“The orangery?” he asked, with a wince for his formal attire. A glass room designed to catch the sunlight was not the ideal environment for a well-starched cravat.
“I’m afraid so,” Winston said with a sympathetic smile. “Shall I take your coat?”
“You’d better.”
He found Constance pacing back and forth in the warmest section of the room, clad in a pink gown so voluminous that it swished against the foliage as she walked.
Her brow was dewy with exertion.
She was lovely.
Not lovely, he corrected himself. Sweaty.
He’d spent the day rebuking himself for feeling far too much affection for her after their tender moment in the powder closet. Arriving at Parliament to a sea of disgusted faces and vulgar innuendos had been all the reminder he needed that she was dangerous, however lovely it might feel to make her tremble at his touch. He needed to harden himself to her, or the next month would be an unremitting torture.
Unfortunately the part of him that principally wished to harden at the memory of her shuddering against him was not his heart but, alas, his cock.
And the way she was currently smiling at him, very much like she was remembering too, was not helping.
It was unbecoming of a gentleman to slaver over women who hadn’t asked to be the objects of his fantasies. As a general rule he kept his amatory attentions limited to his compatriots on Charlotte Street, where his lovers did a fair bit of slavering themselves.
But the shock of hunger that had lit up in Constance’s eyes when he’d given her a proper kiss had awoken some primal part of him that could not let the image go. He wanted to see that look again. He wanted to make her shaky with a single word whispered in her ear, or a bold command on a scrap of paper pressed into her hand. He wanted to sit beside her at the opera and make her come without removing a single stitch of clothing.
He wanted her to see him as he truly was. Which was a gentleman, yes.
But one with a preternatural talent for fucking.
Which meant he could look forward to a month of pure frustration. Because outside the orderly arrangements he made on Charlotte Street, gently bred virgins were not fair game for men with any scruples. And he had many, many scruples. Abandoning them would make him exactly as bad as the man he most despised.
“Ah, you’ve arrived,” Constance said, walking toward him. “And you haven’t worn your wig.”
She winked at him. Winked at him.
He blushed, for he had dispensed with his peruke for exactly the reason she intuited: because she preferred him without it.
You have to stop this.
“Come, stroll with me,” she said, offering him a satin-clad arm. “I have excellent news.”
He remained posted by the door, where he might inhale the cool, calming air of the dim marble corridor and not the intoxicating blend of amber and lilac or cedar and tuberose or smoke and bloody lust that seemed to curl around her in a cloud of pure temptation that made him so irritable he wanted to rip out his own hair.
“I’d rather stand where I can breathe,” he demurred. “Why are you marching about in here? You’ll give yourself a fever.”
“I always pace the orangery before the opera. It improves my dull complexion.” She sashayed prettily on her heel and began another lap.
He stopped himself from pointing out that her complexion was luminous, and one could not look at her skin without wanting to stroke it to see if it was indeed as soft as it looked. Which, he now knew, it was.
Stop. It.
“Where are the Rosecrofts?” he asked, trying to keep the edge out of his voice.
“They’ll be down soon. I hoped we might have a brief word alone. You see, I’ve discovered something I suspect might be helpful.” She gave him a mysterious, pregnant smile, like a Madonna in a sacred painting.
“And what is that?”
“A clue to the mystery.” She waggled her eyebrows playfully.
Was she flirting with him?
He wanted to shove his fist into a wall. Why could she not have flirted with him a week ago? Why must she discover a taste for it now, when they were alone, and he was trying his best to remember to loathe her for what she’d done, or at least refrain from picturing her bodice tugged down below her dewy breasts, and failing on both counts?
He steeled his face into a grim line, determined to get hold of himself. “Explain.”
“Well, you see”—she lowered her voice conspiratorially—“I had a fitting at my mantua-maker’s today and made some subtle inquiries, for Valeria Parc dresses all the most scandalous ladies in town. Tell me, have you had any … confidential dealings with an actress at the Theatre Royal?”
Something pinched in his neck.
He had a strong presentiment that wherever she was going with this question would lead to even greater personal risk to his privacy than she’d already created. And what’s more, he did not know how to answer her, for given the nature of his nocturnal activities, he’d known many, many women. And not in such a context where one asked their occupations.
“Not that I recall,” he said brusquely. “Why do you ask?”
She lowered her voice. “Oh, don’t be nervous. It’s quite all right if she’s your mistress. I’m no longer easily shocked where you’re concerned, Lord Bore.”
“What?” he hissed, glancing behind him through the open doors to make sure she had not been overheard. The hall was empty. He strode over to where she stood beneath an orange tree. “I have no mistress. And you should not allude to such things. It’s not appropriate.”
Hypocrite. Stop inhaling her.
She rolled her eyes. “Apthorp, my dear, fretting about what is appropriate between us now is like worrying one does not have one’s parasol whilst drowning in the ocean.”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes, Constance. What is the relevance of the Theatre Royal?”
The teasing lightness left her face, and she straightened her spine.
“I believe the woman who spread the rumors about you might be an actress there. I have yet to find her, but when I do—”
“Don’t,” he cut in sharply.
There were indeed things she might uncover if she went pawing through his past. Things far more ripe for scandal than a peer with a proclivity for whipping. But her learning them would not improve the situation.
She crossed her arms. “Don’t? We agreed I would investigate who exposed you yesterday. With my brother. Don’t you recall?”
“I recall that you exposed me,” he said evenly. “No investigation is required. I implied otherwise to keep Westmead from guessing your involvement. I assumed that was obvious.”
“It most certainly was not,” she said loftily. “After all, I did not invent the rumors about you. I heard them at Lady Palmerston’s. If someone is trying to harm you by spreading tales, we must look into it, lest they imperil our plan. This woman is connected, I’m certain of it. Just leave it to me.”
At her condescending tone, he lost his grasp on civility. “Certain of it, are you? Like you were certain I meant to marry Miss Bastian? Certain I’m a flagellant? Forgive me if my faith in your powers of deduction is not high.”
Injury lit up her face. “I see.”
He cringed for letting his temper get the better of him, but he was right. She was not nearly as omniscient as she believed herself to be, and it offended him to his core that she insisted on meddling in affairs he was perfectly bloody capable of handling himself.