He’d come to her to be entertained, not dragged through a gauntlet of his demons. She’d bared his soul enough. It was time to see to the rest of him.
Rand entered. “Yes, madam?”
“I should think we’d be served by now,” she said. “Has something gone wrong?”
Rand’s shoulders straightened. He glanced at Lord Constantine. “My humble apologies. I had one last thing to see to, but ’tis taken care of. Please, proceed into dinner.”
She turned to Con, who had yet to rise. He still appeared deep in thought. “My lord, our dinner awaits us.” She held her hand palm up to him, her fingers stretched toward him. He rose with reluctance. She felt another brick in her defense fall. No one had ever cared what became of her. Especially not with the same fervor he showed for his brother.
She had no doubt in her ability to seduce him. What must she do to bring him to care for her? Was such a feat even possible?
And if it were… Did she truly want to risk her heart that way?
Chapter Nine
HE HAD NO NOTION how she did it. One minute she was sex. The next, she had him verbalizing thoughts he shouldn’t even think. Now she was entertaining him with idle chatter about his friends; no more of the stoic navel-gazing they’d suffered earlier.
In the light of the many candles placed strategically about her dining room, she shined. He wasn’t taken with her, of course. She’d put him off with her bold attempt to take him to her bed. But he could admit her appeal, beyond the obvious. With her many faces and ability to change fluidly between them, she was rather fascinating.
He supposed if he must pay her visits for the next few nights, or however many it took to convince the ton that they were involved, he would at least be amused.
“Lord Hennig was beside himself, you see,” she was saying, her melodious voice an entrancing combination of laughter and promise. “He’d been convinced to that point that Kinsey was going to call their wager off. ‘I’ll not have such a scandal on my head!’ he declared, but of course, no one was listening. He’s something of a windbag.” The soft sound of her chuckle tickled Con’s spine. “Pompous man. But I never thought Kinsey would go through with it, so I paid him little mind, myself.”
Con couldn’t keep himself from leaning forward, though he’d only been listening with half an ear. “If Kinsey meant to climb up to Lady Violet’s window and serenade her with a love song, what possible outcome could there have been but humiliation?” He paused. “The altar, I suppose.”
Candlelight highlighted her aristocratic cheekbones. Her disenchantment with Lord Kinsey was obvious, but her wry smile took the bite out of her words. “And all for a hundred guineas. Who would risk her father’s wrath—the Duke of Avondale, if I must remind you—for pocket change? Men make the most absurd wagers in their cups.”
He liked that she didn’t shy from the topic of gambling, despite his outburst earlier. It was as though she refused to be afraid of offending him.
It wasn’t polite in the least to make light of the issue, but then, she was hardly a lady.
He did find it disconcerting to hear a hundred guineas referred to as pocket change. A hundred guineas would see his mother in a new gown and the servants with extra coin to spend. Or one of his older brothers would think up a more practical use for it. Bart had been going on about a new thresher, and Antony would likely put such a sum toward their stables.
In any event, had Con been given the opportunity to embarrass himself with Lady Violet’s papa for a hundred guineas, he would certainly have jumped at the opportunity, marriage to a duke’s daughter notwithstanding. “How did I never hear of this?” he asked Elizabeth.
She’d been about to pop a piece of carrot in her mouth. She set her fork down and turned to answer him instead, but the damage was already done. He’d seen her. In just that moment when her lips were poised to take the morsel into her mouth, her pink tongue curved slightly to receive it—
Oh, God. He was never going to stop thinking about her and her bed, together. With him in it.
“There was no marriage, as you can have guessed. It was all kept very hushed. I suppose if Viscount Kinsey had been a man of more importance—”
“You