The Lure of a Rake by Christi Caldwell Page B

why he’d avoided those naïve ladies. Despite her whimsical belief, he didn’t care. He’d spent the better part of his nearly thirty years not caring: about Society’s opinion, about his father’s ducal expectations and disdain, about the mother who’d forsaken him even before her death. None of it. He’d come to live for his own pleasures and take material and physical gratification as he would.
    She again captured that porcelain shepherdess and ran her fingertip over the frilled porcelain skirt. “Regardless, I do not pass judgment on the marquess on mere gossip alone,” she added. Why did he suspect it was important that he knew she was not one of those ladies to judge a person by those words printed on a page?
    He perched his hip on the back of a leather button sofa. “What else have you formed your judgment on?” What, if not the gossip that she spoke of with such disdain? Did that mean the lady herself had been the victim of those scandal sheets? He scoffed. The ton would never cut their teeth on an innocent such as her.
    “Well, as you’re probably aware by your attendance this evening, the gentleman cannot be bothered to be timely to his own ball.”
    He finished his drink and lowered the empty glass to the floor at his feet. “That is an unforgiveable crime?” If that was the manner of offenses this one would take exception to, then what would she say of the outrageous parties he’d delighted in throwing over the years at his bachelor’s townhouse? Except that only conjured an image of her in a silk, dampened gold gown, as the feast at those forbidden parties, while he very deliberately removed every inch of that stiff, ugly dress, revealing her flushed, naked skin to the candle’s glow. Cedric groaned.
    “Are you all right?” she asked, concern lacing that question.
    “Fine,” he managed, his voice garbled. “You were speaking of our distinguished host.”
    “Well, not our host,” she reminded him of his earlier correction. “Rather, his son.”
    “The gentleman who can’t be bothered with punctuality.” Another thing he’d never given a jot about through the years. He arrived when he wished and departed on his own terms, and not really given a thought as to how others might feel about it.
    Genevieve turned her palms up. “It indicates much about his character, does it not?” No, he rather thought it said nothing of importance.
    He swung his leg back and forth in a lazy manner. “Explain it to me in a way I might understand, love.”
    Her mouth parted, even as her eyes formed round, moss green saucers that conjured country fields and summers days. He stilled. God, how he’d always loved the long, summer days in Leeds. He’d been so immersed in the debauchery in London that all those memories had faded to the distant chambers of his mind. Only to be brought forward by the green of her eyes. He choked again. What manner of madness was this, lusting after a barely pretty companion who’d snuck off to remove her slippers?
    “You were saying?” he managed, his words garbled.
    She shook her head. “Yes,” she said matter-of-factly. “Well, if the marquess cannot bother to honor the time of others, it merely means he sees his time as more important.”
    There was merit to her unwitting accusations. He’d been schooled from the cradle to expect the world was his due and to move as he pleased, when he pleased.
    Genevieve flared her eyes, horror filling their expressive depths. “You are not friends with the marquess, are you?”
    A wry grin twisted his lips. “I am not.”
    She breathed an audible sigh. “Oh, thank goodness. What a disaster that would be.” The lady might have muttered something under her breath about disapproving parents…
    Cedric stared at her with the long-case clock ticking away the moments. There was nothing disastrous about this meeting. Rather, this frank Genevieve With-No-Surname made joining an infernal affair he’d had no intention of visiting