Never Tempt a Rogue: A Rogues' Rulebook Novella (4 page)

As she followed Amy and the other female guests into Lady Forsythe’s drawing room, a hand brushed her arm and that voice, Lord Lindsay’s warm and alluring rumble, whispered, “May I have a word, Miss Beckett?”

CHAPTER FOUR

“May I have a word, Miss Beckett?”

She’d avoided him throughout dinner, never even sparing him a glance. In fact, she’d avoided everyone, keeping her chin tucked in her chest and studying her plate, though he never observed her sampling a single bite. If he’d been dining anywhere but at his aunt and uncle’s home, he would have finagled a seat next to her. Even an argument with Miss Beckett would have been preferable to the gaping and nervous tittering of the young ladies his aunt had placed near his chair.

“No.” Felicity stopped just outside the drawing room door, stepping aside to stay out of view of those past the threshold. “You shouldn’t be speaking to me at all.”

“Why? We’ve been properly introduced. What rule are we breaking now?” Mercy, this woman did like her rules. Despite being the author of a rulebook, Alex loathed them.

“My rule. About not speaking to rogues in dimly lit hallways.”

He loved that she thought him a rogue. Which was ridiculous. Everyone dismissed him as a debauched man. He wasn’t certain why this leggy chaperone’s opinion mattered more to him than anyone else’s.

“I only wish to request a dance.”

Her fetchingly kissable mouth opened as she shook her head in denial, but no words emerged.

“Come, Felicity. One dance? It needn’t be the first.”

She seamed her lips into a stern line. Then her shoulders hunched and the oddest sound escaped. When her eyes began to crinkle round the edges and she lifted a gloved hand up to stifle the noise, he realized she was laughing. And trying very hard not to.

“Do you really think, my lord, that so many gentlemen will vie for a place on my dance card?”

Alex frowned. Was she calling him a fool or denying her own appeal? Neither possibility pleased him. He was quite content not to fight off a passel of men to dance with her, but the notion that she thought herself unworthy of such attention disturbed him. He knew how it burned to be overlooked. For years he’d been dismissed by his father as the lesser son—less intelligent, less talented, less trustworthy. Any man who failed to discern Miss Felicity Beckett’s attractions was a complete and utter dunderhead.

“Fine, then save me the
first
dance.”

Felicity shook her head again, but Alex had no intention of giving up. She was the first woman to stir him, to remain in his thoughts long after they’d spoken, since he’d learned of his unwanted inheritance. She was the only spark of fire in a sea of simpering young ladies.

“Do relent, Miss Beckett. Otherwise my nephew will detain you out here all evening.” His aunt emerged through the drawing room door and stood just over Felicity’s shoulder.

“I do have a reputation for tenacity.” He tried to keep the smirk he felt tugging at the corners of his mouth out of his tone.

“Among other things, Alexander.” Aunt Georgianna moved to stand between them. “Now my dear Miss Beckett, I know you wish to act in your cousin’s best interest, to protect her from men who are…extremely tenacious.” She cast a glance back at Alex. “But my nephew has started on a new path. Please allow him a dance with your cousin.”

“My cousin?”

“Her cousin?”

They didn’t answer in precise unison, but their duet of voices caused his aunt to raise her pale blond eyebrows in surprise. “Surely that’s why you’ve been out here badgering this poor woman, Alexander. If you’ll allow just one dance with your cousin, Miss Beckett, I will assure his gentlemanly behavior myself.”

“Your faith warms my heart, Aunt Georgianna,” he added dryly. Then he glanced up to see misery in Felicity’s face. She’d insisted he avoid her cousin, and he’d vowed to do so. “Unfortunately, the honor is not Miss Beckett’s to give. Apparently her pretty cousin has already filled her dance card.”

“What a shame.” His aunt twisted her lips in a pout. “Then Miss Beckett can secure you a spot for Monday next. There will be plenty of opportunities to dance this fortnight.” With that his aunt stepped back through the drawing room doorway, casting Felicity a glance implying she should follow.

