Practically Wicked Read Free Page B

being a member of either the demimonde or the beau monde. Or being married to either.” There was a short hesitation before she spoke again. “I want the cottage in the countryside.”
    “Do you? Truly?” He’d never have guessed it. No one who had caught a glimpse of Miss Rees in her exquisite gowns and sparkling jewels, or listened to Mrs. Wrayburn wax lovingly on about her daughter’s adorable demands for exquisite gowns and sparkling jewels, would have entertained the idea for even a moment. Miss Rees was more of an enigma than any of them had realized. “Fascinating. What else do you want?”
    “From my life, do you mean?” One dark brow winged up. “Why on earth would I share my dreams with you?’
    “You just told me of the cottage,” he reminded her. “And I’m not out to have your secrets. Merely your interests. It’s a way to pass the time. Unless you’d care to sit here in silence?”
    “I don’t…” She trailed off, looked away, and was quiet for so long, Max thought perhaps she had chosen to sit in silence after all. Which was all the same to him. There were worse ways to spend the evening than sitting quietly with Miss Anna Rees. He liked looking at her—the high plane of her cheekbones, the soft curve of her jaw. He wanted to reach out and trace the outline of her ear, maybe draw his finger down the length of her pale neck.
    “I want a hound,” Miss Rees said suddenly, and even with the layers of drink blurring his senses, he instantly recognized the twin notes of uncertainty and determination in her voice. It took him a moment more, however, to push through those layers and remember what they’d been talking about.
    “A hound. Right. You want a hound. Like your mother’s pug?”
    “No, not a lapdog. A hound ,” she emphasized with a hint of excitement. “I want a sturdy sort of dog I can stroll with through a forest or have run beside me when I ride. Something not apt to disappear into a well or be trampled under a carriage.”
    He was suddenly reminded of the Newfoundland he’d had as a boy. Brutus. A hulking, slobbering beast of a thing. “I adored that dog.”
    “I’m sorry?”
    He shook his head. “Nothing. Won’t your mother purchase a dog for you?”
    “A town house is no place for a large animal,” she said quietly and began to trace a narrow scratch in the wood of the table with a long, elegant finger.
    “Not some dogs, certainly. But something like one of those spotted coach hounds. They’d be happy chasing you and your mother through Hyde Park.” He couldn’t recall having ever seen the lady at the park, but surely she went out for fresh air now and again.
    “I’ll wait for a cottage.”
    “Why should you?” When she refused to answer, he dipped his head to catch her eye. “Your mother won’t purchase one for you, will she?”
    “It is her home,” she said by way of answer and went back to tracing the scratch.
    “I see,” he said carefully, straightening. Perhaps Mrs. Wrayburn and her daughter were not as close as Mrs. Wrayburn had led others to believe. “I think…You’re not at all what you seem, are you?”
    Her eyes drifted up from the table. “Beg your pardon?”
    “Am I slurring?” he asked and smacked his lips experimentally.
    “Considerably, but it’s the yawning that renders you unintelligible.”
    “Ah.” He closed his eyes briefly and discovered the room still spun around him but at a more reasonable speed than before. “God, I am tired.”
    “Is there no one I could fetch to take you home?”
    The few friends he would trust inside his home were not the sort of men who attended parties thrown by Mrs. Wrayburn. He opened his eyes and gave her what he hoped was a wink but, under the circumstances, might well have been a slow blink. “No one whose company I should enjoy so much as yours. Are you quite certain you won’t marry me?”
    “Yes.”
    “Pity,” he replied and meant it. Once his position as Lord Dane became public