The Fireside Inn by Lily Everett Page B

to do, obviously. But it seems a waste of time better spent in more pleasurable pursuits.”
    “I love the way you talk. Have you honestly never thought of writing your own poems?” Serena lifted herself off his lap, bracing herself on his shoulders for balance.
    This again. Leo let her go reluctantly, his fingertips skimming the bare silk of her tanned skin and memorizing the texture in case he never got the chance to touch her again. “No,” he said, more roughly than he intended. “I believe I can safely promise never to write a single line of verse.”
    Startled by his gruff vehemence, Serena glanced over at him as she rifled through the small pile of clothing. “What are you getting so mad about? It’s hardly offensive to say you have a way with words.”
    She couldn’t know how near she’d come to the scars at the center of Leo’s psyche. Heart pounding, stomach roiling, he said, “It’s not a compliment, either. At least, not one that I deserve.”
    Smiling uncertainly, Serena said, “Ah. Because everyone in England talks like you, right? Do they teach you that at Oxford?”
    “Being an earl’s son carries one quite far,” Leo replied, glad of the topic change. His gaze snagged on the reverse strip tease happening before him as Serena shimmied her hips into her cargo shorts. “But not all the way to Oxford, I’m afraid.”
    “Cambridge, then.”
    The way she cupped her breasts and jiggled to seat them properly inside the stretchy cotton of her bra made Leo’s blood heat. “No, not Cambridge either.”
    She frowned. “Then where did you go to college? Or university, I guess y’all call it?”
    Snapping to attention, Leo realized the danger too late. There was nothing for it but to tell the truth and try to brush it off. “I didn’t. After I scraped through at boarding school, I never saw the point in further education.”
    “You never saw the point?” Serena’s arms dropped before she could manage to get her shirt over her head. Standing above him half nude and wholly appealing, she blinked in dismay.
    Leo reclined on the blanket, deliberately lazy, and shrugged. “My elder brother will inherit the earldom and all of its responsibilities. All that’s left to me is to enjoy life and stay out of any terribly public trouble.”
    “Huh.” Serena hid her expression by pulling on her shirt. “I don’t mean to sound judgmental about your life choices, but that sounds a little…empty.”
    You have no idea
, Leo thought bleakly, but when her tousled head popped out of the collar of her shirt, he made sure his expression reflected the sardonic amusement he used as armor. “Not at all. Life without expectations is very freeing.”
    “No one ever expected anything of you?” Serena’s curious question was delivered gently, more of a tickle than a slap, but somehow it still stung Leo into sitting up and reaching for his pants.
    “Perhaps, when I was quite young.” He shrugged into his shirt and did up the buttons, idly noting the creases in the fine linen fabric. “But our mother died when I was only a little chap, and soon after that, my father gave up on me completely in favor of devoting all his time and attention to my elder brother, William.”
    Serena frowned sympathetically. “That’s awful!”
    “Not at all.” Leo shook out his trousers and stepped into them, hitching the charcoal gray up his thighs. “Father was no fool. His every hope for the future of the family rests on William—it’s only sensible that he should spend his parental efforts there, rather than wasting them on…”
    A blinking idiot of a boy, too stupid even to learn to read
.
    Swallowing down the bitter memories, Leo flashed his most rakish grin and bowed from the waist with a flourish. “On a scoundrel and wastrel like me.”
    And that was true as well, because once Leo had gotten over being angry with his father, the world, and himself, he’d dedicated his life to not caring about anything. Which was