Read A Man Above Reproach Online

Authors: Evelyn Pryce

Tags: #England, #Historical Romance, #Love Story, #Regency Romance, #Romance

A Man Above Reproach (10 page)

BOOK: A Man Above Reproach
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“Come now,” he teased. “You must see how ridiculous that is.”

“I feel very silly.”

“Not at all. It is very interesting to watch you run out of reasons to hate me.” He gave her a smile that had to be a cultivated one, calming at the same time it was mischievous. What was wrong with this man? Why did he give her the slightest notice, much less chase her? She willed herself to concentrate his words.

“My mother would love to take up the mantle of dowager duchess, but she has found me difficult to marry off. It is the current occupation of the patronesses of the beau monde to throw ladies in front of me. You might say that I am something of a cause for them. It is mortifying. They call me ‘the Uncatchable.’ They are determined to find a suitable wife.”

“What is wrong with them?” Her voice came out far more quiet than she wanted. “The ladies, I mean? The ones they throw in front of you?”

“Vapid. Vain. Incurious.” He loosened his cravat, pulling the ends until it was a scrap of crisply folded linen hanging loose from his neck. The creases were so deep, it must have taken his valet ages. He could not have managed that artistry on his own. “Stuffy. Boring. Pie-faced.”

“Your standards are a touch high, Elias. Women of their rank are raised with these qualities as their ultimate aims.”

She knew. They had tried to do the same to her, to turn her into a docile and obedient cow.

“Where do they raise the women like you?”

If he continued to be likable, she did not think she could bear it. His wine glass was empty, so he began drinking out of the bottle. It was too casual. She could not be like this with a duke. There was no way it could end well.

“I am sorry,” she said tentatively. “I do think we have gotten too personal. It is not within the realm of what I do at the Dove to divulge my personal history. As you said to me before, I do have to be careful if I want to continue doing what I’m doing.”

“That is another thing we need to talk about,” he said, stern. “I have had a week to think about what happened between us. I was curious as to why you are so secretive—yet you publish under your own name. I used every means of research available to me, but I cannot find record of you. You are educated beyond your apparent means and you say a bookshop is all you have since your father’s death. Yet, there is no Josephine Grant, except on the mortgage of the Paper Garden.”

She went cold, to the tips of her fingers. He could not stop meddling and he would reduce to rubble everything she worked to build.

“This leads me to believe,” he continued, “that you are not who you say are.”

Josephine walked to the window, thick gold curtains blocking any view of the street. She thought perhaps if she did not look at him at all, it might be easier. She ran a hand down the curtain, releasing some dust into the air. The place was filthy. Mother only did the minimal amount of required cleaning, or to be precise, the girls did. The horrible woman did not want the expense of hiring servants.

“Why do you care?” she asked.

When she moved, he moved. He was like a blasted fly. He stood too close behind her, enough that his voice was a vibration on her skin.

“I do not know. Reasonably, I do not know. Your book got stuck in my mind. It was the first time that a woman had made me think, with the exception of my little sister and my mother. You know that I spend the majority of my time mired in my father’s estate. The rest of my time I spend staring at fripperies in ballrooms, bored straight out of my skull. I suppose you are exciting.”

“You said you would not take liberties.”

“I will keep that promise.” Why could she hear his smile? That was absurd. “But. It is not a liberty if you desire it… do you want me to kiss you, whoever you are?”

There was no way she could turn around, though every nerve in her body wanted to do so, jumping.

“Lennox, please. Leave it alone.”

“You are avoiding the question.” He consulted his pocket watch. “It is only nine o’clock. I would say that I have you until at least ten.”

“The question?”

“It is a shame you will not turn around and look at me. The question—which I am certain you remember—was do you want me to kiss you?”

“I cannot.”

“That is answer enough. Disallowing something does not equate with not wanting it.”

Josephine decided to give it one last shot, to try to drive him away.

“Your Grace, you have been rooting around in my life, but you know nothing about it. I appreciate your concern and I will even apologize for treating you more poorly than you deserved. The simple fact is that I cannot sate your curiosity or your desire.”

When she was met with no response, she turned around. He was examining her with a sober expression.

“I think you are far too harsh on yourself,” he said. “You do not allow much pleasure in your life. I understand this intimately, as I am guilty of the same. For one moment can we just forget that I am a duke? Forget that you have crushing responsibilities, both here and at your store?”

She steeled herself and regarded his amber eyes, now glazed over with an odd heat. She clasped her hands in front of her, then unclasped them. She wanted the moment he spoke of, before he had to return to his world and marry a respectable woman. Since he was unmarried and so was she, what harm could one kiss do? She wanted to not worry about the world for one moment, to just know the reality of his lips.

“I am trying to be a gentleman, but you make it tricky. Say yes. Say yes and stop thinking for one blasted minute.”

She could not believe she was nodding, but indeed she was, one slow tip of her head, down and up again.

“Yes,” she said in a barely perceptible voice. “Yes, Elias.”

As soon as she breathed that sweet yes, he had her in his arms. Even though he told himself otherwise, this had been his aim for the evening. He attempted caution as he put his mouth to hers and his arms around her waist. It was the easiest thing in the world to take her into his arms, as if he had been born knowing how to do it. To his surprise, she deepened the kiss, weaving both of her hands into his hair. It sent sensations all down his arms.

