Tempted By the Night Read Free Page A

subjected to enough afternoon teas and card parties to know better,” she chided. “You have no idea what you’ve gone and done.”
    “Then I will in all haste do something quite despicable to put an end to such nonsense.”
    She laughed. “There, now that’s the cousin I know. Please do, for it gives me such pleasure to listen to all your faults and follies discussed for weeks on end, and all I can do is nod and sympathize over your wasted existence, when I would love nothing more than to tell them all that you are—”
    He came to a blinding halt. “You wouldn’t dare—”
    “You are in a state if you can’t see that I’m teasing,” she said, turning back and catching hold of his arm again. “Really, cousin, there was a time when you weren’t so beetle-headed.”
    “Beetle-headed?” he asked, his brow cocking upward.
    Mary couldn’t help herself, she laughed. “Yes, beetle-headed.” She shook her head and glanced at him. “Whatever is the matter with you? You used to be sodependable. Flirtations with married women, the finest Incomparables, and now you’ve gone quite respectable.”
    “Respectable?” He shook his head. “I think I prefer beetle-headed.”
    “Then you shouldn’t have taken Miss Wilmont to the opera the other week,” she chided. “Really, Rockhurst, whatever possessed you to pluck Charlotte Wilmont out of obscurity?”
    “I don’t know. I’d probably driven past her a hundred times and never noticed her, and then one day, there she was. I couldn’t help myself. Not that she had eyes for me, mind you. Lucky devil, that Trent.”
    “They do suit, don’t they?” Mary sighed, twisting her fan about. “However, the point is that if you insist on escorting proper young ladies to the opera, not to mention arriving here at Almack’s, then you are going to be seen as respectable.”
    He rubbed his chin. “What a devilish trap.”
    “Exactly. I’m still inclined to believe that Trent’s wedding has you thinking of setting up your own nursery. Perhaps that is what I will tell Aunt Routledge when she corners me tomorrow,” she said, her lips twitching.
    “You are an incorrigible chit, Mary. You will do no such thing.”
    His cousin made a very unladylike snort. “Then what do you suggest I say when she calls on me and demands an explanation as to why you were here? For you know she will. She’ll be on my doorstep at some ungodly hour, determined to ferret out the matter so she has the first word on the subject wherever she goes.” When hesaid nothing, Mary groaned. “You’ve put me in a terrible spot,” she complained. “Whatever are you doing here, Rockhurst?”
    “I wish I knew, Mary,” he said, scanning the crowd around them again. “I wish I knew.”
     
    “This has gone on long enough, Quince.”
    The lady in question flinched even as the man she least wanted to discover stepped from the shadows of a curtained alcove. She didn’t need to turn around to see him, she could feel his presence.
    Knew every curve and line on his handsome face.
    And wished she didn’t.
    “Go away, Milton,” she told him. “I’ve got to time this just right if I am too succeed.”
    “If, ” he repeated. “Now isn’t that an interesting turn of phrase. If. Why not say, ‘ When I get your ring.’”
    She turned and glanced at his rich attire—tonight it was a bottle green jacket and tight breeches. The gold trim on his coat glistened in the candlelight. Then again, Milton always chose his clothing to dazzle and disarm.
    And it worked, even on her, even after all these years. Her heart wavered for a second as she marveled at the breadth of his chest, his jewel green eyes, and his long limbs. All of them.
    Until she remembered how and why they were here. That they’d once been happily married, bound together by a ring, until Milton had broken her trust and her faith in him.
    Harrumph. “Don’t you have some young, foolish nymph to seduce?” she asked. “Or have you run