The Rake's Wicked Proposal

Grace had no idea how she came to be outside on the terrace with Lord Lucian, when being alone with him again was the last thing she had intended this evening. Although she had to admit that it was far easier to breathe outside than it had been in the overcrowded ballroom, it was an admission she had no intention of sharing with Lord Lucian.

‘Is your sister attending the ball this evening, Lord Lucian?’ She gave a nonchalant flick of her fan as she looked out over the lamplit garden, pretending an interest in Lady Humbers’s pretty herbaceous borders.

Pretending an interest because the truth of the matter was that Grace had been unable to see anything or anyone else but Lord Lucian since he had entered the ballroom half an hour since, his dark hair fashionably tousled, the black evening attire and snowy white linen doing very little to hide the powerful width of his shoulders, muscled chest, and tapered thighs and legs.

Which were not the thoughts of a refined and innocent young lady!

Not that Grace was the only woman to have noticed and enjoyed Lord Lucian’s appearance here this evening, she recalled sourly; women of all ages, it seemed, had turned to look at him appreciatively as he crossed the ballroom with elegance and purpose till he reached Grace’s side, as several of those ladies had continued to watch the two of them together even while they distractedly continued with their own conversations.

‘Arabella?’ Lord Lucian replied with some surprise. ‘No, I believe that she is attending a musical soirée at the Countess of Morefield’s.’

The surprise in his tone at the mention of his sister was enough to tell Grace that as yet he had no idea the two women had already met. ‘Your sister and your aunt were gracious enough to call upon my aunt yesterday morning.’

‘Ah.’

Grace gave him another of those over-sweet smiles. ‘I thought her both charming and beautiful.’

‘Yes, Arabella is both those things,’ Lucian confirmed dryly, aware that his sister was also a lot of other things—including interfering.

His family, as Lucian had predicted, had been delighted by the news of his betrothal. The fact that none of them knew Grace as yet had not seemed in the least important so long as he was embarking on the road to matrimony with someone who was not totally unsuitable—which Grace, as the ward of a duke, was not. But Lucian should have guessed that Arabella, that meddlesome minx, would feel no hesitation in taking matters into her own hands with regard to meeting Lucian’s betrothed once she was safely ensconced in town.

And Grace was as much of a minx.

‘I believe we were talking about your father…?’

‘Were we?’ She flicked him another of those cool glances. ‘I believed that conversation to be over and done with, My Lord.’

Lucian was well enough acquainted with women to know that Grace was still angry with him for his tardiness in not calling upon her and her aunt, and that her anger was hidden—barely—behind a veneer of social politeness. A veneer Lucian had no patience with. He much preferred the Grace of their last meeting, when he had found her bluntness refreshing after the jaded ladies of the ton.

He gave a frustrated sigh. ‘If you have something you wish to say to me, Grace, then I wish you would say it!’

She arched one ebony brow. ‘The weather has been unseasonably oppressive today, has it not? I own, despite the shade of my parasol, that I felt quite fatigued by the heat as my aunt and I walked in the park this afternoon.’

Lucian scowled darkly at her prattling, knowing from their last meeting that Grace was far above such nonsense. ‘I have no more desire to discuss the weather than you do, Grace.’

‘No?’ She maintained that infuriating coolness. ‘Then perhaps the health of your family?’

‘No.’

‘The health of my family?’

‘For the moment—again no!’

She gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘Perhaps it would be as well if you chose the subject of our conversation, My Lord?’

Lucian’s teeth grated together as he clenched his jaw. In truth, he didn’t want to converse at all. He had spent the last ten minutes looking at the grace and beauty of Grace’s delicate profile as she kept her face averted from his: the swan-like arch of her creamy throat, the smooth line of her tiny pointed chin, and those rose-coloured inviting lips. Lips that Lucian felt a strong compulsion to claim with his own…