Breaking the Rake's Rules. Bronwyn Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ accident. He’d been expected and in fact was expected regularly. This was no random occurrence. Well, Miss Caroline and her blushes were welcome to him, Bryn told herself. She hardly knew the man well enough to be jealous. A few stolen kisses hardly constituted a relationship. She really ought to feel sorry for Miss Caroline, who was clearly labouring under the assumption Kitt Sherard was somehow a respectable gentleman.

      Bryn should count herself lucky. She’d seen his true colours this afternoon. She knew what he’d been doing and why he was late.

      * * *

      However, by the time the tea cart arrived and the men joined them, she liked Miss Caroline a little less than she had the hour before.

      ‘When you said another time, I didn’t think it would be so soon.’ The smooth voice at her ear made her jump. She salvaged her tea cup just barely without spilling.

      ‘I didn’t imagine this party to be your sort of venue—no trellises to climb,’ Bryn replied smoothly, keeping her gaze fixed forward on the other guests, but her body was aware of his closeness, the clean vanilla scent of his cologne and the sandalwood of his bath soap. He’d bathed after he’d left her, a thought that brought a flood of prurient images to mind. Hardly the sort of thing one should think about over evening tea.

      ‘Pity, I would have pegged you for having a rather good imagination earlier this evening.’ Laughter bubbled under the low rumble of his voice as if he had somehow followed her train of thought straight to his bath and knew exactly what she was thinking. ‘There’s plenty to climb here, just trellises of a different sort.’ She ought to be put out by his innuendo, but instead all she could do was fight back a smile. If she did smile, people would be bound to notice and wonder.

      His breath feathered her ear in a seductive tickle. ‘Your failing imagination aside, I fear you have me at a disadvantage.’

      She smiled down into her tea cup, unable to suppress it any longer. ‘Oh, I doubt that very much, Mr Sherard. I don’t think you ever find yourself at a disadvantage where women are concerned.’

      He grinned in agreement, his teeth white against the tan of his face. ‘In this case I most definitely am. Might you do me the honour of your name? You know mine, but I don’t know yours.’

      He would know soon enough. Island communities were small. ‘It’s Bryn, Bryn Rutherford.’ She felt him stiffen slightly, the pattern of his breathing hitching infinitesimally in recognition, signs that he knew her already, or perhaps knew of her. She turned to catch sight of his reaction, wanting to confirm she’d guessed right. She nearly missed it.

      He hid the reaction well. Had he not been standing so close, she wouldn’t have noticed it, but she’d not been wrong in its attribution. He recognised the name. How odd that a simple fact like a name could provoke surprise between strangers. Or perhaps it wasn’t so surprising. Bridgetown was a small society and news must travel fast. Every merchant, every businessman in town would know by now her father was coming, and why. It was intriguing to count Kitt Sherard among their number since she had so quickly dismissed him on those grounds earlier that evening. Did she proceed with the fiction that she hadn’t noticed his surprise or did she confront him?

      She opted for a bit of both. ‘Does the earl know what you do in your spare time?’ She was having difficulty reconciling this rogue of a man with a gentleman who’d have the ear of an earl. She was starting to think Dartmoor must have owed him an extraordinary favour to make this recommendation. Although, dressed as he was tonight, Captain Sherard might be mistaken for a lord, too.

      He was studying her, hot blue eyes raking the length of her evening gown. He crooked his arm. ‘Miss Rutherford, perhaps you would accompany me out to the veranda for some fresh air?’ There was going to be a price. Bryn saw the subtle negotiation immediately. He wasn’t going to talk in here where they could be overheard, but he would be pleased to trade information for the privacy of the veranda and whatever might evolve out there.

      Say yes, the adventurer in her coaxed without hesitation. If his impromptu kisses were that good on a balcony, what might they be like on a veranda with moonlight and a little premeditation behind them? The lady in her knew better and tonight the lady held sway. But only for tonight, her naughty side prompted. She wouldn’t always have to be the lady. She’d promised herself that, too, among other things.

      Bryn decided to challenge him. ‘Why? So I can risk a dagger in the back from the lovely Caroline Bryant for stealing your attentions or so that you can manoeuvre your way into my father’s good graces through me? It’ll take more than a kiss and a trellis to wring a recommendation from me, Captain.’

      The women had been trying to lobby her all night. As much as a starlit veranda stroll with Kitt Sherard appealed to the adventurer in her, she wasn’t naive enough to think romance was the captain’s sole motivation. Rutherford girls were taught early to detect an opportunist at fifty paces. With dowries like theirs, it was a necessity for surviving London ballrooms crawling with genteel fortune hunters.

      Bryn let her eyes lock with his over her tea cup as she raised it to her lips. ‘I never mix business with pleasure. It would be best if we said goodnight, Captain, before one of us makes any faulty assumptions about the other.’ Goodness knew what he must think of her after the balcony. If it was anything akin to what she thought of him, there’d been plenty of assumptions made already. Hardly the first impression either of them would have chosen to make.

      His eyes glittered with humour, giving her the impression that while she had got the last word, he still had the upper hand. He gave her a small bow like the one he’d given her on the balcony, elegant and exaggerated in a subtly mocking manner. ‘I have a meeting with your father in the afternoon. Afterwards, we could walk in the garden. You can decide then if it’s business or pleasure.’

      A meeting with her father? She knew what he thought. It would be a meeting where she was relegated to some far part of the house while men did business. Who was she to correct his assumptions? Bryn smiled, hoping the wideness of her grin didn’t give her away. ‘Until tomorrow, then, Captain Sherard.’ The arrogant man might think he had the upper hand and the last word, but she had a few surprises of her own.

       Chapter Three

      Damn and double damn! Of all the balconies in Bridgetown, he’d climbed up Bryn Rutherford’s, the daughter of the man who’d come to induct the crown’s currency into the Caribbean and the man on whom Kitt’s future business interests depended. Kitt couldn’t believe his luck. What he couldn’t decide was if that luck was good or bad. He was still debating the issue the next afternoon when he set out for his meeting with her father.

      A certain male part of him had concluded it was very good luck indeed. Bryn Rutherford was a spitfire of a goddess. She had the lips to prove it, and the tongue, and the body, and everything else, including an insightful amount of intelligence. She’d immediately seen the ramifications of going out on the veranda with him.

      Her refusal made her something of a cynic, too. For all the spirit she’d shown on the balcony, she was wary of consequences or maybe it was the other way around: consequences had made her wary. Perhaps it simply made her a lady, a woman of discernment and responsible caution. Not everyone had a past chequered with regrets just because he did. Then again, this was the Caribbean, a far-flung, remote outpost of the British empire. In his experience, which was extensive, ladies didn’t sail halfway around the world without good reason. Did Bryn Rutherford have something to hide, after all?

      It was an intriguing СКАЧАТЬ