“No?” she asked.
“No.” Then he did allow his eyes to linger on her. “If you mean to shock me, you’ll have to try harder than that.”
She laughed. “Shall I presume, then, you are aware of my reputation?”
“I doubt a soul in England is unaware of your reputation.”
She smiled, delighted. “I hope not. I work so hard to be notorious.”
“Then let me congratulate you on your success.”
“Success is a relative term, Mr. Anderson.” She leaned in and whispered, as though confiding a secret, “I am a rather unpopular figure in most circles.”
That was such a dramatic understatement that she seemed almost demure. He laughed. “I’m aware of some controversy over your views, yes.”
“Oh, the trouble is not simply my views, Mr. Anderson—it is the fact that I live up to them that is the real scandal.”
“Live up to them? You mean you do corrupt susceptible girls and tempt them to a life of sin, like they claim in the papers?”
“No. But I could be called guilty of inviting nice architects to advise me on building costs when advice is not the only thing I’m after.”
This was the moment at which, if he were the decent man he strove to be, he would excuse himself and go running toward the Kestrel.
Instead, he merely tapped his finger on his chin and widened his eyes guilelessly, meeting her pose of innocence. “I see. And what else, precisely, is it that you’re after?”
She leaned forward and smiled the smile of a cat who has cornered a canary. “The same thing I was after when you discovered me undressed in the belvedere.”
He leaned toward her. “And what was that, Miss Arden?” he said, lowering his voice so it was barely louder than a whisper.
“I was expecting a lover. And I mistook you for him.”
He had always been grateful he did not have a complexion built for the rosy flush that stole across the faces of flustered Englishmen in times of embarrassment. Now he realized he had simply never been flustered enough to test it. He felt himself going positively pink.
Pink and also . . . He was grateful for the table, shielding his lap from view.
She rose up from her chair and moved toward him, continuing to talk in a low, throaty voice. “You see, the man I was expecting wasn’t quite up to the task of entertaining me. He was too . . . attached. Disappointing, as I was hoping for congenial company these next few weeks while I’m in Cornwall.”
Did she mean—
She paused and smiled wryly, like they were both above embarrassment in such a moment. “Yes. I mean in bed.”
His throat went completely dry.
“I was wondering if you might wish to join me there,” she added. For a moment her frankness slipped, just a bit, her voice lilting into a telltale softness that revealed this request was not made as flippantly as she implied.
She looked down at her hands, almost as if she felt shy, because she hoped he would say yes. Would be disappointed if he did not say yes.
He felt a sudden wave of tenderness for her—for possessing the bravery to reveal what she wanted so candidly. It made him want to draw her toward him, take her in his arms.
It made him long for some other life in which his answer could be anything but what it must be now.
No.
She must have seen both the hunger and the hesitation written on his face, for her eyes lingered on his, probing. “Ah,” she sighed. “I see. You want to, but you won’t.”
She smiled, as if she knew him, or people like him, and found them cowardly and disappointing. He winced at being recognized for what he was. He found himself disappointing, too.
“You needn’t fear I have designs on you, Mr. Anderson,” she said briskly. “I have no interest in your affections or your purse strings, to be clear, and if it’s my reputation that you fear, please trust that I can be discreet. I’m not looking for a love affair. Just a little bodily amusement with a stranger while we’re both in this forlorn place. No strings. No hearts. No future.”
She ran her eyes from his face down to his shoulders, and then the rest of him, examining his body so precisely that it may as well have been her fingers that ran up and down the length of him.
He felt a surge of desire so sharp to be looked at in this way that he wanted to grab her and place her hands where her eyes trailed, to feel another person’s skin on flesh that had not been touched since—
Since Catriona.
Since his world had fallen apart.
Since he’d bloody let it, indulging just this kind of risk.
Be careful, no more children, she won’t survive it, the physician had warned them.
They hadn’t listened. They’d wanted each other more than they’d wanted to be careful. It had been the greatest mistake he’d ever made.
The reality of his circumstances came surging back.
The two sweet children who were no doubt sitting at home, wondering why he was late for supper.
Their mother, who he’d helped put in her grave.
The armory commission he would never have a chance at winning if the Tories thought he was the type to fraternize with radicals.
A life he could not allow to fall to pieces once again.
He rose abruptly, jostling the table in his rush to get away from here. His voice was ragged when he found it.
“No, Miss Arden. I’m sorry, but no.”
Chapter Four
If fear alone could save us from love, we would all be safe, for the perils are manifold: conception; childbed fever; bastardy; disease; shame; ignominy; exile; destitution; heartbreak.
But is it not human to covet those things that come at the dearest cost?
—An Essay in Defense of Ruined Women by Seraphina Arden, 1793
* * *
“Pardon?” Seraphina said to the large, handsome man scurrying away from her with the alacrity of a crab that had just realized she intended to boil it for supper.
“I’m afraid we have misunderstood each other,” Mr. Anderson said, discomfort straining his features and turning his sculpted cheeks pink. “I cannot do what you suggest.”
Had she misunderstood him? Given the voracious way he’d looked at her a moment ago, she’d assumed he would accede to her suggestion with the same amused smile he had worn in parrying her double entendres.
Few men turned down offers of unattached coupling.
Especially with her.
And yet his face was frozen in a rictus of dismay.
She could not help but be mildly offended by the degree of his apparent horror.
She rolled her eyes. “You needn’t act like I proposed to torture you, Mr. Anderson. A simple ‘no’ will do.”
The glint of alarm in his face softened slightly. Unfortunately, it did not give way to the heat of unrepentant lust. He still held his lovely, broad-shouldered body erect, no doubt poised to leap off the railing and into the overgrown Cornish heath below should she approach him again.
Not that she would. She did have dignity, when she chose to exercise it.
She sat down on a settee and wrapped her shawl around her shoulders. There was no use in looking bare and seductive if he was not interested in amatory company, and it was chilly in the breeze. She shivered, feeling rather low.
Perhaps she had been too quick to dismiss Henri. It was going to be a boring, restless summer after all.