If the chit moved a smidge further on her seat to be free of him, she’d fall right on her delectable arse.
Lady Fleur hadn’t just come for a title; she had actual knowledge of books and the bibliophile and book dealer couple, Baron and Baroness Chilton.
“You are a bluestocking,” he said, remarking on the least peculiar thing about the chit.
Fleur gifted him a smile. “I believe the word you seek is ‘well-read.’”
“We are saying the same thing.”
“No, we aren’t.” She lifted shining eyes to his.
“What astrangething you are,” he puzzled aloud. Fascinating. But peculiar.
“Most would choose the word ‘person,’ but given the empty-headed fluff you keep company with, Hartwell, you likely mean ‘woman.’”
She jerked her tapered chin defiantly up.
“…Thank you. One hundred seventy-five is bid…”
“What do you know about the women I keep company with?”
“Who said I was speaking about women?” she rejoined with genuine mirth this time. “I based my deduction on…” She sent a sideways glance Hart’s way. “Well,you.”
The hard stare he gave her would have withered stronger men.
This impertinent baggage yawned.
He wanted to snarl.
She reduced him to a young-lad-like state where he wanted to snatch the pins from her hair and shake her implacable composure. The man he actually was wanted to slide his fingers through her voluminous sun-kissed gold curls and claim her insolent mouth—
The maddening creature craned her head.
“…three hundred guineas…”
Hart gritted his teeth. Curse her. Now she had him imagining that long, slender, delicate neck of hers arched back as he ravaged her lips.
“…For the first time, three hundred guineas…”
The lady tried Hart and tempted him at the same time.
Currently, even more so, with her face entrancingly flushed and putting him in mind of all the things he could do to bring that very same color all over her body.
“…I will ask a second time…”
“Oh, will you just do it already?”
If she were anyone other than a debutante virgin and related through marriage to Hart’s brother, he’d do so happily and wearing the Devil’s own smile as he did.
“…If there are no additional bids. Lord Byron’s Cantos I through III, with the drafted Cantos III through V to be published in the future, to the lady…”
What in hell!
Every attendee present had turned in their seats to get a look at the lady about to win the coveted lot.
Not Hartwell. He looked next to him.
A composed Fleur sat confidently regal and unconcerned by the scandal she had made by bidding on that scandalous collection.
