Wicked Beauty (Brazen Bluestockings #3)

Chapter 2: Not This Wife

Adam Warble, the Marquess of Richmond and future Duke of Hoyton did not want a wife. He most certainly did not want this wife.

Yet here he stood in his friend's library, the scent of her lingering on his skin like an accusation. Involuntarily, his gaze sought the woman who had just trapped him in a situation so compromising he could never talk his way out of it.

After finding them in Adam's room, Ravenscroft had hauled them both to the here, making sure no other house guests saw them. Wrapped in her cousin's black dinner jacket, Miss Burton looked small and innocent where she sat on a sofa, her hands resting demurely in her lap, and her chin lowered towards her chest. Only the heightened colour of her cheeks betrayed her true feelings.

She was everything he didn't want in a wife. Beautiful. Opinionated. A mere squire's daughter. Marriage wasn't something he had planned to enter yet, and when he did, he intended to take a bride from a good family that his parents, the duke and duchess, would both approve of. Someone quiet and unassuming. Someone who didn't tempt him.

As vexing as he often found Miss Alice Burton, she was astonishingly beautiful. Even now, dressed in nothing but a white nightgown and her cousin's oversized jacket, with her blonde hair in disarray, she was more beautiful than most. The memory of how she had melted against him only minutes ago stirred something deep inside him. Bloody hell. Why had she trapped him like this?

Many women pursued him in hopes of being the next Duchess of Hoyton, but he had never taken Alice for a title hunter. He was quite certain she didn't even like him. Though her responses to his kisses said otherwise. The way she had moaned when he groped her had been intoxicating. Dangerous.

"Anyone want to tell me what's going on?" Ravenscroft crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the desk standing in front of the tall windows.

Alice's head dipped even lower. If he wasn't so angry, Adam might have felt sorry for her, she was clearly mortified about the situation. Maybe her plan to trap a future duke wasn't as appealing once she had to actually face the disappointment and censure from her cousin.

With a frustrated sigh, Ravenscroft raked his hand through his dark hair. "Damn it all. This is quite the situation you've put me in."

Adam nearly scoffed. Put Ravenscroft in? What about the shit he was in?

"I don't believe there is much to say," he drawled. "You saw what you saw. I can hardly deny it."

"Damn it, Richmond!" Ravenscroft's brown eyes met his, desperation written across his face. "Out of all my friends, I never thought you were the one I had to worry about where Alice was concerned."

And he never would have had to, had she not stolen into Adam's room and practically thrown herself at him. He hadn't known who she was. The voice had been vaguely familiar, but with the affectation to sound seductive and the relative darkness, he had assumed she was a former lover come to see him. He didn't have a lot of them, but there had been a handful that he'd had agreements with in the past. It was something he had always been incredibly careful with, meticulously choosing women who agreed and appreciated his... particular preferences.

"I'm sorry." Alice's quiet words brought his attention back to her. She still stared at her hands in her lap, refusing to look up at them. Did she regret her actions? He doubted it. Once someone set their sights on a man with a title, they rarely gave up their pursuit, especially so close to the finish line. It was more likely she regretted the manner in which she was caught.

He shouldn't have kissed her like that. Like she was someone far more experienced than she was. He was only glad he had not gone further. God knows he would have liked to. She'd ignited a fire in him that still burned darkly in the far recesses of his soul where he hid it away. Maybe she truly did regret her choices. His passion might have overwhelmed someone innocent.