The Courtship (Sherbrooke Brides 5)

She knew exactly what he wanted. Knew exactly what he imagined she was thinking. She ran her tongue over her bottom lip. He stared at her tongue, leaning a bit closer to her.

“Don’t do that,” he said, still staring at her mouth. “If you don’t want me to very gently place you on the ground right next to this bench, you will not do that again.”

“Very well. I apologize. You are renowned as a de baucher. You have made love to more women than I have meted out discipline to men. Do you have any bastards, Lord Beecham?”

“No. Not a single one. I would never do that to a woman, to a child, if it happened to survive.”

“I understand it is not always possible to prevent conception no matter how careful the man and woman may be.”

“I am so careful, Miss Mayberry, I would sooner wager that the sun wouldn’t rise than that I would impregnate a woman. You’re doing it again with your tongue.”

He pulled her very gently against him and kissed her. She had been assaulted by a man’s mouth only once since Gerard. No, she wouldn’t think about Gerard. She recalled she had taken a good bite of that gentleman’s tongue, before she hit him in the jaw and knocked him unconscious. But this was gentle, an exploration, a tantalizing invitation. Well, it should be. He was a master at this.

It was he who pulled back from her.

She didn’t want him to stop, but she didn’t try to hold him when he ended it.

“Tell me, Miss Mayberry,” he said in the most delicious dark honey voice she had ever heard in her life, as he lightly rubbed his thumb over her eyebrow, “what is your use for me?”

Helen never lost control. She wasn’t about to now, even though she wanted very much at this moment to hurl him to the ground and kiss him until he was begging.

“Perhaps,” she said, swallowing, “just perhaps I still don’t know you well enough to tell you yet. I am just not certain. There was something else Douglas said about you.”

“And what insult would that be?”

“Not an insult. He said there were shadows in you. He said you had a dark soul.”

He looked away from her as he rose. “Not so dark anymore. Time shifts and blurs and changes things, Miss Mayberry. No, not so very dark anymore. Now, where are you staying? I shall be delighted to see you home.”

“You are angry because I’m not falling all over you immediately.” Helen stood beside him, staring him right in the eye. “It isn’t becoming for a man to get in a snit simply because he does not get his way. It’s childish.”

He laughed, the third time in under two days. Or was it the fourth? He stopped abruptly, touching his fingers to his mouth. He cleared his throat.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, frowning right into her beautiful blue eyes. “Nothing at all. I am not in a snit. You misunderstood. You are a woman. Women frequently misinterpret a man’s silent deliberations.”

She snorted.

“You may look like a goddess, Miss Mayberry, but I assure you I can exist quite well w

ithout you.”

“A goddess?”

“Also women hear only what they wish to hear.”

“You have a point there. Oh yes, my father and I are staying at Grillon’s Hotel.”

He turned around and yelled, “Babcock!”

Leonine Octavius Mayberry, Sixth Viscount Prith, looked down his straight, narrow nose at his only child.

“I have known you all your life. I actually felt you while you were in your mother’s belly. I know all your games—at least I have until now. Tell me why you have invited Lord Beecham—a man of many parts, most of them dangerous—to dinner.”

Helen raised her hand and lightly touched her father’s cheek. “I ordered champagne.”

“At least we will see if the fellow’s a real man. If he desires some of that filthy brandy instead, I will boot him out of here myself.”