Notorious (Rebels of the Ton #1) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,2
never grows old, does it, Mr. Marlington?”
He chuckled. “I’m a man of simple pleasures.”
Drusilla snorted. His pleasures provided more fodder for ton gossip mills than a dozen young bucks bundled together. If only ten percent of the rumors were true, then his pleasures were anything but simple.
“And I did not organize a prison rebellion.”
“Ah, that’s correct—you merely provided the funding.”
Drusilla sighed. The incident he was referring to had taken place last year, when a group of militant prison reformers used the money she’d given them to provide necessary items for prisoners to stage a gaol protest that led to hundreds of pounds of damage and the escape of four hardened criminals who’d been slated for transportation. It had not been the best of months for her and she’d resolved to donate only to causes she was personally affiliated with, or those advocated by the members of her small, intimate reform group.
She gave him a contemptuous smile. “Surely you can come up with something more recent to irk me about after so many months?”
“Oh, I don’t know, it seems like a rebellion and an escape should be good for more than a few months of irksomeness.” He turned to Eva. “Or is that irkishness?”
Eva chortled. “You’re such a ninny, Gabe.”
“Ninny would not be my first choice of word,” Drusilla muttered.
His eyebrows arched high in mock confusion. “Whatever do you mean, Miss Clare?” He turned to his sister. “Do you know what word she means, Eva?”
“I don’t think you want to know what word she means, Gabe.”
He turned his distracting emerald gaze back to Drusilla, his lips curving in a way that made her breathing hitch. “Oh, but I do. Tell me, what word would you choose for me? Witty? Handsome? Clever?”
“The word I had in mind is hardly the type I wish to use in public, Mr. Marlington.”
His eyes lit up. “Do tell, Miss Clare—where do you prefer to use such low words?” She ignored the question, but he was undeterred. “I must know how a proper young lady like yourself even knows of such words? Please—I am in danger of perishing with curiosity.”
“I’m afraid you must perish.”
He clutched his heart and grinned. “Cruel beauty.”
Any heart palpitations she’d been experiencing from prolonged proximity to him dissipated at his words, which could only have been mockingly meant: Nobody could call her a beauty. Unless they were ridiculing her. Luckily such taunting only served to strengthen her resolve.
“As diverting as it is to contemplate your premature departure”—he laughed but Drusilla continued undaunted—“I’d much rather discuss your week in Newmarket, which—”
“Why, Miss Clare! I’m flattered you noticed how long I was gone and whither I went. It makes me believe you must have missed me.”
“Believe whatever you wish, sir. But also keep in mind that I notice pestilence, famine, and war—but that hardly makes me miss them.”
He threw his head back and laughed, and Drusilla tried not to feel proud but failed.
When he looked at her next, it was with eyes shining with humor and . . . admiration?
“What is the saying of the great English playwright, Miss Clare? “Methinks thou dost protest too much?”
Drusilla goggled in mock amazement. “My goodness, Mr. Marlington—quoting Shakespeare? It appears you did learn something at Oxford besides gambling, pugilism, and cocking.”
“Not true, Miss Clare. I’m afraid any Shakespeare I know I learned from my position in the pit at Drury Lane.”
Drusilla’s face flamed like a torch. Surely he could not be alluding to his notorious exploits with the actresses Giselle Fontenot and Maria Beauchamp?
He winked at her.
Drusilla’s eyes widened; that was exactly what he was alluding to.
His lips curved as he watched her face color and comprehension dawn. His green eyes pierced her protective façade and went straight to her overactive brain, as if he could see the images her imagination provided—images of this gorgeous man cavorting with his two ravishing lovers—and as if he could hear the bubbling caldron of jealousy within her.
Drusilla swallowed and unclenched her teeth, pulling her eyes away from his knowing gaze, ignoring the distracting sensation that pulsed in her belly and lower: a sensation she’d become accustomed to, courtesy of Mr. Marlington.
She looked across the room, searching frantically for something that would free her from his attention and the mortifying reactions it created in her body. Her gaze landed on a vision of blond perfection, and inspiration struck.
“You will be pleased to know Miss Kittridge has been inconsolable in your absence.”
His dark auburn brows arched in surprise, but his gaze was already