Page 12 of Sir Hugo Seeks a Wife
Athene told herself that all those things just put her on the pathway to damnation.She’d spent close to a decade crawling back to something approaching security.She couldn’t risk losing that again.But every second she spent with Sir Hugo made that grim truth harder to cling onto.“I don’t want to inconvenience you.”
“I’m happy to wait.”
“There’s no point.”She hated how panic frayed her voice.
“I’m not sending the bonbons to Lady Petronella.”He settled more deeply into the chair, conveying a silent message that nothing short of an earthquake would shift him.“I’m taking them with me.”
“For when you call on the lady?”
“If you like.”
“It’s more usual to send gifts separate from a call.”
“Perhaps I want to be memorable.”
Athene had a doomed feeling that he was already memorable.She would certainly remember him.In fact, he was sure to infest her dreams.He had last night.She’d woken in a tangle of sheets, wisps of forbidden, sensual images lingering in her mind and her body empty and unfulfilled.
She reminded herself that he sought her assistance in winning another woman.“I’d have thought you’d exhausted your curiosity about my creative processes yesterday.”
“I haven’t even started, Miss de Smith.I’m such a dunderhead when it comes to spinning words together that what you do seems a kind of sorcery.”
She pressed her lips together.Sir Hugo wasn’t going anywhere until he was ready, blast him.It seemed that she had to compose something extolling Lady Petronella under observation again.“Very well.If it will amuse you.”
“A pretty woman bent over her composition and me free to look my fill?Capital entertainment.”
She cast him a glance of dislike.The compliment didn’t please her.“Don’t try and flatter me, sir.”
He folded his arms and sent her a smile of spurious innocence that nonetheless set her stomach coiling tight with longing.By heaven, he was a pleasure to behold.He made every other gentleman in the ton look like a scarecrow.“Wouldn’t dream of it, dear lady.”
The “dear lady” grated.It implied that he cared about her when that couldn’t be the truth.“You should be thinking of Lady Petronella.”
“I find myself…distracted.”
Her eyes narrowed on him, even as the interest that she read in his face made her wanton blood roar like a furnace.“You, sir, are a rogue.”
The accusation left him undaunted.“No more than the next man.”
“Flirting with me while you court another isn’t honorable.”
She wasn’t surprised when no denial emerged.“But you have to admit it’s fun.”
While Athene summoned up a glare, she wasn’t about to enter into an argument.Partly because she feared that she was destined to lose.“Sir Hugo, I believe I must end our association.You seem to imagine that you’re purchasing more than a verse or two.”
The smile faded, and he met her eyes with a sincerity that she knew she couldn’t trust.“No.There you’re wrong.I intend to treat you with every consideration.”
“Then please restrict our interactions to business matters.”
“I am suitably chastened.”
Athene didn’t believe him.Instead, she dipped her pen in the inkpot and struggled to think of something to say about the woman she refused to think of as her rival.“Lady Petronella is a lucky cow” might carry the ring of truth but wouldn’t find favor with either the diamond or her rather nonchalant suitor.Not to mention that Athene wasn’t yet willing to confess the full extent of her jealousy.
Something in her wanted to claim Sir Hugo Brinsmead as hers.But that could never be.
Chapter 4
A cheek of rose and cream
And eyes of softest blue
