The Sins of Lord Lockwood (Rules for the Reckless #6)(12)

He would not be an Englishman, though. An Englishman would, quite reasonably, expect his wife to spend time in England. Anna had no interest in that. She had refused all encouragement to make her debut in London. What was the point? To make a life in Scotland, she required a Scot.

Moira still looked aghast. “You mean to say that if he approached to ask your hand, you’d refuse him?”

“Precisely,” said Anna. “I congratulate you on your keen wit, Moira.”

“He’s the Earl of Lockwood, coz! You can’t cut him!”

Anna shrugged. “English titles don’t impress me.”

“He owns eighty thousand acres!”

“In England,” said Anna.

“All of it gone to seed,” Helen put in slyly.

Moira bridled. “Is he to blame for that? He only just came into the title.”

Anna smiled. “It rather sounds as though you fancy him.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Moira blushed. “Have you seen him?”

Anna had seen him. Any woman with a pulse had noticed him. He was tall, broad shouldered, with a warm laugh that traveled the length of a room. He had a strong, chiseled face and he waltzed like an athlete. Those long, flying strides had been wasted on his other dance partners tonight, but Anna could have matched him turn for turn.

Alas. “I’ve no interest in jackanapes,” she said.

“Oh ho!” Moira’s voice was growing heated. “And here I thought you were looking for a man with spirit.”

“I’ve no objection to spirit—or gambling, as you say, or wenching, either, as long as the wench is willing. But a man who sets fire to a library?” Anna snorted. “That’s base idiocy at best, wanton malice at worst.”

“Base idiocy,” came a smooth, low voice from behind her. Moira gasped. Anna, looking into her cousin’s reddening face, was left with no doubt as to who owned that voice—which matched his laugh, intriguingly warm and husky, despite the clipped vowels that marred it.

She fanned herself, and did not turn. She did not speak to eavesdroppers. “Fiona, is that genuine ratafia, or did the Davis boys manage to slip in some spice?”

Fiona glanced helplessly from the eavesdropper to her cup. “I—” She cleared her throat, then continued primly, “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”

Anna rolled her eyes. The moment an English title came sniffing about, her friends began to posture like nuns. “I’ll go find out.” She pushed through the others, cutting across the dance floor for the refreshment room.

It did not entirely surprise her to realize that he was following her. From the corner of her vision, she caught Aunt May’s concerned frown: that was her first clue. The second, rather more blunt, was when he caught her elbow in the hall.

As she swung to face him, she stepped backward, freeing herself of his grip and causing her white muslin skirts to bell wide, which in turn left him no choice but to quickly back away from her circumference.

“You’re as rude as a potboy,” she said—rather less crisply than she would have liked, for she was startled to find him laughing at her, his hands raised in mock surrender.

“True,” he said. “What else can one expect from an idiot who sets a library on fire?”

To follow her bespoke a confidence born of arrogance. But to mock himself suggested the opposite quality. The intention to put him in his place briefly wavered. He was very handsome, which counted against him. On the other hand, he could laugh at himself, a rare quality.

“You really did set the Bodleian on fire?”

He gave a rueful tug of his mouth. “If I told you the truth, it would seem like a lie to save face. So I’ll own the sin, and ask you only to believe that if I’d truly intended to burn a book, I would have positioned myself in the Latinate stacks, rather than chemistry.”

Struck, she opened her mouth—then closed it, suspicious. A fortune hunter, indeed. He had done his research on her. “I suppose,” she said dryly, “that you have a passionate interest in the sciences.”

“Not passion, but genuine interest, yes—unsupported by any discipline.” He smiled again. “There: I have confessed my greatest failing.”

He had a dimple in his left cheek, and amber-colored eyes that seemed more alive than other men’s. She found herself avoiding them, lest she surrender to the impulse to stare.

He stepped closer. “I wished to make your acquaintance,” he said. “I suppose you’ve heard so already.”

He was a few inches taller than her. She was not accustomed to being overshadowed, but the temptation to step backward felt too much like retreat. He wore cologne, a rather womanish affectation—but no woman would have chosen such a woodsy, clean scent. She caught herself inhaling, and expelled the breath in annoyance.

“Yes,” she said, “but I barely remarked it. Any number of men ask to make my acquaintance, particularly once they have learned how well I might enrich them.”

His eyes opened wide, and then he laughed again, an open-throated sound of true amusement. “Touché.” He raked a long-fingered hand through his brown hair, leaving the sun-lightened tips standing astray. No pomade—his countrymen would judge him. “You are, indeed, a plainspoken woman.”

“Yes. Worse yet, Lord Lockwood, I speak not only plainly, but as often as I like.”