One Night with a Rake (Regency Rakes) by Connie Mason, Mia Marlowe Page A

this subject. How is that?”
    “I’ve read accounts.”
    He snorted. “Mostly in tabloids and scandal sheets, I’ll be bound.”
    He was right, drat the man! Frustrated, she began to pace, knotting her fingers together as she went. “Usually I ignore those gossipy rags, but occasionally even a blind squirrel finds a nut of truth.”
    He left the map and fell into step with her around the spacious room. It made her feel like a rabbit in a walled garden, cornered by a large dog.
    “I suspect most of those stories have been highly romanticized in order to touch soft hearts like yours,” he said when she stopped by the bust of Cicero on a waist-high Doric column.
    “Next I suppose you’ll claim I’m softheaded, too.”
    “No, just too naïve to know better. People generally do what they want to do. If it eases their conscience to say they were pressured or tricked into bad behavior, I’ll let them say it.” A hard expression flicked across his features, a tightening of his mouth and a tick of the muscle in his cheek. Then it disappeared as quickly as it came. “But I won’t be fooled by it. We all make our own choices and must live by them.”
    He advanced on her slowly, boxing her into a corner between her father’s collection of rare medieval codices and her mother’s copious gardening books.
    “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to help those girls out of that life,” Georgette said, trying to ignore the fact that it was hard to draw a deep breath. She really ought to have had Mercy loosen her stays.
    He leaned a palm on the bookshelf near her shoulder and Georgette’s bum pressed against the book spines. He ran the knuckles of his other hand over the hollow of her cheek and then brushed the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. The sensitive spot tingled in his wake.
    “Georgette.”
    She’d never much cared for her name. It had always seemed too harsh, too masculine. But when he caressed the syllables with his deep bass, he made it sound soft and feminine.
    “You’re getting yourself in a tizzy over something you can’t change,” he said.
    He was so close she could smell his scent—all spicy bergamot with an undernote of burnished leather. She inhaled him all the way to her curled toes.
    “Saying I can’t change things isn’t a very effective way of trying to silence me. It only makes me more determined.” She met his gaze and her insides melted at the heat of it. “Or do you intend to kiss me again to keep me quiet?”

Seven
    “Do you want me to kiss you?” Nathaniel whispered.
    Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment. Then she looked back up at him, indecision plain on her face.
    It shouldn’t be this easy to seduce her. By rights, he ought to have to scale a castle wall or slay a dragon for her, even if it was an imaginary one as he had done back when they were children. Of course, then it had always been Anne’s gauzy kerchief he’d tried to win as a favor in their games, not a kiss.
    Why had he never noticed the way Georgette’s eyes seemed to change color, going from a soft greenish-gray to the almost opalescent slate they were now? A trick of light? he wondered. Or was it just that her pupils had widened enough to darken the whole?
    “No.” She dropped her gaze, dark lashes settling on her cheeks in sooty crescents. “I don’t want you to kiss me.”
    “Oh, my lady, you took far too long to answer.” He leaned closer, stopping only about an inch from her mouth. “You shall have to pay a penalty now.”
    He wasn’t sure whether he closed the distance between their lips or if she moved toward him, but suddenly his mouth was on hers again.
    Lud, she was so sweet. Soft and pliant.
    Warm, wet, and tasting just slightly of plum tart the Yorkingham cook had served at luncheon, Georgette’s lips were a revelation. There was a tender give and take in their kiss, a bending he hadn’t expected from an upright miss like her. She tilted her head a bit and parted her lips in