He groaned against her lips, his eyebrows drawing together with the ache he felt. He would have to guard that he did not let his starved imagination rule him. He could not believe he’d made it this far in swaying her, and he did not dare scare her away now. The problem was that she made staying in control a herculean task.

“One kiss,” she said heavily.

“No,” he said into her ear, placing another kiss against her earlobe. She shuddered, which was delicious to him. “A few kisses, once.”

Josephine pulled him back up to her face and tilted her head to afford a better angle. She embraced him again with her hands clutching the ends of his hopelessly wrinkled cravat, tasting of wine. Her reciprocation increased his need and he backed her against the wall. He put his hands on it to keep them from roaming wildly over her body and kissed a trail down her neck to her astonishing collarbone.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, dimly. She seemed to be talking to herself. “Changes nothing.”

“Shhh,” he scolded, pressing his nose to the valley of her throat, senses filled.

This time when he took her mouth, he bit her bottom lip in a soft experiment. She parted for him and his hands shot to the sides of her face as if it was an anchor. He felt her hands curl into the back of his coat and she moved against him, beginning to squirm. He thought he might be undone, then. He moved back, a shift that was torture, and it broke the spell.

“We should…” she said, not finishing the thought.

They were both breathless, faces still mere inches away from each other. Elias could not stop staring at her, for his part. Most of the pins had fallen out of her hair and the image was a fulfillment of daydreams he had indulged in the week away from her.

“You must let go,” she said, putting her forehead against his. A lock of hair fell against his cheek, silky and scented. Her arms, tight around his back, contradicted her words.

“So must you,” he replied, stealing another slow kiss. He was not sure that she would ever let him do it again, so he lingered, hoping for a strong sensory memory. After a moment, she pushed on his lapels, easing him off. She brushed her lips against his cheek as a farewell, a tender gesture that only made the parting worse.

His hypothesis had been correct. He had tested it and repeated the results, so it was true. He had feelings for the damned woman. He would not be able to leave her to her own devices, which though brave, would lead to devastation or Newgate Prison. He had feelings for this woman, whom he had met under an alias, found under an assumed name, whose real name was still outstanding.

She was fussing with her gown, peeking in the looking glass at her coiffure.

“Look what you have done, Lennox.”

“I deserve reproach,” he bowed.

“That you do. And so, since no one else seems to be fulfilling that task, I will.” She took his hand. “I thank you for your concern and I think you may be a good man, but I can never be your mistress. If you could not guess my reasons already, you have read them in my book.”

“I agree with you, not-Josephine, so do not operate under that impression that we are at odds philosophically. It is fortunate that I do, for I have forty-eight copies of the book in my foyer. I never asked you to be my mistress, if you recall.” He ran a thumb back and forth on her palm, cursing the nod to propriety she observed by always wearing gloves. “My attraction to you is obvious and mutual. We can ignore that as long as you like. I cannot ignore that you are placing yourself in danger every night.”

“Thank you, Your Grace, but this must end here.” She took her hand away.

“Do not ‘Your Grace’ me, not after what just happened. May I call on you later this week? Perhaps bring Thackeray and my sister to browse the Paper Garden? Neither of them are a threat to you.”

“That is not a good idea, I am afraid. It must be late now; I need to go.” She eased around him with as wide a berth as she could manage without seeming impolite. She curtseyed, another practiced skill, more indication that she had the upbringing of a peer. A simple curtsey was made so much more salacious by the costume she wore at the Sleeping Dove; he could see the graceful ball of her ankle and a tempting flash of long legs. “There are many things to be done tomorrow morning.”

He had already started planning how to ascertain her true identity.

“Good night. Thank you for the lovely gift to the girls. Thank you for everything… Elias.”

Again she was gone. A maddening habit, he thought.

Josephine stalked out of the room. Then, without changing into street clothes, she continued on straight out of the building, into a carriage, and back to her home, where she stayed in her room for a day and a half. Sally brought her food. Josephine maintained that she was sick and her wise friend did not press her with questions. Another girl from the Sleeping Dove filled in at the shop, paid out of rapidly dwindling funds.

She paced, she tried to read and failed. She played piano. She did not linger on the way his body had felt against hers, the tense energy of his form wrapped around her own. She did not close her eyes and imagine herself back in that moment when she could forget everything except his arms around her, muscles tight against his waistcoat. What she actually did was sort through the overflow of inventory that had amassed in her living quarters. Alphabetical by author, she stacked them around her bed, A to Z in a semicircle. The “S” section was very high, as were “M” and “L.” One of the “A’s,” most unfortunately, was a certain Lord Elias Addison, not a duke at the time, but using his father’s courtesy title, a series of essays on Wordsworth, De Quincey, Keats, and an odd rambling rant against foxhunting that he had apparently written while at university. She read it, of course. It was passable.

He would not come without sending word, she surmised, certainly not. That would be rude. It was almost two days now with no communication, but she could not feel safe. She paced, throwing an occasional glare at his book. Pompous essays, grandstanding, so sure of his expertise, made even more maddening because he was actually right about everything. It was galling.

BOOK: A Man Above Reproach
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