He went on in a musing tone. "But if I had announced my presence, I’d have missed out on overhearing a very interesting conversation."
Interesting? His definition of the word must differ from hers. "Your entertainment trumps good manners?"
"Naturally my entertainment is paramount."
She shouldn’t find his complete lack of shame appealing. But she’d spent her life overburdened with rules and restrictions, and Bruard’s contempt for social niceties was alluring.
Devil take him, everything about him was alluring. She’d never met an out-and-out wrong ’un before. She’d never wasted her time thinking about handsome, idle, dissipated men. If she had, she would assume that her overdeveloped sense of right and wrong meant she’d abominate them. She’d certainly had no patience for her late husband’s attempts to ape the excesses of the upper classes.
What an innocent she’d been until she met Lord Bruard. One dismissive glance from those fathomless dark green eyes under their sweep of thick lashes, and all she wanted to do was get closer.
Much closer.
If she had an ounce of principle, she should despise Bruard. Cecil certainly did. Alone with Selina, he’d spent hours railing against the Derwents for daring to pollute the pure air of their country house with the sinner’s presence.
Selina didn’t despise Bruard. She wanted him. At night in her empty bed, she touched herself and imagined that the hands on her skin weren’t small and soft, but large and tanned and skilled, and that a deep, drawling voice murmured profane encouragement in her ears.
Memory of those forbidden moments assailed her now and made her blush again. She was too aware that it was late and that she was alone with a man whose reputation was bad enough to send respectable virgins shrieking for their mammas. Lord Bruard’s company was the closest thing to satanic temptation that she was ever likely to experience.
Selina swallowed to moisten a dry throat and set the book on the mantel with a shaking hand. "I must go," she said, and cursed the squeak in her voice.
"Must you?" Bruard didn’t sound as if he cared whether she stayed or not. He continued as if they were in the middle of a friendly conversation. "You shouldn’t let him bully you, you know. If he bullies you now, before he gets his ring on your finger, he’ll turn into a domestic tyrant when you marry."
She paused in the act of turning away toward the door. "This is none of your business, sir."
Unfortunately, it was also an accurate assessment of her future. Selina was no fool, and she didn’t deceive herself about how life with Cecil would turn out. But what choice did she have?
With a leisurely grace that made her foolish heart skip around inside her tight chest, Bruard sat up. She thought she’d committed her whole self to marrying Cecil, but now it turned out that her heart hadn’t signed up to the arrangement. Her heart cried out that she was still young and at last she had the chance to flirt with an attractive man. It insisted that if she ran away now, she was a filthy coward.
"That’s true." Again no shame. "But I’m telling you this out of pure altruism. Stand up for yourself now, or he’ll crush every ounce of spirit out of you."
"Pure altruism?" She gave a snort of amusement that would have shocked Cecil. "It seems the world is completely wrong about you, Lord Bruard."
The half-smile reappeared, accentuating the creases around Bruard’s deep-set eyes. The breath jammed in her lungs. Lord above, no wonder the ladies went insane for hi
m. His appeal was extraordinary. He should have warning signs posted all over him.
Because he was right about her avoiding him, this was closer than she’d ever ventured to the wicked Lord Bruard. This was certainly the longest she’d spent talking to him.
And danger bristled in the air.
So remaining in this room made no sense. Yet remain Selina did.
He fixed a disturbingly assessing gaze on her. "No, my lovely little ghost, the world isn’t wrong about me."
The power of his attraction made her stomach cramp with nerves, as she remembered all those depraved fantasies that had worn Lord Bruard’s intense dark face. Did he know she’d thought of him in the privacy of the night? She had a sick feeling that he must.
"G-ghost?" she stammered.
He shrugged. How could such a prosaic movement make her heart somersault? Except his shoulders were broad and hard, and she ached to run her hands along them and down those strong arms, displayed to advantage in the best of London tailoring.
He wore black. But then didn’t the devil always come in black?
"That’s how I think of you. With your neat little gray frocks, and the way you watch every word you say, and never miss anything that goes on around you."
This time, genuine fear spurred her unsteady pulse. She hadn’t thought she’d be of the slightest interest to such a libertine. It turned out she was wrong. It seemed that just as she’d watched him, he’d watched her.
She gulped for air to clear a swimming head and raised an unsteady hand to her bosom, before she realized how revealing the movement was. "You shouldn’t think of me at all."