Last Dance in London (Rakes on the Run #1) - Sydney Jane Baily Page 0,30
before, not a general inquiry into her health. Was she going to play coy? It didn’t suit her, nor would he allow it. Best to get right to the crux of the matter.
“Why were you upstairs last night, in the Chandrons’ private space?”
She looked taken aback, as if not expecting him to question her behavior. In truth, he had no right. It wasn’t his place, but he doubted she had told her sister of such a harrowing scrape. And with her useless chaperone, there was no guarantee it wasn’t going to happen again if she were a careless rattle pate.
“I had a slight tear in the hem of my gown,” she began.
“You nearly had a larger tear,” he reminded her.
She paled at his crude meaning but continued, “Because of my hem, I went to find a maid. Often in the cloakroom or the retiring room, there is a maid to assist.”
“Not upstairs in the private area of the host’s home,” Jasper pointed out.
“True, but I’d been climbing the stairs slowly, appreciating the artwork. I suppose I got distracted. Next thing I knew, I had gone up one floor too many.”
She sounded like a simpleton. Moreover, she must think him to be one as well, to offer him such rubbish.
“And while distracted, you found yourself underneath Chandron on his wife’s bed with his stiff member about to—”
“Stop,” she commanded. “I know where I was and what he was about to do.”
“Did you invite it?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking, hoping he could tell if she was lying. After all, she might have enticed the man, hoping for a token the way she’d asked him in his bedroom, and then with Chandron, it had got out of her control.
“No!” she declared.
He believed her, maybe for his own sake because he didn’t like to think he’d been wrong. Moreover, if she were such a loose cat, he would have been a fool for not taking what she’d seemed willing to give during their private dinner.
“Did you kiss him the way we did when I found you in my bedroom?”
Instead of more color draining away, her cheeks darkened immediately. Surely a blush was a good sign. She still had some sense of decency.
“No,” she said again, more quietly. “He didn’t try.”
“If he had?” Again, Jasper was demanding answers to which he had no right to know.
“It would have been easier to fend him off, I imagine, and then I wouldn’t have ended up in that predicament. Most women know a good thrust to a man’s private area with her knee will unman him long enough so she can escape.”
It was his turn to pale. He didn’t know young ladies knew about such things, but it was good they did, he supposed.
“That knowledge did you no good once you were on your back.”
“True.” She stared at the carpet. “Once he stepped close ... between my legs, I was trapped.”
“That you were,” he agreed, opening his mouth to ask again how she ended up in a bedroom with the lecherous Chandron.
Just as Jasper knew the viscountess was as easily had as Custom House goods — had experienced her first-hand — he and the rest of the ton knew the viscount was a boorish cad. Because of his behavior, he couldn’t keep his female servants, nor a mistress.
“I ought to think about carrying a Queen Anne’s pistol, don’t you think?” Miss Sudbury said, coming a few steps closer before changing course to take a seat.
He gaped at the notion of her with a small weapon that might inadvertently discharge at any moment.
“No, I think you ought to stay with your chaperone or in your dining room chair or on the dance floor. If you hadn’t been roaming the private floors, then you wouldn’t have ended up in such a pucker.”
“That’s true,” she agreed. And she said no more.
“Do you expect me to believe you found something so interesting amongst Chandron’s paltry collection of tepid landscapes that you ended up in his wife’s chamber?” he asked.
“Not at all. He pushed me in there and shut the door. Quite a churl, if I do say so.”
He had the urge to punch the man in the face, and then remembered he’d already done so. If given the opportunity, Jasper would do it again, too.
“A churl seems rather mild. Thank God you screamed. I heard your shout and came running. Yet when I opened the door, at first, I thought it was an honest tupping with a willing woman.”