Alex was thrilled to find Felicity hesitating. She turned to him when they were alone in the hallway again.

“Thank you.” The husky sincerity in her tone made him shiver. For the first time she looked at him beyond her prickly shield of righteous indignation. Whatever it took, he’d cause her to look at him that way again. Every day, if he could manage it.

“For what?”

“You fibbed to your aunt to keep a promise to me. Though it seems she’s the tenacious one.” Another first. Felicity Beckett smiled at him. It was slight and gone almost as soon as he beheld it, but her lips had curved as a dimple flickered at the edge of her cheek, and it was all for him.

“Will you grant me a dance then?”

“With Amelia?”

“With you.” He edged closer. Would have touched her if he wasn’t convinced his watchful aunt could see straight through walls.

“Let me consider it.” Rules, denial, deliberation. That was what she said with her mouth, but her gaze still held a bit of mirth. Enough to give him hope.

“Very well, Miss Beckett. I suspect you’re worth waiting for.”

***

Waiting is torture.
Patience had never been one of Alex’s meager share of virtues, especially when it came to pleasure. Gratification should be sought. Pleasure, and not just of the carnal sort, should be pursued. What was the point of life if not to enjoy it? His father had been a joyless man, bound up in a tyranny of etiquette and rules. Now, with the prospect of becoming as dour as his father as he calcified under the burdens of the title, Alex wanted to grasp at anything that promised a taste of bliss.

Dancing with Felicity Beckett would be pleasurable. She could protest her dancing skills all she liked. He wasn’t terribly accomplished himself. But the chance to touch her, to hold her in his arms, to be as close to her as a waltz would allow—those desires had cost him a night’s sleep and caused him a day of meandering from one bland diversion to another without ever being truly diverted. Not even his violin could soothe him. His fingers fumbled on the strings or he found himself playing something romantic and sweet as treacle.

Now, less than an hour before the first dance of the party, he found another emotion edging out frustration. He was nervous. Not just anxious to see her and speak with her, but worried that he might do or say something ridiculous. No woman had made his palms itch in years.

“Which one are you looking forward to dancing with most?” His aunt seemed to have an unerring ability to find him wherever he wandered in the expansive Forsythe estate. Even in the quiet sanctuary of the house’s library.

“Miss Beckett.” She wouldn’t like his answer, but he had a lifetime of playing the role of proper viscount ahead. Why not be honest in this, at least?

For a long silent moment, she stood silent and narrowed her eyes.

“She’s Miss Huntingdon’s cousin,” he added helpfully.

“I know who she is, Alexander. What I don’t know is what you hope to accomplish by your blatant interest in her.”

“Well, I was hoping for a dance, at least.”

“Don’t make light of this.” Aunt Georgianna thumped him on the chest with the end of her folded fan. “You have inherited more than your father’s title. With it comes responsibilities you cannot presently imagine.”

“If you’re trying to encourage me, it’s not working.” For months he’d thought of little beyond the huge pile of responsibility awaiting him at his family’s estate. Meeting Felicity had provided a counterweight to the burden of all that lay ahead for him after the house party.

“I am attempting to speak sense to you. Your interest in Miss Beckett gains you nothing and endangers her reputation.”

“And yet you wish me to woo every other young lady?” Alex clenched his fists, wanted nothing as much to leave the room and escape her naysaying. His aunt had begun to sound far too much like his father. “How is it I will damage her reputation and not theirs?”

“Because you cannot marry her, Alexander! Amelia Huntingdon’s mother was a baronet’s daughter, but Miss Beckett has no family to speak of at all.”

Her words hit him like the blows his brother used to land when he and Henry were boys, when he’d still been a stripling and Henry had sprung up in height and strength. The snobbery, the bloody high-handed certainty in her tone stole his breath. Had she taken actual lessons from his father on how to be a pompous aristocrat?

“I will marry whomever I damn well please.” Alex started towards the door, unwilling to hear more admonitions. He was done with hearing what he must do, and what he could no longer do.

