Too Wicked to Tame (The Derrings #2)(35)

Her bottom lip quivered ever so slightly. “I’m a guest.”

“Not mine.”

“Back to this again, are we?” she huffed, tossing her hair over one shoulder. Shaking her head as though wearied of him, she went on to say, “I’m here by your grandmother’s invitation. I suggest you accept my presence and learn to be civil.”

He studied her coolly. The insufferable lift of her dark brow aggravated him endlessly. Then she smiled. Twin dimples dented her creamy cheeks—a burst of sunshine lighting the room. He felt that smile like a blow to the gut. Oh, she was dangerous. No doubt she knew the power of that smile. Constance’s words echoed in his head: She’s here for one reason and that’s to make a match. Of course. He mustn’t let her fool him otherwise.

She gestured to the books behind him. “Now,” she began in a very governesslike tone, “do you want my help finding the book? I’ve become well acquainted with your library.”

“If it will get me out of here faster, then by all means.” He stepped back, gesturing for her to search among the shelves.

With a slight tsking sound, she stepped forward, asking starchily, “The title, if you please?”

“Persuasion, by Austen.”

Angling her head, she examined the shelves in front of her. Tapping her lips, she murmured, “I don’t think I’ve seen that one.”

“You hardly looked. The book is here. Grandmother has read it before.”

She slid him an annoyed glance. “As I said, I’ve grown acquainted with your library, and I would have noticed. Look, here’s Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park. Persuasion is not here. Your grandmother must have been mistaken.”

An uneasy feeling began to settle deep in his chest. “You say you’ve been spending most of your time here?”

“Yes.”

The uneasiness spread from his chest to his stomach. “At my grandmother’s encouragement, no doubt.”

Her brows knitted together. “Of course. She saw me venturing in here shortly before you arrived this evening. I confess some embarrassment at being caught in my nightclothes, but she put me at ease and insisted that I stay.”

With a groan, he ran his hands roughly through his hair.



“What? What’s wrong?”

“Cunning old bird,” he muttered, glancing at the door, wondering if she lurked beyond with a parson in tow. “I should have known.”

“You’re not implying—”

“That my grandmother deliberately sent me down here to fetch a book she knew wasn’t here?

Yes.”

Portia gaped.

“She deliberately sent me on a goose chase because she knew you would be here.”

“Deliberately,” she echoed, color flooding her pale face. “Oh, you don’t mean…” her voice faltered.

He nodded grimly. “She is set on the notion of you and me.”

“B-but I told her that we wouldn’t suit—”

“No matter. She went through the trouble of getting you here. She’s not about to give up.” Heath grimaced, imagining such machinations were not about to end. “Of course you could leave. That would put an end to her schemes where you and I are concerned.”

She looked about the room, her gaze sweeping the books in clear longing. “Come now,” she chided. “I don’t need to flee back to Town simply because we may find ourselves alone every now and then. It’s not as if either of us harbors a tendre for the other. Who cares if we’re thrown together on occasion?”

He looked at her sharply, wondering if she mocked him, if she knew how mightily she tempted him. “I care,” he ground out.

“You still don’t think I have designs on you, do you?”

Laughter brimmed in her eyes, and it galled him.

He had desired her since the moment they met, before he even knew her identity. Dare she pretend indifference? He had seen the flare of lust in her eyes at the inn and knew he affected her still.

Foolish as it seemed, he felt the need to prove she was not so immune to him. Perhaps ego drove him, perhaps the madness surfaced at last, whatever the case, he stepped nearer, closing the distance between them until a mere slice of air separated them.

Until he stood so close he could breathe the scent of her: bergamot and lemons.



Her eyes rounded, enormous and blue in her pale face. She jerked back a step and collided with the wall of books at her back.

There was no escape. He knew it. So did she.

“Don’t you?” he asked. “Admit it. You’re here for one reason.”

“No. I am not.” Her voice came quickly, a hushed utterance.

“You’ve no wish to wed me?” he challenged, watching her eyes dilate as he crowded even closer. Her gaze flew over his face, reminding him of a wild bird in flight, afraid to land anywhere for too long.

He trailed his thumb along the downy soft skin of her jaw. “I think you want…something.”

She shook her head fiercely. “I—I have self-control—”

“Is that so?” he asked, seizing her words, the first hint that perhaps she was not immune. “You need self-control around me, then?”

“Yes, n-no,” she stammered, wrenching her gaze away from his face. “I don’t know.”