A Week to Be Wicked (Spindle Cove #2)(7)

Until another sound intruded.

Laughter. A woman’s laughter. Trickling down from above, like a cascade of freezing water. A brisk, dousing shock.

Oh God.

“Bloody hell.” He looked up, to the sleeping loft.

Minerva followed his gaze. From behind the draped bed hangings, the unseen woman laughed again. Laughed at her.

Oh God. Oh God.

How could she have been so stupid? Naturally, he wasn’t alone. He’d all but told her as much. He’d taken forever to open the door, but he hadn’t been sleeping. He’d paused first to . . .

To put on trousers.

Oh God oh God oh God.

The whole time. Whoever she was up there, she’d been listening the whole time.

Minerva groped numbly for her cloak, jerking it on with shaking fingers. The fire’s smoky heat was suddenly cloying and thick. Suffocating. She had to leave this place. She was going to be ill.

“Wait,” he said, following her to the door. “It’s not how it looks.”

She cut him a freezing glare.

“Very well, it’s mostly how it looks. But I swear, I’d forgotten she was even here.”

She ceased struggling with the door latch. “And that’s supposed to make me think better of you?”

“No.” He sighed. “It’s supposed to make you think better of you. That’s all I meant. To make you feel better.”

Amazing, then, how with that one remark, he made a mortifying situation thirteen times worse.

“I see. Normally you reserve the insincere compliments for your lovers. But you thought to take on a charity case.” He started to reply, but she cut him off. She glanced up at the loft. “Who is she?”

“Does it matter?”

“Does it matter?” She wrenched the door open. “Good Lord. Are women so interchangeable and faceless to you? You just . . . lose track of them under the bed cushions, like pennies? I can’t believe I—”

A hot tear spilled down her cheek. She hated that tear. Hated that he’d seen it. A man like this wasn’t worth weeping over. It was just . . . for that moment by the fire, after years of being overlooked, she’d finally felt noticed. Appreciated.

Wanted.

And it had all been a lie. A ridiculous, laughable joke.

He pulled on his greatcoat. “Let me see you home, at least.”

“Stay back. Don’t come near me, or my sister.” She held him off with a hand as she backed through the door. “You are the most deceitful, horrid, shameless, contemptible man I have ever had the displeasure to know. How do you sleep at night?”

His reply came just as she banged the door closed.

“I don’t.”

Chapter Two

He didn’t sleep that night.

After Minerva Highwood stormed off into the rain, even a dissolute, soulless rake like Colin couldn’t simply continue where he’d left off. He roused the widow from his bed, put her in her clothes, and saw her back to the village. Once he’d satisfied himself that Minerva had made it home safe—by glimpsing her muddied boots outside the rear door of the rooming house—he returned to his quarters at the castle and uncorked a new bottle of wine.

But he didn’t sleep a wink.

He never did. Not at night, not alone.

God, he hated the country. All the sunshine and sea air in Sussex couldn’t make up for the dark, quiet nights. Lately, Colin thought he’d give his left nipple—bollocks were never up for negotiation—for a decent night’s sleep. Ever since Fiona Lange had left the village, at best he’d been able to cobble together a few hours in the early dawn. For most of the winter, he’d taken to drinking himself into a nightly stupor. But his body, already taxed from lack of rest, was beginning to fray from the volume of liquor required. If he wasn’t careful, he’d become a habitual drunk. He was too young for that, damn it.

So he’d finally given in and accepted the clear invitation Mrs. Ginny Watson’s smiles and cocked hips had been making for some time. He’d resisted the young widow for months now, not wanting to entangle himself with a village resident. But he’d be leaving in a matter of days. Why not make his last few nights bearable? Who could it possibly hurt?

Who, indeed.

In his mind’s eye, he saw Minerva Highwood. That single tear streaking down her face.

Poorly done, Payne. Poorly done.

He should have sent her away at once. He had no intention of marrying Diana Highwood, never had. But Minerva had been cold and wet, in need of some time before the fire. And he’d found it perversely amusing, teasing out her little chain of conclusions to its wild, illogical end.

Of all the mad schemes to propose . . . a fake elopement to win a geology prize? She’d never win any points on elegance. But Colin had to admit, that kind of girl didn’t knock on his door every night.

The worst of it was, that seductive claptrap he’d spooned her . . . it hadn’t all been lies. She wasn’t without her peculiar brand of allure. Her dark hair, when unbound and spilling in heavy waves to her waist, was seduction itself. And her mouth truly did fascinate him. For a sharp-tongued bluestocking, she had the most full, ripe, sultry lips he’d ever seen. Lips copied from some Renaissance master’s Aphrodite. Dark red at the edges, and a paler hue toward the center—like two slices of a ripe plum. Sometimes she caught her lower lip beneath her teeth and worried it, as though savoring some hidden sweetness.