The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)(50)

For the scheme Helena had enlisted his aid in, he didn’t give a bloody jot that she couldn’t paint or ride. He did, however, for entirely selfish, roguish reasons, ones that had absolutely nothing to do with said scheme, very well care that the lady could not dance.

Robert’s body immediately hardened with her barely there utterance, conjuring all manner of wicked deeds he’d delight in teaching the lady.

Her breathy utterance raised remembrances of the feel of her body flush to his, the crimson hew of her nipples. The breathy moans of her desire.

A groan escaped him.

“Are you all right?” She creased her brow.

No. “Yes,” he managed, his voice garbled. “Surely the duke has hired private dance masters.”

“Three.”

He cocked his head.

She held up three fingers. “He’s hired three of them. In a month’s time. They’ve proven remarkably . . . unhelpful.”

In an attempt to not smile, Robert schooled his features. “And you expect I should have the skill to . . .” He lowered his head closer to her ear. “Teach you?”

Helena snorted. “No. I do think given the need to put your hands on my body in a specific way that I’d be better served by your instruction.”

Robert tamped down a groan as the sound of her hushed contralto unwittingly drew forth wicked images of her on her back, arms extended up toward him, while he worshiped her generous mouth. He shook his head. What a sin that he’d not recalled that night with her in the Hell and Sin Club. With fate mocking him all the more for that failing, the lady folded her arms before her, plumping her small breasts, and bringing his gaze to her modest décolletage as another hot wave of desire filled him. Had he truly found her . . . less than pretty? How, when she was . . . ? He gave his head another hard shake.

The lady made an impatient sound, and tapped her slipper on the marble floor, that gesture faintly muted by the strands of the orchestra. “You won’t, then?”

What in blazes was she running on about? Given the hard look she leveled on him, she expected some response.

“Teach me?” she said slowly, as though instructing a slow-to-comprehend child.

How had the tables been so flipped that she should be perfectly composed while he lusted over her less-than-abundant décolletage? “You wish me to provide dance lessons?” he asked gruffly.

The lady was safer with a knife in her hands than she was with seductive words on her lips. Understanding lit her eyes. “Ah, I see.” Apparently she’d little need for his involvement in the discussion.

“Just what do you see, Miss Banbury?” he said, his voice garbled. The roguish part of him longed to know precisely what wicked suggestions would tumble forth from her lips.

“Is it that you have a problem being alone with me?” Given their first two encounters, when she’d first tried to gut him, and then unman him with her foot, followed by their third encounter, where she’d called into question his honor, he really should have all number of reservations in being alone with this woman from the Hell and Sin Club.

“I assure you, I’ve no worry over being alone with you.” He infused as much sardonicism into that handful of words as he was able.

Her eyebrows dipped, as she took a pugnacious step closer. “Then I expect a rogue such as you can bring himself around to touch me enough for your sufficient lesson.” She wrinkled her nose. “Particularly as you were able to bring yourself to do so in my chambers. Then there was the fact that you were foxed, so perhaps it was that, hmm?”

Understanding dawned.

The lady believed he didn’t wish to dance with her. He ran his gaze over her sharp features, and the mark upon her cheek. The world was on the whole a merciless place. What was that world to a woman who wore scars upon her skin, and called a gaming hell home? “You misunderstand, Helena.”

He may as well have presented her an unsolvable word riddle for the befuddlement in her expression. “I do?”

Something tugged at his heart, an organ he’d long believed incapable of feeling anything for anyone beyond his family. “Quite the opposite, love,” he murmured. “I am looking forward to the opportunity to properly . . . touch you.”

As her eyes formed round moons, and her breath hitched noisily, another surge of masculine triumph gripped him. For her flippant words, desire fairly seeped from her tall, lithe frame. Then all hint of passion receded. She squinted up at him. “Are you making light of me?” she demanded.

“I’ve well learned the perils in crossing you, madam,” he assured her with a dry twist of his lips. Some of the tautness left her narrow shoulders and as she held his gaze, something passed between them. Something indefinable. Some peculiar connection that came in mention of that first exchange that had temporarily changed the course of her life.

God help him, with a sea of the ton’s leading lords and ladies, he was going to kiss her. In a rash moment of madness, he didn’t give a bloody hell who saw it . . .

“Robert, there you are!”

Robert silently cursed as fate tested the veracity of that previous silent thought. He spun toward that excited voice belonging to his sister. He quickly positioned himself between Beatrice and Helena.

Tamping down frustration at having his interlude with Miss Helena Banbury interrupted, Robert greeted his ever-smiling sister. “Beatrice.”