Page 9 of Too Wicked for Heaven

“You could proclaim yourself a coward without my staying the night with you,” she said hopefully.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he shook his head. “The bargain is on the table. Take it or leave it.”

She sighed. “No one will ever know? You can keep your servants from talking about it, and you swear not to tell anyone of my presence here?”

“My servants won’t recognize you, I assure you. Nor will I say a word of it to anyone.” That was true. He wouldn’t have to say a word. All he need do was make sure Kensingham found her at Foxworth Manor at the wrong hour.

“Oh, very well,” she snapped. “You give me little choice. I’ll spend the night. But you’ll regret forcing me to do so when you find out how tedious I am.”

He laughed. Infuriating? Perhaps. Maddening? Most assuredly. But one thing he knew she could never be, and that was tedious.

Thank God.

Chapter Three

As she entered Foxworth Manor, Althea realized why she’d agreed to Nev’s preposterous proposal. It hadn’t been his charming but highly suspicious promises not to seduce her. Nor solely to ensure he called off the duel.

No, it had been her perverse curiosity to see whether the teasing, protective young man she’d been infatuated with as a girl had truly become a callous rake or if the accounts of his character had been wildly exaggerated. And walking into the familiar surroundings of a place she’d visited as a child, she felt sure in her heart that the latter was the case.

For some reason, she trusted him. She was probably a fool to do so, but she did. After all, he could have demanded her virtue of her. He could have forced himself on her in the carriage. No one could—or would—have stopped him.

Instead, he’d asked for her company for the evening, and what woman in her right mind could resist an appeal like that? Especially a woman who’d never had someone ask for something as mundane as her company nor gone to such lengths to get it.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

She smiled at the warm solicitude behind the request. “No. I was so nervous about the ball that I didn’t eat all day. Then when I got there, I was so famished, I ate everything in sight.”

He laughed. “You know, you’re the only woman I’ve ever met who’d admit something like that.”

“You’re right,” she said mournfully as the footman took her cloak, and Nev led her down the hall. “I’m always doing and saying improper things. But I can’t help it. I don’t know how to make small talk, and I can’t pretend to like things I don’t. I have a bad habit of speaking my mind.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“The thing is . . . I don’t know how to behave in polite society. My uncle’s fiancée did her best this past summer to teach me how, but after seven years in a bachelor household, I was too woefully ignorant for her tutelage.”

He opened a door and ushered her through it. “I don’t know about that. You handled yourself well on that balcony when any other woman your age would have been blubbering and screaming and making a general fool of herself.”

“Oh, that. Well, that’s different. I do try to keep my wits about me.” She shrugged. “It’s people I don’t know how to deal with. I didn’t handle you very well, did I? That’s why I ended up in this mess.”

“By ‘mess’, I hope you’re referring to the awkward situation with your uncle and not the condition of my study,” he quipped.

She looked up, startled to find that she’d followed him into his study without a thought. A twinge of unease hit her when he closed the door behind her. Then she relaxed. At least he’d brought her to his study and not his bedroom. If anything convinced her of his sincerity, that did.

She surveyed the room as he poured himself a glass of brandy from the decanter on a writing table. Then she laughed. “Believe me, your study is a picture of neatness compared to Uncle Winston’s. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

The room was tastefully decorated with mahogany furniture, and the other furnishings--drapes, rugs, overstuffed sofa, were just rumpled enough to make the room look comfortably male. To her surprise, there were estate ledgers scattered across the desk and other obvious signs that he used the room for more than just a male retreat.

Then again, if memory served her correctly, the marquess had shown interest in his father’s business affairs even before the old marquess had died and left the running of the estates to his son. The present Lord Foxworth might be a rake, but that obviously wasn’t the only facet of his character. And somehow it only enhanced his trustworthiness in her eyes.

Then he began to untie his cravat, renewing all her unease. “Wh-What are you doing?” she blurted out as he slipped off the strip of silk and loosened the neck of his shirt, then tossed the cravat across a chair and removed his coat.

He smiled wide enough to bring out his dimple. “I’m getting comfortable. Surely you’ve seen your uncle do the same.”

She stared in horrified silence, unwilling to tell him that her uncle never so much as wore a banyan in her presence, though he occasionally did it when he was alone with his friends and thought she couldn’t see.

“I’d say that you should get comfortable, too,” he went on. “Loosen your stays. Let down your hair. But since you’d construe that as an attempt at seduction--and you’d be right--I’ll refrain from making that scandalous suggestion.”

When she opened her mouth to retort, he held up a hand. “Look here. I shan’t sit here all night with my neck in a vise. Nor shall I wear my coat and suffer through the suffocating heat that will be necessary to keep you warm in that . . . ah . . . less than adequate gown.”