A Lady's Code of Misconduct (Rules for the Reckless #5)(11)

“Of course, you won’t manage it,” he said. “Need no one and trust no one, Miss Mason. If you follow that law, you may survive.”

“Is that your own law, Mr. Burke?”

He did not like the goading note in her voice. “Make it yours,” he bit out. “Otherwise, someone will come along to smash you like china.”

To his amazement, she suddenly laughed. “In fact, I think it already was my law. Trust nobody, need nobody—yes, that’s a fine way to describe it. But do I truly strike you as fragile, even after tonight? I thought you were more perceptive. What a pity!”

He did not know whence she’d procured her confidence, but it was falsely founded. It would blind her to future dangers.

“Forgive me,” he said sarcastically. “You’re made of steel. Go ahead and prove it, darling.”

He pulled his hand free of hers and tipped up her chin. As he leaned down, her calm fractured; she tried to jerk away.

He gripped her arms ungently to hold her in place. The kiss was a lesson: she had no hope against a stronger opponent.

She smelled of lavender and soap, and her mouth was warm . . . She tried to clamp it shut. He bit her lower lip, then used her indrawn breath to push inside. Her tongue was startled, clumsy. Her shock tasted like barley and hops—some drink at the tavern.

She quivered, a full-bodied tremor, as though in an icy wind. Resentment, hatred, could feel so much like bashfulness. He stroked deeper. Had anyone ever kissed her before? Her rigid grip on his shoulders, an impotent attempt to push him away, suddenly relaxed. For one moment, he felt the curiosity in her lips—fragile, groping, as easily ruined as encouraged.

Then she sagged, becoming a boneless burden in his arms. He was kissing clay.

He eased back, his triumph oddly hollow. He cupped her cheek, stroking to goad her. Her skin was impossibly soft.

Her cheeks felt hot. She was blushing. But she lifted her chin and stared him in the eyes. “Do you feel like a villain?” she asked. “Or do you require more?”

He flinched.

Had this been a lesson to her? Or was it merely an example of commonplace evil? “I . . .” His throat closed on unthinkable words. I am sorry.

For what? He owed her nothing.

He turned her by the shoulders to face the doorway. “Go,” he said roughly.

But she twisted out of his grip and turned back to him, reaching up to seize hold of his face. Surprise made him recoil. “What—”

She went on her tiptoes and smashed her mouth against his.

Astonishment felt so novel. It held him still as she rubbed her mouth against his. She bit his lip, then pushed her tongue into his mouth. Echoing what he had done to her. She mimicked his kiss so expertly that she turned it into mockery. A mockery of him.

He wrested free.

“Forgive me,” she said breathlessly. “I just wanted to see how villainy was done. Child’s play, it seems!”

He groped for a reply but found none. He felt . . . unnerved.

She turned and disappeared into the tunnel. For three long beats, he stared after her, until the whisper of insects, the hiss of the wind, and the pattering of fresh rain called him back to himself.

He turned away, frowning.

He did not like what he did not understand.





CHAPTER THREE





Seven weeks later—January 1860

The ballroom hushed. The violinists lifted their bows. Jane’s cousin settled his meaty hand at her waist and squinted, his pale blue eyes watering in the blaze of the chandeliers overhead. Archibald was not bad looking. His blond hair was thick, his jaw strong. No doubt many of the debutantes would swallow a sigh for his sake.

“Don’t make a hash of it,” he muttered.

And thus came the first words he had spoken to her since their engagement. How her heart fluttered!

Jane offered him a bland smile. She didn’t intend to make a hash just yet. They had come to London for the opening of Parliament, but would stay on through the season. Aunt Mary would not contemplate a wedding anywhere but St. George’s, the most fashionable church in town, and then, too, at the height of the social whirl. That gave Jane three months in which to find some meek-mannered man to elope with.

The strings launched into a rollicking waltz. Her fiancé swung her into movement, and a polite scattering of applause followed their sweep down the floor. In love, a newly engaged girl might relish such attention. Jane struggled not to cringe.

As the first bars of music concluded, other couples joined them on the floor. But in a political crowd like this one, many guests had no interest in dancing. Their attention lay in the hissed gossip of their companions, the looks of their enemies across the room, and in Crispin Burke and Jane’s uncle, who stood together near the stand of ferns that screened off the orchestra. Like magnets, the two men were dragging half the room toward them. It might have been happenstance that so many guests found themselves nearby. But if one squinted, one could make out a rudimentary queue. Guests were lining up to pay obeisance.

Vultures. Jane’s father would have been appalled. Papa had come to politics in midlife, after making an extraordinary fortune in manufacturing. Ideals had driven him. He’d met his constituents in town squares, on street corners, in the shops and factories where they worked. But after his death, when her uncle had stepped into his seat, ordinary constituents had ceased to matter.