Never Trust a Rake

And not once, in his entire amatory career, had any woman ever objected to his methods, or his technique. Even the married ones purred that he was a tiger in bed. And when he ended an affair, they had all, without exception, let him know they would welcome him back.

Though, he frowned, none of them had been cut from the same cloth as Miss Gibson. Nor was his interest in her merely sexual and temporary. What he wanted from Miss Gibson was something entirely new. In some indefinable way, he wanted more from her than just her body.

But taking possession of her body was where he was going to start.

‘Well,’ she said impatiently, after he’d been staring at her in complete silence for some minutes, ‘are you going to keep your promise, or not?’

‘Oho, Miss Gibson, that sounds like a challenge.’ He stalked towards her, but instead of taking a seat beside her, he bent and took her hands, tugging her to her feet. ‘Turn around,’ he said, letting go of her hands.

‘What? Why?’

‘Just do it,’ he said, affecting irritation. ‘I need to see what material I have to work with.’

Shooting him just one look loaded with resentment, she turned, then plumped herself back down on the sofa and crossed her arms.

‘Completely graceless.’ He sighed. ‘And far too thin to be fashionable,’ though hers was not the pared-down, weakened frame that poets described as ethereal. She had the whipcord leanness of a girl who led an energetic lifestyle—playing cricket with her brothers, for one thing.

‘The quickest way to make you fashionable would be to procure you vouchers for Almack’s. And attend myself...’ He had never set foot in the marriage mart before, and to do so now would be such singular behaviour that everyone would understand his intent. People were already beginning to speculate about his sudden interest in débutantes. When he began to devote himself entirely to Miss Gibson everyone but she would understand that he’d got her in his sights. It would afford her the kind of protection he would never otherwise be able to provide. Though his own treatment of her from now on must be utterly ruthless, he would make damned sure nobody else dared to so much as look at her sideways.

She was going to be his wife. His countess. Everyone needed to understand that and accord her due respect.

‘If people suspect you are about to become the next Countess of Deben, they will be falling over themselves to win your goodwill,’ he predicted.

It was just typical of her that instead of taking the lure he’d dropped into the conversation, about the potential for gaining a title, she wrinkled her nose, and said, ‘Almack’s? Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Ridiculous?’ Why would she consider going to Almack’s ridiculous? Did she care so little for the superficial glamour of the society in which he moved that she would eschew the highest honour it could bestow on a girl with limited connections?

It would, he saw, take a very, very long time before Miss Gibson ever began to bore him. She was like no other female he’d ever encountered. Every time he thought he’d begun to grasp the essence of her, she’d surprise him all over again. But never in a bad way.

She was, in fact, just like his favourite season of the year, when summer began to ebb away, but winter did not yet hold his estates in the grip of its frosty fingers. When he could never tell, on waking, whether the day would be balmy as June, heavy with fog, or ripped to shreds by a bracing gale. When the undulating hills would flush with a last glorious burst of colour, as though each tree had absorbed every sunset and dawn that had tinted the summer skies, only to flaunt them in defiance of the approaching season of dormancy.

‘In what way? Do you not believe I am capable of procuring you vouchers, perchance? Oh, ye of little faith. I am in possession of a certain piece of information for which Lady Jersey would give her eye teeth...’

‘It isn’t that,’ she said with a touch of impatience. ‘I don’t care how many people offer to procure me vouchers to Almack’s, I shan’t go, and that’s that.’

‘I share your reluctance to set foot in anywhere so stuffy, but, Miss Gibson...’

‘No,’ she repeated firmly. ‘It’s all very well to talk about social advancement, and Aunt Ledbetter agreeing not to stand in my way, but I shall not turn my back on her and my cousin. I will not go anywhere that they will not be received, too. And you know very well they would never admit Mildred.’