Before she could stop herself, a horrified sound emerged from her throat. He couldn’t know how close to the truth he ventured with this sarcastic response.
Thank goodness, he misunderstood her reaction. “Your pardon if plain speaking offends, madam.”
She dragged scattered thoughts together. With every moment in Lord Ashcroft’s company, the unhampered progression of her plan to its fulfillment seemed less and less likely.
When she’d planned confronting the earl in his lair, she’d asked herself how she could intrigue a man jaded with the easy availability of any woman. She’d hit upon the veils as likely to tickle his curiosity, arouse his interest. A man tired of the usual amusements would surely find mystery alluring. Mystery combined with complete willingness. She’d assumed a stranger offering a few weeks’ entertainment, a stranger who asked nothing more than the use of his body, would elicit immediate cooperation.
But then, before she’d met him, she’d imagined a slavering debaucher. This self-possessed man was a million miles away from those imaginings.
Now she wondered if perhaps she should have tried some more subtle approach than a direct invitation. But it was too late to back out.
Her jaw ached with tension. “Surely you don’t respond to all women who…invite you this way?”
“Only strangers who remain anonymous and shrouded from my sight.” The snap was still there, astonishing her. Anger was the last reaction she’d expected. “Do you intend to wear your veils when you fuck me, madam?”
His language jarred her, reminded her she teetered closer to the gutter than she wanted to contemplate. Or acknowledge.
Foolish woman she was, in the privacy of her bedroom, s
he hadn’t imagined he’d care what she looked like. Not when her body was his for the taking, and she promised to do anything he wanted.
But of course he cared what she looked like. He was famous for only choosing the most beautiful of paramours.
Yet again, she felt completely outmatched in this wicked game.
Her heart accelerated to a crazy gallop. She licked her lips again and told herself, compared to what else Lord Ashcroft and she would do before they finished, uncovering her face scarcely counted.
Still, it was almost impossible to lift the veils. Her hands trembled, revealing her real feelings. She gathered faltering courage like a shield. To fail at the first fence? Over something as trivial as showing her face? God give her strength.
With a suddenly defiant gesture, she flung back her veils.
A chaos of impressions slammed into her. The day was humid, no breeze entered the room, but even so, the air felt cool against her cheeks after the stifling concealment. The library came into focus, its rich colors glowing in the afternoon sunlight.
And at last she saw Lord Ashcroft without a distorting filter.
Her heart crashed to a halt and her throat squeezed shut, trapping her breath.
Lucifer, the most beautiful. Prince of angels. Bearer of light.
The great tempter.
The Earl of Ashcroft was dark, almost swarthy. With an angular, strong-boned, ascetic face. A scholar’s face. If one ignored the full, sensual mouth.
If one ignored his eyes.
Jade green and appraising her with unsettling intelligence and a palpable cynicism. “Very pretty.”
Heat rose in Diana’s cheeks. She wasn’t vain enough to expect swoons of delight at the merest sight of her, but surely she warranted more reaction than those two flat words.
“Thank you,” she said, equally flatly.
Perhaps Lord Ashcroft was so used to rutting with diamonds of the first water that her charms paled in comparison. For the first time, the prospect of failure—and all that meant—loomed.
When she’d contemplated this scheme, she’d wondered if she possessed the audacity to carry it off. Naively, she’d never considered that this notorious rake might consider her beneath his touch.
His lips twitched with sardonic humor. “And your name?”
“Diana.”