“Don’t stomp away like a child.” His aunt softened her voice, infusing it with a teasing lilt. None of it eased the hot sear of anger boiling in his veins.

“I accept that the title is mine.” He turned back to face her, unwilling to allow her to mistake his meaning or tone. “Managing the estate, caring for the tenants, serving in Parliament—I know what I must do. But who I marry, the woman I choose to make my wife and take to my bed every day for the rest of my life—”

His aunt’s outraged gasp halted his tirade. A reminder that though he might know how to behave, he still hadn’t tamed his tongue. Decent ladies didn’t talk about a man bedding a woman, even if they were referring to a man and his wife.
Wife?
How the hell had this become about marriage?

“I only wish to dance with her, Aunt Georgianna. I will dance with some of your other young ladies, but don’t you see that I must be the one to choose?”

When she said nothing more and offered him a minute nod, he pivoted on his heel and headed toward the ballroom. Ire sparked by their conversation waned, but neither his earlier bout of nerves nor anticipation replaced his anger. Determination quickened his steps. Whatever else he did this night, however many women he asked to dance to please his aunt, he was determined to hold Felicity Beckett in his arms.

The certainty made him so bold that he strode into the ballroom, past clusters of finely-garbed ladies and gentlemen turned out in their formal best, skirting the musicians as they warmed up their instruments for the first waltz, and headed straight for the woman whose pale blond hair shone in the gaslight like filaments of purest gold.

Felicity wore an awestruck expression, her mouth slightly gape, eyes glowing with pleasure.

A twinge of pain tightened his chest when he realized none of her pleased look was for him. Why should it be? They’d only sparred and teased each other. She’d promised him nothing. Not even a dance.

Miss Beckett’s gaze was fully focused on her cousin, trailing the girl around the dance floor as she glided through the first dance. Miss Huntingdon had snagged an earl as a partner and seemed quite pleased with the coup.

Alex maneuvered around the edge of the ballroom and approached Felicity’s side.

“I won’t dance with you.” She spoke without looking at him, her gaze still on her cousin. The ever watchful chaperone.

“I see.” Her declaration didn’t surprise him. It was the second worst scenario he’d imagined. The first was hearing her denial
and
watching her twirl around the ballroom as gleefully as her cousin in the arms of another man. “Did you spend the time since I asked you coming up with reasons not to?”

Whether it was his teasing tone, or her expectation that he’d be more devastated by her refusal, she turned to him with a frown knitting her brows.

“Which reason were you going to offer me first?” Now he was curious. Would she site his terrible reputation? Or would she give into the kind of foolishness his aunt had spouted to him in the library?

“A gentleman should take a lady’s refusal as sufficient.”

“I’m a rogue, Miss Beckett. Hasn’t anyone told you that?” He leaned closer. How could he be expected to resist when she wore a gown that hugged her curves, hinting at her lush figure underneath? When the delicious scent of vanilla mixed with warm woman tickled his nose?

“No one needed to tell me.” She took a step back and raked him with a gaze from forehead to boots. He suspected she meant it to be a withering assessment, but she ruined the effect when her cheeks began to go pink. “Your behavior is enough for anyone to know it’s true.”

Considering that he’d shown more propriety in his interactions with her than he had with any woman in years, the accusation stung.

“Not to mention that you wrote a book about your exploits.” She sniffed in that indignant way his mother had after admonishing some naughty childhood enterprise. Somehow, Felicity managed to make the gesture adorable.

“Don’t believe everything you read.” He glanced down at her hands where she’d laced them in front of her as if to ward him off. “Speaking of which, I see that you didn’t bring your book. Won’t you need something to occupy you while everyone else dances?”

“I may have been rude to bring a book to a drawing room conversation.” She dipped her head as if momentarily contrite. Alex noticed tiny rosebuds woven through the pinned waves of her hair and imagined removing them before stroking the golden strands through his fingers. “My
occupation
is to watch over my cousin.” As soon as she mentioned her duty, she frantically scanned the room for Miss Huntingdon. The young lady was just stepping onto the dance floor to begin a set with the second of her partners.