Lord Gray's List by Maggie Robinson

it—she planned to reveal to him he had been negotiating his future with a female all along.
    Maxwell deserved his chance at happiness, unlike the vexing man beneath her. Benton Gray had squandered any right he had, fornicating his way through society and frittering away his income. Courtesan races . Contemptible.
    Ben seemed unaware of her current scorn. His shaggy tawny hair haloed his too-handsome face, gleaming against the dark threads of the carpet. His eyes were closed in repose, thick fringes of eyelash shadowing his skin, the quirk of his lips proof that he was satisfied indeed. The man didn’t have a care in the world now, did he? Spent, satiated, smug in his mastery of her. Damn him to everlasting hell.
    Evangeline elbowed him. “Let me up, you brute.”
    His arm did not relax even fractionally. “Not yet. Don’t spoil this, Evie.”
    “Spoil it! This whole evening is rotten to its core.”
    “Yes, you did try to kill me. Or at least incapacitate me in some way.” He didn’t sound the least troubled by her earlier assault upon him.
    “You deserve death, not that I wish to hang for removing a feckless boil upon society such as yourself.”
    One clear green eye opened. “Feckless boil? What a wordsmith you are, Evie. Surely that’s something of an exaggeration.”
    “Is it? What have you done to earn respect from anyone who’s not a libertine? Your drinking, your gambling, your whoring—why, you’re legendary.”
    Ben shifted underneath her but still did not let her go. “And you and your silly paper have made me so. There’s not a literate soul in London who doesn’t think they know everything about me, but they don’t. You don’t know me at all, Evangeline. You never did.”
    “Don’t know you?” Evangeline sputtered. “I only wish I didn’t! I can’t believe—” She broke off, too disgusted with herself and her current situation. To her dismay, Ben gave one more thrust to remind her exactly where she was and whom she was with.
    “Now, no regrets, sweetheart. You wanted this as much as I did.”
    “You flatter yourself. I was drunk.”
    Ben raised an infuriating golden eyebrow. “On two glasses of brandy?”
    “I—I had been drinking before I got here,” she admitted.
    “Smoking, too, I’m sorry to note.”
    She felt her cheeks grow warm. She’d had a few sympathetic tots of Lord Maxwell’s inferior brandy and a fairly vile cheroot when the idea came to her to confront Ben. And then she’d been forced to take a nip or two from a small flask of equally tepid stuff to keep herself warm on the frigid December night as she waited for him to come home. Who knew what licentious activity he’d been participating in? She thought she’d fall asleep on her feet on the street.
    “So, your inebriation explains your clumsy aim. At least you’ll have no more excuse for your unnatural adaptation of a man’s worst habits. Lovely as you look in breeches, Evie, it’s skirts you’ll be wearing from now on.”
    “How dare you tell me what I may or may not do!” Truly furious now, she struggled in his arms, but he effortlessly flipped her onto her back and nuzzled her throat. His weight was not quite crushing, but she was pinned beneath him. She slapped his back with all her might, which only drove him deeper.
    “Your movements are having the exact opposite effect of what you seek, my dear. You’re not going anywhere, and neither am I.”
    “You would rape me? I’ll scream the house down!”
    “No one said anything about rape. Don’t lie and say I forced you.” The breath of his words buzzed against her neck, and she shivered.
    No, he had not forced her. She had been completely complicit.
    “Please stop.”
    “I admit I do not want to.” He raised himself and looked into her face. “There is still something between us, Evie. I don’t like it any more than you do.”
    He was so very beautiful. Too beautiful. Even more handsome now that he’d grown into his height and breadth.