Never Kiss a Rake (Scandal at the House of Russell 1)

Bryony looked down at the Earl of Kilmartyn. He was half on, half off the bed, and she managed to push him onto the mattress with an undignified grunt. The man weighed a ton, for all that he seemed too lean. She stared down at him then, trying to summon the appropriate disgust for an inebriate. She’d seen servants the worse for wear, but never a gentleman, and she had to admit he held his liquor well. Even on the edge of passing out he had barely slurred his words, and it had taken the brightness of his eyes, the deliberateness of his gestures to realize just how drunk he was.

He should have looked revolting, lying there on the bed. Instead he looked beautiful, like a young boy, his overlong hair tousled around his face, the lines momentarily relaxed, the cynical tilt of his mouth softened.

Did you kill my father? she thought, keeping the words silent. Did you betray his trust, rob him blind, and then have him murdered? All for the sake of money? She reached down and brushed the hair away from his face. He didn’t move—she could probably get on the bed and jump up and down on it and he wouldn’t awaken.

She looked at him and tried to summon hatred. Anger, disgust, contempt. All she could feel was sorrow for the darkness that infused him. He looked like a boy, despite the lines around his eyes and mouth, like a man who’d lost his way. And she was being ridiculously romantic. At best he was a drunkard and a lecher. At worst, a man who would betray and murder his friend.

She knew what she wanted the answer to be. She didn’t want this man to have taken everything from her. He was probably like every other aristocrat in London society, interested in women and wine and gaming and little else.

She unfastened his cravat, pulling it loose, then plucked the gold studs from his shirt, placing them on the table beside the bed. As she removed each one the white shirt fell away, exposing his chest, and she stared at it, momentarily mesmerized.

She’d occasionally glimpsed shirtless men—farmworkers at her father’s estate in Somerset. They’d been burly men, covered with hair.

Kilmartyn’s chest was different. His skin was smooth, a white gold, with just a faint tracing of hair. His nipples were dark, flat… and she flushed. Why was she doing this? She’d never even considered nipples before. She removed the last stud, then pulled the shirt free from his trousers. He needed to eat more, she told herself, trying to be professional. He was too thin.

But she could see why one of the most acclaimed beauties of the London season had married him. A woman would throw away almost anything for a man who looked like this, she thought. She found herself reaching out to touch the skin of his stomach, her hand seeming to have a will of its own. His flesh was smooth, warm, alive, and for a moment she let her fingers slide across the skin in an unthinking caress. And then she pulled her hand back as if burned.

Shoes, she told herself, practicality rearing its head. She was hardly going to be rhapsodizing about his toes. She yanked them off, dropping them on the floor, leaving his hose alone. There. He looked as comfortable as he was going to be.

She glanced around the room with a practical eye. The man was clearly drunk, and imbibing too much had certain well-known effects. There was a bowl of fruit, untouched, on a table near the fire. She dumped everything out of it and brought it back to the bed. If he were going to cast up his accounts at least he might manage to use the bowl. It would make cleaning up easier on the servants, and they had far too much to do right now while they were understaffed and trying to catch up with months or perhaps years of neglect.

She took one last look at him, trying to steel herself. He could be the man she hated most in the world, the author of all the pain and sorrow life had visited on her sisters. Instead he looked like a fallen angel, doomed and sad.

If she’d ever managed to conjure up a dream lover he would look like Kilmartyn, with the warm skin and the haunted eyes and beautiful, cynical face.

But she was never going to have a lover, conjured up or real. She was never going to feel the touch of a man’s lips against hers, never feel him cover her in the darkness, take the love and ease she could offer. She couldn’t move, staring down at him. He was drunk. Unconscious. He would never know if she gave in to temptation.

She had kissed her sisters, kissed her father. She had barely spoken to men, living in seclusion as she had. And she would go back into seclusion once she restored her father’s name and his fortune.

But she could take this. No one was watching, he’d said. No spies here. Take just this much, and no one would ever know.

The bed was high, but she was tall, and she pulled herself up to kneel on the mattress. He was breathing softly, steadily, in a drunken stupor, she reminded herself. And she leaned over and pressed her lips against his.

His lips were firm beneath hers, almost as if he wasn’t in a drunken stupor. It must be very close to what a real kiss felt like.

But she’d read more than her share of French novels over the years. She could let her lips trail down the side of his face, nibble at the edge of his mouth. She could taste the smoky flavor of the whiskey, feel the warmth of his breath against her, and she wanted to kiss him again, harder.

For a moment she almost imagined a response, as if he were reaching up for her with only his mouth, and she pulled back in a panic. He lay as he had been, unconscious, unknowing. She scrambled off the bed and practically ran for the door. What an idiot she’d been! He was married, he was the enemy. Why had she risked everything with that one moment?

She closed the door very quietly behind her, even though slamming it wouldn’t have woken the drunken earl, and she moved toward the back stairs. She was exhausted, every bone and muscle of her body aching with weariness, but she had to go back down to the kitchens to ensure everything was finished for the night, everything was set for the morning. Her bed called to her, and she wanted to weep with tiredness.

Squaring her shoulders, she started down the stairs.

Kilmartyn slowly sat up in bed, rubbing his fingers against his mouth, as if he could hold the kiss there. How very odd of Mrs. Greaves. How very delightful of her. He’d had her totally convinced of his inebriation, and he’d felt her hand touch his chest. It had taken all his concentration to lie still, hoping she’d investigate further. The soft, feathering touch of her mouth, with its delightful innocence, was almost obscenely arousing. One shouldn’t lust after an innocent. He’d lifted his hand, prepared to slide it behind her neck and hold her still for a kiss of complexity and desire, but he’d let it drop, continuing on in his feigned stupor. He’d have time. Most clearly he’d have time enough to savor Mrs. Greaves.

Now if only his wife would fall off some convenient cliff.

CHAPTER SIX

HE YAWNED. IT WAS EARLY, far too early to be awake, but Cecily, Countess of Kilmartyn, was at heart a ridiculously provincial woman, despite her aristocratic heritage, and she always wanted him out of the house before the world was up and about. The man calling himself Rufus Brown pulled on his clothes lazily, refusing to be hurried. She looked deliciously sated, as she ought to, and she rolled over to admire him as he dressed. He was an inventive man, and he knew how to keep her enthralled. Obsessed, even.

“I fail to understand, my darling,” he said as he sat down on the bed to finish dressing, “why you’re even interested in what your husband thinks? He couldn’t care less whether I spent the entire day in your bed, or fucked you on the steps of Saint Paul’s. It would be one thing if you were prey to the softer emotions, but you and I both know that neither of us are cap

able of something as maudlin as love. So why do you make such a fuss about the man?”

She looked at him from her dark, sharp eyes. “I despise losing anything I consider my own. Including my husband. Oh, in terms of power I have him where I want him, where any woman should have her husband, firmly under my heel. One misstep and I could crush him, and he knows it, and hates me for it. Which is something I quite enjoy. What I can’t bear is his ability to ignore me.”

“No man could possibly ignore you, my sweet.” Rufus took his cue promptly, wondering how quickly he could escape. “He’s simply pretending he’s indifferent, filling his time with women of no consequence. Have you seen him maintain a mistress for more than a few months? Your husband seems more interested in variety than constancy. And that, my darling, is because he still fancies you.” It was an absurd lie, but Cecily was neither remarkably bright nor terribly observant, and she took it as her due.