“I’ll take you home.”
A trip through dark streets offering Ashcroft opportunity to demonstrate his disreputable skills? Far too appealing. And she still had to keep her address a secret.
Hurriedly she shook her head. “I brought my carriage.”
“You mean to leave me unsatisfied?”
She remembered his inflammatory comment earlier and teased him with repeating it. “I mean to build the anticipation.”
She wondered if he meant to drag her up for another kiss, but instead he drew her head into his shoulder. “Tomorrow at three.”
“Tomorrow at three.” She wondered if the words augured heaven or hell.
“And naturally you’ll host dear Charlotte’s coming out at Ashcroft House, Tarquin. It will be the event of the season.”
Ashcroft frowned. His aunt Mary, Countess of Birchgrove, was as encroaching as ever. He surveyed the family gathered for the christening of another Vale offspring and tried to think of one relative who wasn’t encroaching.
He couldn’t come up with a candidate.
“That’s impossible, Aunt Mary,” he said in a clipped voice.
He’d learned long ago that unless he scotched his father’s sister’s schemes at the outset, life became a nightmare. He shuddered to remember her imposing upon him to host a country house party years ago, when he’d been too young and naïve to refuse. He’d still been tripping over strangers three months later. It had been like having the place infested with cockroaches.
The countess drew herself up to her full six feet and produced a delicate lace handkerchief that looked completely ridiculous in her platelike hand. “You have no gratitude, Ashcroft.” She always used his title as a mark of displeasure. She dabbed at her eyes. “I’ve given succor to a reptile.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d called him cold-blooded, and it wouldn’t be the last. “Snake or not, Aunt Mary, my home isn’t at your disposal,” he said crisply. “Birchgrove House has a perfectly adequate ballroom.”
She patted again at dry eyes that now glinted with annoyance. “Your ballroom is twice the size of ours, and you never use it.”
“Nonetheless, my decision stands.”
He let her vociferous complaints fade into the background. Instead, he sipped his champagne and considered the family gathering with the cynicism born of a lifetime’s acquaintance with the Vales.
Fortunately, the unfashionable time of year meant only fifty or so Vale leeches and toadies were present. If his new second cousin Josephine had arrived a month later, the crowd would have been considerably larger. His purse appreciated the baby’s timing. As head of the family, he’d been inveigled into paying for the celebration.
“Ashcroft, are you listening?” his aunt snapped. “You owe your uncle and me more respect after all we did for you.”
Ashcroft bared his teeth. “Any obligation was repaid years ago, Aunt. And if you wish me to contribute to Charlotte’s season, you should accept discretion is the better part of valor.”
She looked angry but chastened. He’d silenced her for the moment, if not forever. The problem was he couldn’t ignore his obligation to his father’s relations. Although there had never been the slightest pretense of love for him, his family had taken him in when he was a child.
Of course, the income from the Ashcroft estates sweetened his relatives’ duty. They’d treated their hounds and horses with more affection, but nonetheless, they’d given him a home, food, clothing, an education.
Since he’d reached adulthood, he’d juggled his responsibilities with the undoubted fact that his relations conspired to suck every penny they could from him. Most of the time, he struck a balance that suited him if not their endless avarice.
Perhaps his unhappy, displaced childhood was what gave him impetus to champion the poor and dispossessed. He’d never been hungry or homeless, but he profoundly understood deprivation.
He strolled toward the open windows. The heat was still oppressive. The champagne in his glass was flat and lukewarm although of much better quality than the swill he’d drunk at the ball last night. Just before he saw Diana, and his night took fire.
Worryingly, his thoughts constantly turned to the mysterious temptress and her contradictory behavior. A drive to be with one woman over another hadn’t bothered him for years. Which was exactly how he liked it.
Diana shattered his barriers.
Since last night, she’d haunted him. He was still far from sure pursuing her was wise, but desire gripped him, and not even the gravest suspicions of her motives could keep him away.
She’d only offered the merest glimpse of the heights they could climb together. He wanted to scale those mountain peaks and lose himself in wild passion. Because whatever else was false about her, her passion was real.
Dear God, the prospect of her shuddering her release while he was actually inside her made him break into a sweat. A sweat that had nothing to do with the sultry weather.