Lady Guinevere and the Rogue with a Brogue - Julie Johnstone Page 0,18

now, but Asher would never be soft. He had a ruggedness that no title could hide, and that made him impossibly appealing. She imagined he was quite commanding in the bedchamber.

Oh! She should not be imagining such things. Her cheeks heated as his keenly observant eyes came to her, and for a moment, she was transported back to the night she’d met him. Just as it had been that night, everyone else around them faded away.

She blinked away the past as Kilgore stepped into her and Lilias’s path, causing them to come to a halt.

“Lady Guinevere,” Kilgore said, capturing her gloved hand before she knew his intention. He drew her fingers to his lips and pressed a kiss to the top of her hand while smiling devilishly at her. Yet, his smile did not warm his cool gray eyes. “I’ve missed you,” he added. His voice was so suggestive that she found herself quickly glancing behind him to see if Asher had heard. For an instant, contempt filled Asher’s eyes before he turned from her and began to speak to the man beside him, whom she did not know.

She had the irksome feeling that Asher’s disdain was for her and not Kilgore. How dare he! After how abominably he had once treated her! Did he think somehow less of her because Kilgore’s words suggested some sort of wicked liaison between the two of them? It irked her that unmarried men could behave however they wished, but unmarried women were crucified if they were not always above reproach.

“Dance with me, bean bhàsail.”

Kilgore’s silken voice drew her attention firmly back to him, and there was something lazily seductive in his look. “What did you call me?” she asked.

That seductive look intensified. “Bean bhàsail.”

She frowned. “What language is that?”

Kilgore smirked now. “Gaelic.”

The heat of a blush swept her. Kilgore was teasing her. “How very interesting,” she said, striving to sound bored. “I was not aware that you knew Gaelic.”

Blast the man. Her reaction seemed to amuse him. “There’s much about me you do not know,” he said, “which is why you should dance with me.”

Lilias was still pressed close to Guinevere’s side but released her, as if she thought Guinevere might agree to dance with the man. She scowled at Lilias before frowning up at the black-haired, gray-eyed rogue. She had never understood why he’d pursued her five years ago, and to this day, she still did not know, except perhaps that he saw her as something different to be tried beyond the affairs he was whispered to have.

“I take it our nearness has rendered you unable to speak. I do have that effect,” he said, humor in his low voice.

She tugged her hand away from his grasp. “I’m perfectly capable of speaking.” She infused a tart edge to her voice. “This next set is taken,” she lied, casting a look toward Lord Charolton and Lady Constantine. The rogue still stood in front of her, and though she looked quite bored, she was handing him her dance card. Drat! They needed to move now. “If you’ll excuse me.” She proceeded to sidestep Kilgore, but he surprised her by catching her elbow.

“The next dance, then?” he asked, the corners of his mouth lifting into a smile.

“My lord,” she said, casting a beseeching look at Lilias, who shrugged helplessly. “I hardly think you would wish to waste a dance on me.”

“You could never be a waste, my lady.”

Good heavens! The way he had said my lady made it sound as if they were quite intimate. What would people think? Guinevere would be all the gossip again, which would harm her sisters’ chances at making good matches. She did not believe for one moment that Kilgore wanted to court her.

“Kilgore,” she tried again, starting to feel a sense of desperation as Lord Charolton was now leading Lady Constantine to the dance floor. It could be a catastrophe if Lord Charolton managed to charm Lady Constantine before they could intervene. “Do you not have a particular sort of lady you normally, er, dance with at the start of each Season?”

“I see someone listens to gossip,” he chided, as if she were a naughty miss just out of the nursery. She was awash with guilt. What if gossip had been wrong?

“I apologize if I’ve misjudged you,” she said.

He leaned close, too close for what was proper, and said low, “You did not misjudge me, but I tire of my life, and you are the one woman who has