How to Woo a Wallflower (Romancing the Rules #3)(76)
“Daughtry and I are meeting with a new printing-press vendor. The man promises his machine is faster and cheaper to operate.” Gabe glanced back at her. “He’s not due until after lunch.” Standing before their closed door, he examined the freshly painted letters of their names. “I like the way the ampersand touches both names, connecting them,” he said.
“I asked him to do that and to add those extra flourishes to the letters.”
He took in the gilded swirls and smiled back at her. “Of course you did.” Turning, he took two long steps to close the space between them. “I’ve never a met a woman less able to avoid a flourish.”
“Is that a complaint?”
“It couldn’t be. I have none where you’re concerned.” Gabe leaned closer, and Clary pushed a palm against his waistcoat.
She’d warned him about being too intimate in the office, especially when the clerks and Daughtry were on-site. But she never chastised him with much vehemence when he crossed the invisible line of propriety.
“Do you know what else I like about our names on the door?” he asked as he nuzzled her cheek.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
He placed a chaste kiss on her cheek and another close to the edge of her mouth. “They are stacked rather suggestively, don’t you think?” Slipping a hand around her waist, he bent her back until she had to reach for his shoulders to keep from tipping.
“You mean, you on top and me underneath you?”
He nodded, drawing his stubbled cheek against hers. “Mmm, precisely.” Straightening to his full height, he cast her a devilish grin. “Though I must admit”—he tightened his hand at her back, pulling her hips snug with his—“I do quite like when you’re on top.”
“Do you?” Clary snaked a finger between the buttons of his shirt to feel his warm skin against hers.
“Tonight,” he said, catching her hand in his and pressing her palm over the spot where his heart beat steady and strong. “I promise to show you just how much.”
Don’t miss any of the Ruthven siblings’ romances in
Christy Carlyle’s Romancing the Rules series!
First up, keep reading for an excerpt to Kit’s story,
RULES FOR A ROGUE
Kit Ruthven’s Rules (for Rogues)
#1 Love freely but guard your heart, no matter how tempting the invader.
#2 Embrace temptation, indulge your sensual impulses, and never apologize.
#3 Scorn rules and do as you please. You are a rogue, after all.
Rules never brought anything but misery to Christopher “Kit” Ruthven. After rebelling against his controlling father and leaving the family’s etiquette empire behind, Kit has been breaking every one imaginable for the past four years. He’s enjoyed London’s sensual pleasures, but he’s failed to achieve the success he craves as London’s premier playwright. When his father dies, Kit returns to the countryside and is forced back into the life he never wanted. Worse, he must face Ophelia Marsden, the woman he left behind years before.
After losing her father, Ophelia has learned to rely on herself. To maintain the family home and support her younger sister, she tutors young girls in deportment and decorum. But her pupils would be scandalized if they knew she was also the author of a guidebook encouraging ladies to embrace their independence.
As Kit rediscovers the life, and the woman, he left behind, Ophelia must choose between the practicalities she never truly believed in, or the love she’s never been able to extinguish.
He always searched for her.
Call it perversity or a reckless brand of tenacity. Heaven knew he’d been accused of both.
Pacing the scuffed wooden floorboards at the edge of the stage, Christopher Ruthven shoved a hand through his black hair and skimmed his dark gaze across each seat in the main theater stalls of Merrick Theater for the woman he needed to forget.
Damn the mad impulse to look for her.
He was a fool to imagine he’d ever find her staring back. The anticipation roiling in his belly should be for the play, not the past.
Finding her would be folly. Considering how they’d parted, the lady would be as likely to lash out as to embrace him with open arms.
But searching for her had become his habit. His ritual.
Other thespians had rituals too. Some refused to eat before a performance. Others feasted like a king. A few repeated incantations, mumbling to themselves when the curtains rose. As the son of a publishing magnate, Kit should have devised his own maxim to repeat, but the time for words was past. He’d written the play, and the first act was about to begin.
Now he only craved a glimpse of Ophelia Marsden.
The four years since he’d last seen her mattered not. Her bright blue eyes, heart-shaped face, and striking red hair had always distinguished her from other women, but Kit knew they were the least of the qualities that set her apart. Clever, stubborn to the core, and overflowing with more spirit than anyone he’d ever known—that’s how he remembered Phee.
But looking for her wasn’t mere folly; it was futile. She wouldn’t come. He, after all, was the man who’d broken her heart.
As stagehands lit the limelights, Kit shaded his eyes from their glare and stepped behind the curtain. The thrumming in his veins was about the play now, the same giddiness he felt before every performance.