Regency Rogues: Wicked Seduction: Her Enemy at the Altar / That Despicable Rogue. Virginia Heath
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СКАЧАТЬ with as much fake dignity as she could muster. Lost for any suitable words, she stalked towards the door and yanked it open. She could still hear his deep chuckle after she slammed it shut behind her.

      Constance did not blush prettily, Aaron realised. She positively glowed with abject mortification. Every inch of her visible, milky white skin had turned a most florid shade of pink. Two circular crimson spots had formed on her cheeks, as if they had been painted on with a brush, and her delicate, swanlike neck was covered in angry blotches. And with her vivid red hair already escaping the confines of its pins, tiny strands floated around her head like sparks rising from a bonfire. She had managed to create an entire spectrum of red above her neck in just a few seconds. Aaron had never seen anything quite like it.

      She certainly had not looked anything like the ice maiden he had taken his vows next to or the firebrand he had fought with last night. Nor had she sounded like one. The woman who had just stormed out of his bedchamber was a completely different Constance altogether and one he doubted many people had ever seen. Rumpled, flummoxed, innocent Connie was a delight and Aaron could not help wondering if she blushed all the way down those glorious long legs of hers to the tips of her toes. Now that was a blush he would pay good money to see. To think he had brought about such an unexpected transformation just by attempting to take off his shirt—well, that was just too funny. He had only done it in the first place to remind her that she was overstepping boundaries and to get her to leave. Who knew that regal, haughty, argumentative Miss Stuart was easily embarrassed?

      Not Miss Stuart, he corrected, she was Lady Constance Wincanton now. She had been positively outraged to have been called that, too. Those were two little things he would squirrel away as ammunition for the future. Aaron had a feeling he was going to need it. When he had sneaked past her room earlier, in a rare display of complete cowardice, he had just congratulated himself on his stealth. Then she had thrown the book at him.

      Literally.

      He had not expected that. The irony of that book’s title was not lost on him either. Connie could be quite shrewish when she put her mind to it.

      But she was a blushing shrew. A shrew who was so loyal to her family that she had agreed to marry a man that she despised. A shrew who had cried in his arms because her fiancé was an idiot and one who had kissed him as if she had been born to do it. Despite all of the inconvenient aspects of his hasty marriage to Connie, Aaron could still not keep his mind off that kiss. His mind had wandered back to it repeatedly during his ride this morning and each time he caught himself thinking about it he was smiling. It had been such a long time since any of his smiles had been genuine that he had quite forgotten how invigorating one could be. And it had been a most spectacular kiss.

      Catching himself smiling wistfully again, Aaron snatched a clean shirt from the wardrobe and then wound a fresh cravat around his neck. He wasn’t entirely sure that he could tame Connie, even if he wanted to, but he did need to find a way that they could live together. At least in the short term. He had made his father a promise. He might not want to father a child, but he wanted to put his father’s mind at ease. It was the least he could do after everything he had done. He had taken a life so it seemed only fair that he should make one.

      Back in her own room, Connie frantically dabbed her hot face with cold water. How she hated being a redhead. Her pale skin provided no camouflage for the embarrassment that had flooded her face and he had seen it. Why did fate keep allowing Aaron Wincanton to see her when she was at her least composed? He had seen her tears, witnessed the first bloom of her passion, been present when her father had cruelly berated her and now he also knew that she was a complete innocent in all matters pertaining to men. At the grand old age of four and twenty, the mere prospect of seeing a man without his shirt on had sent her running for the hills red-faced. All of her perfectly constructed, haughty, uninterested and unflappable façade had disintegrated in seconds and, to add insult to injury, she was more than a little peeved that she had not been brave enough to stand her ground and feast her hungry eyes on the wretch’s nude torso. And that wretch had first called her the Ginger Amazonian. It was all too humiliating.

      His knock at the door came too soon and Connie forced some steel into her backbone before she went to open it. Aaron completely filled the door frame and was smiling. Just that made her silly pulse speed up. His hair was still slightly damp, which encouraged it to curl up boyishly at the ends, but he was perfectly turned out in a fresh white shirt and dark black coat. He looked exactly like the arrogant and handsome devil that he was and she felt so very unattractive in comparison. Aside from the unflattering pink tinge to her face, her hair was a complete disaster and was wilfully refusing to do as it was told. Connie had never been any good at pinning her own hair into submission, but without a maid of her own she had had no other choice this morning and it showed. She was not really surprised that he had no interest in bedding her. Who would?

      ‘Are you ready for your tour Mrs Wincanton?’

      ‘Do not call me that!’ It made her sound like his property, which she was, damn him.

      ‘But you continue to call me Mr Wincanton, so I was merely trying to be polite. As you are constantly reminding me not to call you Connie, I confess I am now at a loss at what to call you—perhaps wife?’ His lips were curving upwards in an expression that he probably knew made him appear to be charming.

      ‘My name is Constance.’ Her voice sounded suitably clipped as she gave him her very best imperious stare. It usually withered the most insolent of gentlemen but it only served to make Aaron Wincanton grin. Of course, that drew her eyes to the twin dimples that appeared on either side of his irritatingly perfect face, providing her with two more thing that she wanted to touch. And taste. Good heavens, where did that thought come from?

      He was still smiling. ‘I dislike the name Constance. It comes from the word constancy. That does not suit you at all.’

      ‘Constancy means steadfast and resolute. I am both of those things.’

      He appeared to ponder this for a minute. As he was still blocking the door Connie had no option but to stand and wait for him to finish whatever it was he seemed intent on saying. He smelled delightful.

      ‘I looked the word up in the dictionary. It has many meanings, and whilst I agree you can be stubborn...’

      ‘Steadfast and resolute,’ she corrected automatically.

      ‘Constancy also means that something remains the same, no matter what the circumstances. You, Mrs Wincanton, are a seething cauldron of different emotions. I never quite know which to expect from one moment to the next. You are as changeable as the weather. Therefore, I simply refuse to call you Constance. Which leaves me in a bit of a quandary. You do not like Mrs Wincanton and I could not help noticing that you winced a bit when I affectionately called you wife. So that leaves me with Connie, which was always my preferred choice.’

      Connie was still reeling from being compared to a seething cauldron of emotions, but worried that he might elaborate on that observation more if she did not concede, so she rolled her eyes and looked down her nose at him. ‘Call me what you will.’

      Finally, he stepped away from the door and offered her his arm. ‘Shall you call me Aaron or husband? Or perhaps my dear or my darling?’ His voice had dropped conspiratorially, giving it a seductive edge that set her traitorous pulse fluttering faster. Why did the man always have to resort to flirting? He must know that it was unsettling. Connie had never quite known how to react to it from anyone at the best of times, seeing it as a ruse to get to her dowry or as something СКАЧАТЬ