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“I only mentioned one garret.”
“You’re a rake,” she said, annoyed again. “I’m sure the garrets have been multiple. But the same thing does happen to me. I wake up bewildered.”
The admission surprised her. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t have revealed such a thing to James, but the opportunity hadn’t arisen, and so she’d never spoken of the minor disorientations she experienced daily.
She’d lived for so long without fixed address, in hotels, in makeshift camps, in houseboats, in farmhouses, in the mansions of expatriates, politicians, and grandees. Not to mention the cumulative months at sea. The bed was narrow in James’s guest chamber, and all last week, she’d woken expecting the floor to sway.
The rake was still regarding her.
“I very much want to discuss this bewilderment. But something else you said weighs upon me.”
No doubt. She grimaced. “I’m too blunt.”
Her tendency for frank speech got her into trouble. She tried to temper directness with good humor, which softened sharp remarks and reduced insult—sometimes.
Results were mixed.
The rake didn’t look insulted exactly, but his scrutiny had a sharp edge.
“Ignore what I said,” she suggested.
He didn’t. “You called me a rake.”
Drat.
“Yes.” She sighed. “I’m aware.”
He folded his arms. “So. Am I a good rake or a bad rake?”
“I can’t say.” She folded her arms. “The terms want defining. Besides, we’ve established I don’t know you.”
“You know me enough to know I’m a rake.”
It scarcely required pointing out, but…
“You listed a half dozen women in fewer minutes,” she said, “with reference to their beds and knees.”
“In my defense, we’ve also established I was delirious at the time.” He paused. “I referenced a pug as well.”
“You referenced saving a pug. I suppose that makes you a good rake. Unless you perform good deeds to bad ends? That’s not uncommon.”
He shook his head gravely. “Saving a pug is an end in itself.”
Her laughter burst out. It was the deep, loud, grating laughter that her husband, Esmé, used to loathe. But she couldn’t hold back. The rake—good or bad—was powerfully annoying, but there was something disarming about him too. His inflated self-regard had a tongue-in-cheek quality. All told, he seemed a frivolous, harmless young man, whose pretty looks would serve him worse, in the end, than anyone else, providing him with a substitute for character, leaving his inner resources entirely undeveloped. Probably he was rich, and it didn’t matter much one way or another.
He was grinning at her again.
About those pretty looks…
He was attractive as mortal sin, the kind worth the hellfire.
Those other Muriels hadn’t stood a chance.
Thank the Lord, she wasn’t susceptible to rakes, merely intrigued by their ways.
“How would you define good rake?” she asked. “If that’s what you aspire to be.”
“Good rake,” he repeated. Either he shifted forward, or the intensity of his gaze gave the impression of narrowing distance. His face filled her vision.
