The Rake's Wicked Proposal

Grace’s gaze was stricken, completely mortified, as she looked up at Lucian—the man she had allowed to make love to her without a single protest. A man who was indeed a bad influence on her.

Somehow it was all made worse by the fact that either Francis Wynter or her aunt could have so easily walked a little further in this direction and discovered them together.

What had she been thinking? Had she been thinking? No, she had not, Grace accepted miserably even as she sat up to turn away and begin righting her clothes, arranging her camisole over her still sensitised breasts before pulling her gown back into place.

‘Here—let me.’ Lucian pushed her trembling fingers aside as Grace tried unsuccessfully to fasten the buttons at the back of her gown.

‘Thank you.’ Grace waited only long enough for him to deal deftly and quickly with those buttons before getting to her feet, still deeply shaken. Both by Lucian’s lovemaking and their almost-discovery by Francis and the Duchess. ‘We should return to the ballroom—’

‘Grace—’

‘We have no time to discuss this now, My Lord.’ Her eyes flashed a warning in the moonlight as she turned sharply to face him. ‘In fact, I do not believe I ever wish to discuss it. I am mortally ashamed of my behaviour.’ She shook her head self-disgustedly.

Lucian’s gaze frowningly held hers and he took his time before answering, giving his jacket a brief shake before shrugging back into it and straightening the lace cuffs of his shirt. ‘“Mortally” ashamed, Grace?’ he finally repeated dryly. ‘I assure you that you were still some way from that “little death” when we were so rudely interrupted.’

She looked puzzled. ‘“Little death”…?’

What an innocent she was, Lucian acknowledged with grim self-reproach. Of course Grace did not know that the physical release a man and woman could give each other was called a little death. It was cruel of him to tease her when she already looked so devastated by their near discovery.

‘It does not signify for now,’ he dismissed impatiently, and took a light hold of her arm.

‘But—’

‘We should return to the ballroom, Grace. Before your aunt becomes any more distressed by our absence.’

Her aunt had sounded distressed, Grace acknowledged frowningly. But surely the fact that Grace and Lucian were betrothed allowed them a little more freedom in each other’s company than might otherwise have been approved? Not to the point of almost making love together in Lady Humbers’s garden, certainly! But surely enough that they might spend some time together alone without it being cause for gossip?

Although not, Grace felt sure, if they returned into company looking as if they had just been making love together!

Not that Lucian did look like that. His appearance, apart from a more pronounced tousling of his hair, was as impeccable as always. But Grace doubted her own appearance had suffered so little. She was sure that her hair was no longer neatly styled, and her lips were feeling fuller than usual, and her gown was slightly crushed in the front from being crumpled about her waist for so long. She supposed that she should be grateful to Lucian, because by lying upon his coat she had prevented grass stains upon the back of her gown, too!

Grace didn’t feel grateful. She wasn’t quite sure what she did feel. But it wasn’t gratitude.

She would think about it later, once she was alone in her room. For now the two of them really did have to return to the ballroom, and the curious eyes of ‘everyone else’, whom her aunt claimed had noticed their departure together earlier.

‘Let me,’ Lucian said again gruffly, as he saw Grace’s attempts to tidy her hair back into neat curls. His fingers were gentle in contrast to his grim expression as he coiled several of those curls back into place.

Not that the tidying of Grace’s hair was going to stop most of Lady Humbers’s guests—the males in particular—from knowing exactly what had taken place between Lucian and Grace during the last few minutes; her eyes were over-bright, her cheeks were flushed, and her lips had that slightly swollen appearance that came after a woman had been made love to.