“Prevailing wisdom can go hang,” he said. “Many mouths speaking the same words doesn’t make it true. Besides,” he added, “sex doesn’t determine one’s intellectual ability any more than one’s preference for eel pie.”
Mr. Walditch shuddered. “Speak no more of eel pie. Even the smell sends me to my bed.”
“There, you see.” Noel nodded at the magnate. “He’s far more intelligent than I am, and cares not for eel pie.”
Lady Whitfield chuckled. “Then I count myself fortunate to be amongst friends. New friends.”
“You and I first met the other day,” he noted, “so we are old friends.” He plucked a glass of sparkling wine from a servant’s tray, then handed it to her. Noel also took a glass for Mr. Walditch and for himself.
Once he’d received his wine, Mr. Walditch bowed and excused himself, leaving Noel alone again with Lady Whitfield.
She took a sip. “I would think you have no shortage of friends—one more might be excessive.”
An easy quip rose to his lips, something charming but without substance. But that wouldn’t be enough. Not for her.
“I’ve no shortage of people eager to tell me, Yes, Your Grace,” he said, his words dry. “And I have an abundance of others that attempt to inveigle me to sponsor a bill, or finance their schemes.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I cannot fathom you.”
“Madam?”
“I do read the papers,” she said wryly. “Accounts of your enjoyment are plentiful. By this point, I’d wager Oxford could ask you to lecture on what it means to be a rake.”
Noel had once spent three days at a house party where he and a lovely, experienced opera singer had circled each other, their conversation ripe with blatant innuendo, her every look in his direction calculated to seduce and enflame him. When they had at last gone to bed together, it had been explosive.
These few minutes with Lady Whitfield enticed him far more.
“Rakes are very learned fellows,” he said.
“But infrequent in their attendance at gatherings such as the Bazaar, where there may not be many opportunities for debauchery.” She tilted her head, regarding him, and the depth of her perceptiveness scoured him. He felt raw, exposed.
The sensation wasn’t unpleasant. It was . . . delicious.
“Which are you, then?” she asked after a moment. “The rake, or the man who carefully considers the basis of his wealth?”
He debated for a moment. With how much of himself could he trust her?
Other than his friends from Eton, he trusted few others. Yet in the short time he’d come to know Lady Whitfield, he found that he wanted to trust her. Her cutting brilliance beguiled him and her warm, sweet scent reminded him of sunlit fields and long summer nights. A scent that was hers alone.
“I will tell you something,” he finally said. “Something few know about me.”
Her brows rose, as if she understood how significant it was that he would consider disclosing a truth to her. She moved her head, presenting him with her ear. “You may whisper it.”
Noel studied the scroll of her ear. They were useful and ordinary things, ears, but hers were beguiling. She wore no earbobs, which was unusual for a genteel woman, and so there were no glittering gems or creamy pearls to snare his attention.
He wanted to be the recipient of her confidences, too, so they both held precious pieces of each other.
“Rakehood is diverting,” he murmured, leaning close. Her sweet fragrance enfolded him. “But it doesn’t nourish my soul.”
“Is that what you seek?” she asked lowly.
“I haven’t formulated the question,” he admitted. “So I cannot know the answer.” He laughed softly. “This isn’t easy—confessing my own uncertainty.”
“When the world knows you as a man of singular influence.” She moved back slightly. “You do burn brightly, but there’s more to you than a merely dazzling gleam in the darkness.”
His breath left him, and for a moment, he was utterly without words—a rarity. He managed to collect himself enough to drawl, “Unjust, madam.”
“Am I?”
He leaned in slightly, shortening the distance between them even more. Her pupils widened, her lips parted—yet not with fear. He did see caution in her gaze, but there was curiosity, too, and the stirrings of attraction.
There was a relief in knowing that he unsettled her as she did him.
“To strip me bare, here, in mixed company, when you keep yourself fully armored.” He took another step closer, and her honeyed scent nearly made him sink to his knees. “I look forward to the next five days, and discovering just who you