Chapter 22
Desire exploded at the instant of contact, shooting like lightning through Robin. He stepped closer, keeping his hands knotted in fists at his sides, wanting more but certain that if he reached for her, she would bolt.
More kisses. That was all he sought. It was hardly anything, nothing at all, really, just . . . everything.
She made some lovely, half-surprised, half-ravished sound, a sigh and gasp all at once, and reached up, steadying herself with a hand flattened against his chest.
He edged closer still, his legs entangling in her heavy skirts, but trying not to startle her. In an effort to restrain himself, he braced his forearm on the wall above her head, angling his own to better access the perfect ripeness of her lips, to flick his tongue along the sweet seam until—mercy!—her mouth opened and her tongue found his own.
He groaned, surrendering to the pleasure of her untutored exploration. For long, glorious moments he kissed her until he felt her hand creep up his chest and she linked her arms around his neck, her fingers sifting through his hair. In reply, his body turned rock-hard. Only a few inches separated her from becoming manifestly aware of his state of arousal. He wanted to kiss her, not shock her. His jaw tightening with frustration, he stepped back, releasing her mouth.
She blinked, startled by his sudden desertion. He looked away, taking a deep, steadying breath. His emotions were chaotic and unfamiliar, an uncomfortable mix of desire and the desire to protect. She shouldn’t be here with him. This was a mistake. A foolish, masochistic indulgence.
“Good heavens, you areadroit at this seduction thing, aren’t you?” she whispered breathlessly.
“You didn’t know? Of course I am. My dear, I am the Prince of Rakes.” He glanced back at her sardonically, the once amusing sobriquet coming like a curse to his lips.
Her arms slipped from around his shoulders. He looked down at her, prepared to offer an arrogant curl of the lip, but the sight of her ruined the attempt. She looked puzzled and somber, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright and unnervingly candid.
“Of course you are,” she said. “I mean, I had heardthat. You do have a far-ranging reputation. But one hears so much about so many people, and then when one meets the individual, one realizes that rumors have simply exaggerated what is, in fact, not all that extraordinary.”
He laughed, startled out of his dark mood. She confounded him, robbed him of his intent, his sangfroid, his reputation. She stripped away all his preconceptions about young ladies, leaving him without a clue to guide him. She fascinated and mystified him. What was she doing? What was she about?
“I see,” he said. “Rather a letdown, am I?”
“Oh no! Not at all. You quiteexceed expectations,” she hastened to reassure him with such artlessness, such solicitous concern for his rakish reputation, that he could not help but laugh again. “I have never been kissed so . . . so convincingly.”
“Now ’tis you who are kind, Lady Cecily,” he said, though something about her use of the word “convincingly” nettled him. She thought he’d been playing a role. In truth, he had never before been so lost in a simple kiss and it annoyed him that she did not realize it.
“But then, perhaps you should ask Miss Marilla’s opinion,” she said. “She may have a different judgment.”
He started and stared, stunned she had alluded to the kiss she’d witnessed. A little ember glowed in the depths of her amber-colored eyes. Jealousy?
Then she smiled at him with such dazzling unaffectedness that his breath caught in his throat and he lifted his hand to touch her, but she’d already turned away and started down the gallery. He hastened to her side, once more offering his arm. She took it with a nonchalance that startled him, coming so close on the heels of their heated kiss. At least, he thought in growing consternation, he’dconsidered it heated . . .
“Truth be told,” she continued as if there had been no break in the conversation, “I don’t know many rakes.”
“I should hope not,” he said, once again caught off-balance by the turn of the conversation. She should be blushing or berating him for taking advantage of her, or perhaps enticing him to try his luck again, responses he was used to and expected. She should notbe acting as if the preceding moments hadn’t happened, as if their kiss were insignificant. It was significant to him!
He’d never been in such a situation before. She had him at sixes and sevens, his assumptions challenged, his body taut with desire, his aplomb all but vanished, and his heart thundering with something that could only be described as a mad craving . . . to touch her, to kiss her.
“In fact,” she went on, “I’ve only known two bona fide rakes: you and a far-removed cousin whose exploits we only speak of sotto voce.”
“Do not tell me there is a rival for my crown?” he said, struggling to match her insouciance. “Surely his reputation does not equal mine?”
“Oh, it is far worse than yours,” she said comfortably. “I have it on good authority—those being the miscreant’s own words—that he has seduced upwards of eighty of the ton’s most well-respected ladies.”
“He toldyou this?” Robin asked, surprised she had been allowed to converse with a known rake, let alone that the conversation had been on such a subject.
“Yes,” she said. “Though not when anyone else was about to hear. Certainly not within earshot of my parents. Oh no,” she said, surprising him by chuckling, “they would not have been happy to hear about thatconversation. Not at all.”
Nor was Robin. Acid-bright jealousy curled in his belly. Had this unknown libertine kissed her? And, afterward, had she been this cavalier?
“No,” she continued, “he waited until he had me all to himself at my parents’ country ball in Surrey last year. They were occupied with greeting their guests when Marmeduke convinced me to walk out onto the terrace with him.”
Marmeduke?She was on such intimate terms with this blackguard she called by his Christian name?
“There was no one else about and he took ruthless advantage of our unexpected privacy.” She darted a glance at him. “I suspect I should have left at once. We were absent from the ballroom for far too long. But his stories were so fascinating that I couldn’t resist staying to listen. I am sure our guests must have begun wondering what had become of us,” she finished.
He doubted this, if only for one compelling reason: had Lady Cecily disappeared onto a terrace with a known debauchee long enough to provoke questions, her reputation would never have survived. Yet, apparently, it had.
He’d made a mistake. He had misjudged her. He’d thought her awake to all suits, an uncommonly sophisticated ingénue, but she seemed as unaware of how close she had skirted disaster as a toddler hurtling by a steep flight of stairs. She was a danger to herself. Someone should have been guarding her reputation, and clearly, no one had been.
Far be it from him to interfere, but he could not allow her to go careering about society with no one to guide or protect her. When her father showed up to collect her, Robin would see to it that they had a chat wherein he outlined the gentleman’s paternal duties for him.
What was he thinking? He wouldn’t behere when her father arrived. But . . . but he could go to London.
Tongues wagged quite freely in London’s less salubrious gentlemen’s clubs during the off-season, when there was little else to do but gossip. As soon as he returned to town, he would find this . . . this Marmeduke and have a conversation with him and make sure that the bastard understood the meaning of discretion. Because while Robin’s reputation for seduction might be exaggerated, his reputation as someone not to be trifled with was not.