Twice Tempted by a Rogue (Stud Club #2)(56)

“I’m counting on it. Because I know your innkeeping aspirations won’t survive a day beyond the borders of this village. Before the night’s out, we’ll be officially engaged.”

There. The battle lines were drawn. They just stood there for a moment, gazing at each other and letting all that pent-up sensual excitement prickle over and around and between them, like electric fluid in a thundercloud.

“This is fun,” he said.

“What is?”

“This.” He gestured into the space between them. “Just this.”

It was fun. It was near-unbearable, the tension between them, and possibly doing irreparable damage to his breeding organs. But it was also wonderful, and something he’d never experienced before. She wanted him, he wanted her, and the air around them just smoked with it. This was the force making him feel so alive, so driven, so directed toward a goal.

Because she was his future. And somewhere, deep down, despite all her protests, she knew it too.

With a dry smile and a mock salute, he turned to leave.

“Rhys?”

He stopped. An absurd hope bloomed in his chest, that maybe she’d finally acknowledge it, give in. The trip to Bath could be their honeymoon.

“Take the hounds with you?” she asked. “I’ll sleep better if I know you’re not alone.”

He nodded and whistled to the dogs. Not quite what he’d been hoping for, but he’d take it. For now.

Chapter Fourteen

“Oh, ma’am. It does look well on you. You’d hardly know it was a strumpet’s gown.” “Are you sure?” Meredith fretted in the predawn darkness, twisting and turning before the mirror. This was the largest looking glass in the inn—the one adorning her finest guest room—and still she couldn’t get a sufficiently reassuring view.

Proper-sized mirrors, she mentally added to her shopping list.

It had been two weeks since Rhys had issued the invitation to Bath. Why had she waited until the last possible moment to pack?

“The color’s lovely,” she said, running her hands over the ruby-red silk. Did genteel women truly wear such colors? “Are you absolutely certain I won’t look like a whore? That wouldn’t do at all.” She threw Cora a guilty look. “That is … I beg your pardon, dear.”

Cora smiled. “No need, Mrs. Maddox. I understand perfectly.”

Did she? Well, in that case, Meredith wished the girl would enlighten her. For she scarcely understood herself at all. Here she was leaving tomorrow morning to travel alone with a gentleman for several days, with the express purpose of making love to him several times, and no intention to allow said activities to culminate in marriage. And she was concerned that a red dress might make her look the tart?

She tugged up on the neckline. “I need a fichu.”

“I don’t think so, ma’am. The cut is not so very low, and your …” The girl’s voice died, and she cleared her throat.

“And I don’t have so very much to put on display.” Meredith smiled, patting her modest bosom. “Of course, you’re right. And you’ve done a fine job with the fitting.”

“There wasn’t much to alter, save the hem. You and the owner had quite similar measurements.”

“This wasn’t your dress, then?”

“Oh, no. I never had anything half so fine.”

“Then where did it come from?”

“When Mr. Bellamy had me staying at the Blue Turtle in Hounslow, there was a lord and his mistress stopping over. Well, the two of them had a noisy row right in the middle of the courtyard, in the wee hours of the morning. He’d cast her out into the cold, then flung her dresses out the window.”

Cora shook her head. “That was the scene that made me realize I never wanted to be any man’s whore again. The lady who owned these dresses, she had what all us girls wanted—a wealthy protector to buy her nice things and treat her well. And still, when he had no more use for her, he cast her out like rubbish. I didn’t want that to ever be me.”

A little smile curved Cora’s lips. “Evidently, the fancy lady had too much pride to pick her garments out of the mud. She simply left them on the ground and ordered her carriage, and that was that. So I gathered them up, brushed out the dirt as best I could. I planned to make them over for myself someday, but they suit you better.” She carefully folded a leaf-green muslin frock edged with ecru lace and laid it in Meredith’s trunk. “There’s this, too, for the daytime. And a traveling cloak.”

Touched, Meredith caught the girl in a warm hug. “Thank you. You’ll have the dresses back, I promise.”

“Well, I did leave the excess inside the seams, just in case,” Cora admitted, reaching to undo the row of tiny closures down the gown’s back.

As Cora helped her change from the red silk gown into her plain, serviceable traveling habit, Meredith drilled the girl on all the details of minding the inn. Where to find the extra stores of Madeira if wealthy guests happened through, how to start watering down the drinks a good hour before closing, and where to find Skinner’s mother if he had one of his bad nights.

“Don’t be so anxious, ma’am,” Cora said, packing away the silk gown. “With Mr. Lane and Darryl and Mrs. Ware all helping, we’ll be fine.”

Meredith wished she could tell her to call on Gideon Myles in an emergency, but she couldn’t trust him anymore. They’d scarcely spoken two words in the weeks since Rhys’s “accident” at the ruins. Much as Meredith hated to believe Gideon was responsible, it was the only explanation that fit.