This man’s smile wasn’t a superior smirk. It was subtle and aware, as if he had things planned that anybody would eagerly agree to.
By the strictest societal standards, he wasn’t precisely handsome. It appeared as though he’d broken his nose years ago, and his chin was slightly soft. But he felt utterly confident in his looks. And that translated to an allure that caught every woman’s attention.
When he tipped his hat to a passing woman, she fluttered her eyelashes at him and fussed with her shawl.
They both stopped right in front of the window, and while the glass muffled the sound of their conversation, whatever the gentleman said to her was well-received.
“Damn.” Seb leaned forward. “Can’t hear what he’s saying.”
“It doesn’t matter what the words are,” Rotherby said. “Could be talking about biscuits or quizzing glasses. All that matters is how he’s looking at her.”
“Like she’s the only woman in existence,” Grace murmured.
Rotherby rapped his knuckles on the tabletop. “Exactly so.”
A moment passed, and the man moved on, but the lady remained for a minute, gazing after him wistfully.
“Shouldn’t he have stayed?” Grace asked. “He might have made a conquest.” She shuddered. “Ugh. What a dreadful word.”
Seb shook his head. “As though sex is a battle with one victor and one who’s been defeated.”
“Some rakes will go for the quick seduction,” Rotherby said dismissively. “It’s a false equivalency between the number of women they bed and their value as a man. Selfishness and stupidity, the lot of it. No, a true and good rake promises that every moment with him gives pleasure. Not merely what happens in the bedchamber, but all the moments leading up to it.”
Seb wrote all of this down verbatim. It was all so damned fascinating. “Sex unites mind as well as body.” He’d known this to some extent, but to hear Rotherby, a man who’d had many lovers, express it thusly made it much more clear.
“The power of the imagination,” Grace said with a nod. “Of course.”
She and Seb shared a grin as though they had just discovered how to transform lead into gold. Nothing was better than a discovery. It was almost—but not quite—as good as sex.
Rotherby devoured a small iced cake before dusting crumbs off his hands. “Very good. You’re both learning. Now it’s time to put theory into practice.”
Chapter 7
A light rain began to fall just as Seb climbed into Rotherby’s carriage. He looked over his shoulder, concerned that Grace might get caught in the weather, but she was nowhere to be seen.
“Don’t distress yourself.” Rotherby clapped a hand on Seb’s shoulder. “I saw her get into her own carriage. She got out of the rain just in time.”
“Ah. Good.” Seb exhaled and took the rear-facing seat, while his friend sat opposite him.
Rotherby knocked on the roof of the carriage and a moment later, they were off, heading toward Grace’s home. She’d instructed Rotherby to drive straight back to the stables so he and Seb could enter her home through the back, just in case any inquisitive neighbors caught sight of a ducal carriage outside.
Silence reigned for a few minutes. Thoughts churning like surf, Seb mulled over the lessons Rotherby had imparted back at the tearoom. The role of being a rake—of rakehood itself—seemed to come from within, from the intangible quality of masculine confidence, which was something that couldn’t be taught, only lived and experienced.
Seb had gone to bed with exactly five women in the course of his thirty-four years. His last lover had been the widow of a friend. It had been a comfortable, if not especially passionate, affair. Seb and Mary had amicably ended things three months ago when she’d decided she wanted to look for a new husband—a man who could comfortably support her, since her widow’s portion was a meager one. Knowing that he could not meet her financial expectations, Seb had stopped visiting her bed.
She was engaged now, to a mercer. He and Mary had crossed paths in Kensington, and nodded politely at one another. No tears. No rage or fury. No pleas to resume their affair. It was all quite . . . civil.