the day’s mood, could very well be for the best, for as hard as Prudence tried to view her association with Ravenscar in a sober light—as a matter of duty, or mutual interest, or neighborliness—she could not quite forget the way he had put his mouth to hers.

It seemed so strange now, the whole episode in Lady Buckingham’s library having taken on the quality of a dream, as if Prudence had concocted the entire scene for one of her novels. And yet…she had Hugh’s perpetually forbidding expression to remind her that it had been
real.
She, Prudence Lancaster of Cornwall, age twenty-four and firmly on the shelf, had been kissed. And not just by anyone, but by the wickedly attractive earl of Ravenscar. She trembled at the memory.

Although Prudence knew she ought to be appalled or ashamed by her response, instead she felt a wonderful exhilaration, along with a lingering longing. If truth be told, she wanted Ravenscar to kiss her again, which was why Mrs. Broadgirdle was not unwelcome. The chaperone’s watchful eyes might very well prevent Prudence doing something untoward, like throwing her arms around the earl and dragging his mouth down to hers…