He moved closer and she fought the impulse to cringe and bolt. This was her land, her home. And she held the power here, for if she did tell her brother, Mr. Dixon would wish himself dead.
"You should take care in the future, miss, not to offer your lips to a man in privacy of the blackest night. Any man would assume you invited more."
"A gentleman would have waited for an actual invitation."
"A gentlewoman would never find herself in the position of pondering this question."
The breeze came again, cooling her skin as her blood boiled. "Do not chastise me. I offered you nothing more scandalous than a kiss. You disgraced yourself."
"Ha. You dare speak of disgrace."
"Mr. Dixon, I do not want you near me. I would suggest you find an excuse to depart in the morning lest I take this debate to my brother. Let him decide what was invited and wha
t taken."
She heard the growl of his frustrated sigh, the slap of hand striking leg.
"Fine." His boots still muffled by the grass, his step drew closer until the white of his bared teeth passed her by. "But let me warn you again. Be careful whom you toy with in the future. Men are not designed to stop once they are started."
"Perhaps you speak of boys."
"You shall find out some day soon, I do not doubt." With that insult, he stomped toward the house, hopefully to wake his valet and prepare his packing.
She prayed he spent a few years, at least, harboring the fear that she would tell the duke. Perhaps he would sweat each time he greeted her brother, waiting for the cut. It was her only consolation. She had no doubt he would speak ill of her to all of England.
Alex toed the short grass with her boot, kicked at it with her heel. Guilt tensed her shoulders, then frustration that his words could wound her. True, the rules of society helped to protect women from the baser instincts of men. If she hadn't been wandering alone in the night, she certainly wouldn't have stumbled over Mr. Dixon, wouldn't have tempted him to drop his pants in a maelstrom of lust. But really, she had enough work controlling her own impulses, why should it be her responsibility to help men control theirs as well?
He was wrong. They all were. Men must take responsibility for their own transgressions. Real men did. Real men like Collin Blackburn. He hadn't pounced on her, hadn't grabbed her like a piece of meat fallen into a dog pen.
And she was not fooled by her words to Robert Dixon. Many men would've behaved exactly as he had. None had ever been quite so aggressive, but she'd heard that tone that he'd used on her. That ring of arrogance and victory. I knew you were a hot piece. That pride in exposing a woman for her dark nature—a whore, a vessel for their lust. It was almost a need they had, to destroy a woman with the wants of her body. Or theirs.
But not Collin. No, when he'd spoken in lust, whispered it against her skin, he'd sounded reverent, awed. He'd sounded perfect.
Muttering curses, Alex tucked in her rumpled shirt and glanced back and forth between two choices. The stable, where sense and duty waited, or the house, to plot and plan a trap for the man she wanted.
Her legs felt weak and boneless as the last of her fear dissolved. She jerked her cloak back around her body and turned to her decision. She'd do what she'd come here to do, see to her horse. . . then on to more impractical things. More delicious, impractical, and utterly disgraceful things.
Craven gentlemen of society be damned. She was going to catch herself a bastard.
Chapter 7
Her hands trembled with excitement as the curricle bounced along the wide Edinburgh road. The city was beautiful, the air fresh and warm and tinged with the scent of summer flowers, but Alexandra felt only the stifling weight of worry.
Too much of this plan hinged on chance. The chance that Collin would attend the horse fair himself, the chance that he'd spy her across the crowd, and the biggest chance of all. . . that he'd care enough to hunt her down.
"Stop that," Danielle ordered. "You'll hardly entice him with a frown."
True, but they hadn't reached the grounds of the fair yet, and he was unlikely to be hanging about on a street corner. But just as she found the will to relax her face into a pleasant smile, the driver turned onto a wide lane that headed into a warren of stables and outbuildings and cordoned-off parade areas. Horses were everywhere, being ridden or walked on dirt and trampled patches of grass.
This was surely a ridiculous plan, but she didn't want to walk right up to Collin Blackburn. Didn't want him to think she'd travel to Scotland just to see him, true as it was. No, she wanted to be pursued. Wanted him just as anxious for it as she had become over these two weeks of planning.
They hadn't traveled a quarter of the way through the grounds when she spotted him. They wouldn't even have to leave the carriage.
"There he is." The air grew thick around her, far too thick to breathe.
Danielle twisted in the high seat of the curricle. "Where?"
"Don't look. He'll see you!"