Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(4)
He was perfect, handsome symmetry: hair the color of mahogany, high cheekbones, sculpted lips, cleft chin…even his philtrum seemed somehow too perfect, stubbled by the shadow of the day’s dark whiskers in an invitation to sin.
For a breathless beat, she imagined pressing her mouth there, in the groove just above his. Those whiskers would be rough to her lips. And she would inevitably slide her lips lower, until their mouths fused. The Duke of Trent would not kiss like a fish or taste of algae. She could tell.
“Why do you seek to ruin yourself, Miss Vanreid?” he demanded, as though he had every right to her answer. “Is there someone in New York you wish to return to?”
She thought fleetingly of Padraig McGuire, the man who oversaw the operations of her father’s factories in New York. She’d cared for him once. Not any longer. Both he and her father had seen to that.
But she allowed nothing of her thoughts to show as she faced the duke with defiance. He was a stranger to her, and he had no right to ask such an intimate question. No right to invade the chamber she’d escaped to, no right to touch her, no right to offer unsolicited advice.
No rights at all. “How dare you presume to ask me such a thing? In your words, Your Grace, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
He sneered, the perfect picture of arrogance. “If there is a young man in New York, you’d do best to forget him. Just as you’d do best to stay away from Bolton.”
Daisy wrenched herself free of his grasp. “While we’re dispensing advice, Duke, you’d do best to stay away from me. I neither need nor want your interference. If you fancy yourself a Galahad, go do it with someone else.”
Without a backward glance, she quit the chamber. After tonight, she had only six days left. Cerberus was at her heels, and she meant to secure her liberty by whatever means possible. The supercilious Duke of Trent could go hang for all she cared.
’d wager everything I have that the chit knows nothing about any Fenian plots,” Sebastian announced to the Duke of Carlisle as they rendezvoused in a private room of their club the next morning. “She’s smarter than she allows others to realize, but her most pressing concern appears to be ruining herself by any means possible.”
And that means last evening had been first the Earl of Bolton and then himself. For a brief, unwanted instant, he recalled the soft feel of her creamy skin beneath his fingertips. The scent of bergamot would forever be tainted by thoughts of a golden-haired American vixen who’d dared him to kiss her.
Blast.
Carlisle took a sip of his steaming coffee and settled the cup back into its saucer before replying. He was a quiet man, brooding by nature, the sort who observed without ever seeming to participate in the world around him. Now his dark, assessing gaze pinned Sebastian to his seat with the cutthroat precision of a dagger. “Since when have you taken to wagering anything, Trent? I didn’t know you to be a gambling man.”
He fought the urge to shift into a more comfortable position. With images of Miss Daisy Vanreid flitting through the corruptible corner of his mind, his trousers had grown deuced tight. “Merely a figure of speech, Carlisle.”
The duke continued his practice of inwardly dissecting the person he engaged in dialogue with. He’d developed a method of studying tone, body language, words, and mannerisms that had half their brothers in arms believing him a mind reader. Sebastian had never found himself on the receiving end of the treatment before, and he had to admit he damn well didn’t like it.
“I dislike figures of speech,” Carlisle said at last. “They have a way of rendering precisely what one intends to say so bloody imprecise. Tell me, what did you learn from her at the Beresford monstrosity?”
He took great care to remain still and keep his expression blank, for as much as he trusted Carlisle and had worked directly beneath him for the past five years, something about the bent of this interview sent misgiving down his spine like a chill. “Nothing of import.”
“Nothing?” Carlisle raised an imperious brow. “I understand you followed her to a chamber during the ball. The two of you remained in the chamber together for eight minutes. Surely a great deal can be said during such a generous span of time.”
The misgiving blossomed in his chest, tight and heavy. Jesus, was he suspect? He hadn’t been compromised. There was no damn reason for Carlisle to have a man following him. “You had someone watching me last night?”
“You know our credo, Trent.” Carlisle’s tone was calm, offhand, as though he described something as inane as a recent visit to the opera. That too was his gift, never allowing anyone to see beneath the masks he presented to the world. “Eyes and ears everywhere.”
Of course he knew the goddamn credo, but he’d believed he was the ears and the eyes. He stiffened before he could check himself. “Ears and eyes on your own men? For what purpose?”
“Only a fool trusts blindly,” Carlisle quipped. “Eight minutes, Trent. Did you spend them wisely?”
No, damn it, he had not. He had lost his footing for a moment—for the first moment in as long as he could recall—and he’d been struck by Miss Vanreid’s undeniable beauty. Not to mention her boldness.
Perhaps you would like a turn.
He still couldn’t believe the minx had uttered those provocative words to him. She’d shocked him. Worse, he had wanted to do as she invited. To kiss that full, pink mouth of hers, yank down her bodice completely to reveal the bounty of her breasts and discover whether or not her nipples matched.