Last Dance in London (Rakes on the Run #1) - Sydney Jane Baily Page 0,1
he kept his valuables.
“My lord,” she said, remaining unruffled, a good trait to have when up to mischief. “My apologies. I thought you were an intruder, a rum dubber.”
“Me, a thief?” He lowered his arms.
“Obviously, I was mistaken, sir. Now that I know it is you, I shall return downstairs. The hors-d'oeuvres were excellent, by the way.”
Thinking to escape, Julia headed straight for him. He would have to step aside and let her pass or rudely cause a collision.
In a moment, she bumped against his tall, unyielding form and felt his hands grasp her upper arms while she looked steadily at his black silk cravat. Then she raised her eyes higher.
Zeus’s thighs but he was a handsome devil!
“Why are you in my room?” he asked her once again.
Julia sighed. “You’ve caught me, sir. I sought a token, such as a handkerchief with your monogram upon it to prove to my friends I was really at this esteemed dinner party.”
He frowned. “A husband hunter, trying to trap me?”
A frisson of disgust shivered down her spine. She nearly protested her innocence in that regard. It was, after all, a deplorable practice, designed to gain a fortune or a title while leaving the couple in heinous, hateful wedlock until death did them part.
On the other hand, if she allowed him to believe such, he would usher her from the room swiftly and surely, wanting nothing more to do with her.
“Perhaps,” she said softly. “You are, after all, a coveted morsel of a man.”
“Morsel of a...?” he trailed off. Then, to her surprise, he laughed.
“You are a bold chick-a-biddy, but not the first cunning baggage to try that particular sport.”
“Sport, sir?” She was well-aware he still had a firm grip upon her. In fact, his brown eyes were blazing a trail down her throat to the fashionably low décolletage of her borrowed gown. His gaze lingered on the upper swell of her breasts, before flicking back to her face.
“Husband hunting,” he said succinctly, “and with no weapon needed except your beauty.”
Her beauty? She felt a surge of warmth toward him for paying her the compliment, and found herself not the least put out by his low opinion of her as a fortune hunter.
She shrugged, which caused him to release her. Strangely, the smallest pinprick of disappointment lanced her when he did.
“You ought to take care, Miss...?”
Should she tell him her name? She might as well. After all, she’d come as the guest of another man, so the earl could easily discover her identity.
“Miss Sudbury,” she disclosed. “Lately of London, formerly of Chislehurst.”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said, his gaze now firmly locked on hers, notwithstanding how her feminine curves still tingled where he’d scrutinized them.
“And yet?” she prompted, looking at his mouth. She thought it an attractive one. Lips neither too large, nor too thin. And the way he said the word pleasure actually made her toes curl.
“And yet what, Miss Sudbury?”
Now his gaze was upon her lips, causing her insides to flutter. He smelled good, looked better, and seemed interested in her. These London nobs could make a girl’s head spin.
“You said I ought to take care. Thus, despite any pleasure you may proclaim at meeting me, I fear you are about to issue a caveat or dire warning of some kind. Is that not correct, sir?”
“Yes, I suppose it is. You ought to take care which man’s bedroom you sneak into and certainly at which man you set your cap.”
He stepped closer, lowered his mouth to hers, and claimed a kiss.
She gasped at the unexpected contact and the resulting flush of heat that instantly coursed through her. By opening her mouth, she’d given him access to deepen the kiss, and for a shocking moment, his tongue swept between her lips.
Julia couldn’t deny she enjoyed the brazen, clandestine nature of what they were doing. A tremor of desire wracked her body, even though no other part of him touched her.
When he abandoned her mouth, she opened her eyes and stared into his, feeling out of kilter. The searing kiss had been remarkable for its intensity.
“Yes, as I said, a pleasure,” he quipped, “but also as I warned, you never know when you’ll meet a rake.”
There wasn’t much she could say to that, so she didn’t. He stepped aside, and Julia made her way downstairs on slightly wobbly legs. Her escort for the evening, a viscount’s stodgy son, Mr. Furley, was sipping wine in the drawing room oblivious to her disappearance. Next