A Week to Be Wicked (Spindle Cove #2)(31)

“I’m not going to seduce you,” he repeated. “Not tonight, or at all. I just thought I should say that.”

She stared at him.

“I mean what I said, that first night at the castle. About not ruining innocent girls. You see, I have rules.”

“You have rules. For the women you seduce?”

“No, no. For myself.”

“So there’s an . . . an etiquette to raking. Some seducer’s code of honor. Is this what you’re telling me?”

“In a way. You see, your average fellow who merely sets out to bed the girls he fancies . . . well, he wouldn’t need rules, perhaps. But when a man ventures forth with the quite serious goal of never spending a single night alone . . . a set of guidelines just evolves. Believe it or not, I do have some principles.”

“And these rules are . . . ?”

“They start with basic good manners, of course. Saying please and thank you, and adhering to the dictum, Ladies first. I’m not particular about locations, but I do have some prohibitions on ropes and scarves.”

Her jaw dropped. “Ropes and—”

“I have no qualms about tying, but I won’t be tied. Beyond that . . .” He ticked off the limits on his fingers. “No virgins. No prostitutes. No women in dire financial straits. No sisters of former lovers. No mothers of former lov—”

“Mothers?” she squawked.

He shrugged. There was a rather amusing story behind that one.

He said, “Listen, it’s not important that you hear all the rules. The point is that I have some. As I’ve already explained, seducing you would break them. So it’s not going to happen. And I thought it best to broach the topic now, while I’m standing here naked. Because if I brought it up at any other time, you might take offense and assume I’m just not attracted to you.” He indicated his full, turgid, ridiculously optimistic erection. “As you can plainly observe, that’s not the case.”

She went silent for several moments. Observing.

“You were right,” she told his cock. “We do have the oddest conversations.”

He rubbed his face with both hands and released a slow, deep breath. “It’s not too late to save your reputation, you know. I could take you to Bram and Susanna’s town house right now, and you could roll up those sheets and save them. You know, for a man who might be able to fully appreciate . . . the work you put into them. The significance. They’re part of your trousseau. They should be special.”

If they stayed alone in this room—an unmarried gentlewoman and a known rake—it made no difference what they actually did on these embroidered sheets tonight. Even if the linens remained unsullied by their sweat or his seed or her virgin’s blood, they were ruined. When she returned from this adventure unmarried, she would be ruined. Unmarriageable, in good society.

She rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. “It’s done now, isn’t it?”

He pushed aside the surge of guilt, reminding himself this entire trip was her idea, and she knew full well the consequences. She’d literally made her bed, and now she was lying in it. Colin was going to share it with her. That was the bargain.

“I always sleep atop the bedclothes,” he said, sitting down on the mattress edge. “So as long as you stay under them . . .”

“There’ll be something between us.”

Something. Yes. Something with the thickness of a birch leaf.

As he stared up at the ceiling, the memory of her br**sts seemed to hang up there in the dark. Like two round, peachy moons mounted from the rafters, tempting him to touch. To taste. Colin knew better than to stretch a hand toward the mirage, but his gullible c**k strained and arced, ever hopeful.

He shut his eyes and tried to turn his mind to the least arousing things possible. Spiders with hairy legs. Those bumpy, long-necked gourds that made him think of poxy genitalia. Mashed peas. The dust-and-beeswax smell of impossibly old people.

Then an entirely different image bloomed in his mind. One that made him laugh out loud.

“What’s the matter?” She sounded sleepy. He envied her that.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just picturing your mother’s reaction right now.”

Chapter Eight

“Where is that Minerva?” Laying aside her deck of cards, Mrs. Highwood snapped her fingers at one of the Bull and Blossom’s serving girls. “You, there. What is your name again?”

“I’m Pauline, ma’am.”

“Pauline, then. Do dash over to the rooming house and tell my wayward daughter I wish her to join us here at once. At once! Tell her to put aside that scribbling. She’s already missed tea, and dinner. She will take her lesson with Miss Taylor, and then she will serve as our fourth at whist. She will be an obedient daughter, or I will no longer claim her. I will wash my hands of her entirely.”

With a curtsy, Pauline turned to do as she was bid.

Seated beside Charlotte at the pianoforte, Kate Taylor smiled to herself. Of all the hollow threats. She doubted Minerva would feel a single snowflake’s chill of sorrow, should Mrs. Highwood resign her relentless campaign of feminine improvements and give her middle daughter up entirely.

Kate felt a great deal of sympathy for the harangued Misses Highwood—at times, more sympathy than envy, which was saying something. Kate had no family at all, save the circle of female friendship here in Spindle Cove. No home, save for the Queen’s Ruby. She was an orphan, raised on the kindness of anonymous benefactors and educated at Margate School for Girls.