Never Trust a Rake

As she took a chair upon the very front row, Henrietta glanced over her shoulder. Richard, she was certain, would be longing to join the group of men sidling out of the doors. He had no interest in poetry whatsoever, and, by the sound of it, he was about to be treated to several samples of the very worst sort. But from the looks of things, Miss Waverley had no intention of letting him off the leash.

Henrietta unfurled her fan and raised it to her face to conceal her smile, which was bordering on a most unladylike grin. Richard was about to undergo a most fitting punishment. If he’d gone to the bother of offering to escort her anywhere, she would at least have chosen something he might enjoy too. Miss Waverley was too selfish to care whether he liked poetry or not. His purpose was merely to play the part of devoted swain. Which, she reflected with a mental sneer, he did to perfection.

‘Is this seat taken?’

She jolted out of her reverie to see Lord Deben standing before her, indicating the empty chair to her right.

‘No,’ she said, her cheeks burning. It had been almost three weeks since they’d last been together, and yet, because she’d relived that encounter so many times, it felt as though it had happened only yesterday. It was impossible to look him in the face, considering how wantonly she’d behaved. Yet she wanted to look. She’d been so parched of his company she wanted to drink him in. Yet all she dared do, since they were in such a public place, was sip by darting a series of thirsty little glances at him as he took his seat beside her. And when he had done so, his thigh was so close to her own that she could feel the heat from it. For a second, she relived, incredibly vividly, the sensations she’d experienced when that very leg had pinned hers beneath him as he unfastened her bodice. Oh, lord, she hoped nobody could tell that her heart was pounding. And were her cheeks as flushed as they felt? She plied her fan rapidly, hoping against hope to dispel at least some of the heat that was making her face burn.

‘My presence unsettles you,’ he observed.

‘Considering that nearly all the other chairs are as yet unoccupied, everyone must be wondering why you have chosen to sit on the one next to mine.’

‘Obviously,’ he said, draping his arm along the back of her chair, and leaning in to murmur in her ear, ‘I cannot bear to be apart from you one moment longer. Though I have nursed my broken heart in private, I cannot endure not to see you. Though you spurn me, I had to return to your side.’

‘Stop it,’ she hissed out of the corner of her mouth. His voice had shimmied all the way down her spine, making it almost impossible for her not to arch her neck in a silent invitation to him to nip it.

‘I cannot play such games any more,’ she said with a catch in her voice. ‘I told you...’

‘And yet you did not tell me I could not sit beside you. If you will give me such encouragement, you will never shake me off.’

‘As if it would do any good to tell you I didn’t want you to sit next to me. You would have just ignored my objections and sat down anyway.’

‘True. But you could have got up and walked away, quivering with indignation at my temerity. Instead of which, you are darting me hungry little looks out of the corner of your eye.’

Oh lord, she’d forgotten how good he was at interpreting her without her having to say a word. Could he tell that it was taking all her concentration to keep her unruly body in subjection? That she wanted to clamber on to his lap and shower his beloved face with kisses, whilst simultaneously wanting to slap that mocking expression from his face, and scream at him to stop tormenting her?

‘I have good reasons for staying exactly where I am,’ she retorted. ‘And they have nothing to do with you.’

‘You have painted your face,’ he said. ‘In an attempt to replicate the natural bloom I so admired, and which you appear to have lost. Does that mean you have spent some sleepless nights since we last met? Dare I hope it is because you have missed me?’

‘I think you would dare anything.’

‘I have missed you,’ he said silkily. ‘I only returned to town yesterday and have spent most of today discovering where I could find you tonight.’