A Little Bit Scandalous Page 0,34

the book, say goodnight, and be on her way. Instead, she locked her gaze on him and boldly asked, “Are you and Lady Fairfax having an affair?”

Roe looked up from his desk, then leaned back in his chair, folding his hands over his abdomen. The pose was nothing short of masculine perfection.

She silently cursed her body and its betraying desire.

“We were. Once. But no longer,” he said, his words even, unwavering.

She tried to think of something to say, but merely stood there as the relief washed over her. “She’s quite beautiful.”

Roe nodded. “She is.”

The book she’d come to retrieve was on the bookshelf behind Roe. She could see the reddish leather mocking her. Still, she made no move to claim it. Mathematical treatise could not hold her attention when Roe was near. Her mind barely functioned well enough to hold a conversation, let alone read about the complexities of algebra. “What did she want?” It wasn’t her concern, she knew that. She was nothing to Roe, nothing but a financial burden and he owed her no explanation about anything. Still she was curious.

“Me,” he said with a grin.

I want you, too. But still, his obvious humor in the matter sent another flood of relief through her. If he was still interested in Lady Fairfax, he would not be joking about the matter with her. “I see. Your arrogance knows no bounds, does it?”

He tilted his head as if considering her question. “I don’t believe it does.”

“I came down to borrow a book.” Caroline stood in the same spot, her eyes unable to leave Roe’s face.

“Do you want to play a few hands?” he asked.

“I do,” she said without thinking. They hadn’t played since the night he discovered her disguise, and her hands had been itching to touch the cards, to see the numbers tally in her mind. It would be a good diversion from what her mind was currently considering—all the ways Roe could seduce her. He motioned for her to come forward.

“Pull up that chair.” He indicated the wooden chair that currently sat near the window adjacent to his desk.

She dragged it across the Persian rug and brought it to the edge of his mahogany desk. She would have a difficult time saying no to a game in any circumstances, but this one, here tonight with Roe, it would have been impossible. She had nothing to compete with Lady Fairfax except her skill with cards, something Caroline knew Roe would appreciate and value. So she’d do her best, challenge him, beat him, and then be able to go to bed tonight knowing while she might not be prettiest woman in his life, she was the smartest.

He retrieved a deck of cards from his top drawer and nimbly shuffled them, flipping and fanning them within his hands. He had beautiful hands, large, broad, masculine hands with a light dusting of hair on each knuckle, and neat, manicured nails. Hands that had touched her throat and her face when he’d kissed her.

She felt her cheeks warm and knew they likely burned red. She looked down, inspected her own hands, which she’d never felt were particularly feminine because her fingers were long and narrow. Her own nails were blunt and jagged from her bed habit of picking at them when she was nervous. She remembered, when she’d been very young, her mother had told her that her hands were that of a pianist. Caroline had tried to play sometime after that, but she’d never been particularly musical.

“I met someone tonight.” Caroline hadn’t intended to bring up Penelope so abruptly. Still, her curiosity seemed to know no bounds.

“Yes, the American fellow, I saw.”

Caroline frowned. “No, not Mr. Bishop, although I suppose I met him as well. No, I meant I’d met someone you knew. Penelope, or I should probably refer to her as Lady Granger, though she introduced herself with her Christian name.”

Roe stiffened and the cards in his hand stilled, but it was so brief a moment that had she not been studying him, she would likely have missed it. “Yes, I do know Lady Granger.”

“Of course you do. You were betrothed to her once?”

He met her gaze. “No, we were never officially betrothed. I realized things would not work out between the two of us and we parted ways. It was for the best, as she’d already fallen in love with Lord Granger. They married shortly thereafter.”

Was that jealousy or hurt she heard in his voice? It was hard to tell,