Days of Rakes and Roses Read Free Page B

breathtakingly attractive than she remembered. All this time she’d told herself she’d idealized his looks. It turned out she’d hardly done him justice. Tall. Lean. Tanned with exposure to foreign suns. His once flaxen hair now a rich bronze.
    He arched a mocking eyebrow at her. His long, thin mouth curled with a sardonic amusement alien to the pretty youth with whom she’d been so head over heels in love.
    She stiffened with resentment. After all this time, he had no right to inspect her as if she was a sugarplum ready for devouring. Dear heaven, no man had surveyed the Duke of Sedgemoor’s straitlaced sister with such blatant sexual interest since…
    Since Simon himself had forsaken her for the excitements of his European wanderings, God rot him. Still, her skin tingled with a sensual response unacceptable in a woman due to marry another man in a fortnight.
    Anger came to her rescue and allowed her to sound composed as she curtsied and extended her hand. “Mr. Metcalf. I’d hardly have known you.”
    If he was half as perceptive as his younger self, he’d surely guess that she lied, although he bowed with a surprising smoothness of address. Young Simon had been charming, but even after Oxford, scarcely practiced in social niceties. Through their gloves, his touch seared.
    “Lady Lydia,” he said neutrally.
    How irritating. How lowering. This encounter with the girl he’d once pursued apparently left Simon completely unaffected. Lydia heartily wished she could say the same, but she’d be boiled in oil before she betrayed how her blood pulsed with exhilaration. An exhilaration she hadn’t felt since he’d kissed her in her father’s hayshed.
    He held her hand a fraction longer than decorum permitted. She was proud of how she drew free without snatching away as instinct urged. She was desperate to counter his assurance with coolness of her own. Her pride would countenance nothing less. “I’m delighted that you’ve returned to England in time for my bridal ball.”
    Ah, not quite so superior now. His dark blue eyes flashed in response to the veiled barb in her comment. “How could I stay away after reading Cam’s letter telling me you were engaged?”
    “Easily, I imagine,” she snapped, then glanced swiftly at her fiancé. But Grenville focused on haranguing Cam about some political matter, leaving her isolated with Simon in strangely public intimacy. Grenville clearly felt her reunion with a childhood friend sanctioned by her illustrious brother merited no special attention.
    Grenville had no reason to doubt her constancy. Her steady temperament was famous. It had been one of the qualities he’d extolled in his proposal. Even at the time, that had pricked at her vanity. Steadiness of temperament made her sound like a well-bred horse, not a woman capable of tormenting a man with desire.
    But of course, she’d never been that woman, had she? The one occasion when she’d believed a man’s heart beat faster for her, he’d disappeared from her life.
    “You haven’t changed a bit,” Simon said without emphasis.
    She didn’t take that as a compliment, given how silly she’d once been over him. Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, yes, I have.”
    She studied his face, seeking clues to his intentions. Just how had Cam lured Simon home from his exotic pleasures? Her brother must have been persuasive. As far as she knew, Simon hadn’t communicated with their family since the late duke had threatened him with ruin.
    Now she thought about it, Cam’s purpose in making mischief was transparent enough. He considered Sir Grenville Berwick a self-righteous prig and he’d frequently verged on quarreling with her over her choice of husband. Winkling Simon away from the fleshpots must be a last-ditch attempt to make her cry off her engagement. Surely her brother knew her better. She loathed the thought of setting tongues wagging, as she would if she jilted a good man in favor of a rapscallion whose name was a byword