Kiss Me, Annabel

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll never marry again, so would you please let go of my hand?”

“Not until you promise to consider marrying me.”

“Absolutely not. Release me, if you please.”

“I’ll release you if you come to my chambers at eleven o’clock tonight,” he said.

Her eyebrows rose. “Have you changed your mind, then?”

“A woman with such spirit is always worth a second thought,” he said, hoping she would fall for that nonsense. Which she did. A more naive scrap of a girl he’d never met. Now the only question was whether he could keep her from doing herself some sort of injury to her soul from which she’d never recover.

“I’ll come to your chambers, but I’ll never marry you,” she said clearly.

He let go of her wrist. “I’m staying at Grillon’s Hotel. Is this your first tryst, Imogen?” As if he didn’t know the answer to that.

She raised her chin. “Yes, it is.”

So he was as crude as he could be, to shock her into thinking about what she was doing. “Affaires aren’t like marriages, you know. You needn’t bring a nightgown, because we’ll sleep naked, of course. And I do hope that your husband taught you how to pleasure a man.”

Color crept into her white cheeks, but he was remorseless.

“I’m fond of the coney’s kiss, if you catch my meaning, lass. Of course, a woman of the world, such as you are, won’t need any instruction in such matters.”

But she had more courage than he gave her credit for. “I don’t know everything about pleasuring a man, or perhaps I know nothing,” she said.

He could have cried at the look in her eyes.

“I’m willing to learn.”

“Then say it: coney’s kiss.” He bent toward her, knowing how large he was, deliberately looming over her. “Say it, why don’t you?”

“No.”

“Do you know what a coney is?”

“No!”

“Then why won’t you say it? Go on: coney’s kiss. Say it.” He shaded his voice with a dark erotic desire, giving her a liquorish smile, the kind the villain in a melodrama always gives to the poor serving maid. “Coney’s kiss.”

She stared at him, all anger, confusion, and revulsion.

“If you’re embarking on a life of ill repute, you’ll have to learn many such a phrase.”

She jumped away and flew up the slope, so fast that her slippers hardly touched the ground.

Had that worked or not? And if not, what the devil was he to do at eleven o’clock? A stupider idea he had never had.

What the devil was he to do?

The Herb Garden

Common wisdom had it that there were few things more disagreeable than coming face to face with a woman whom one has jilted.But the Earl of Mayne had never felt that reluctance when it came to Tess Essex, now a happy Mrs. Felton. In fact, he considered himself quite the injured party, given that he had traded in the shreds of his reputation after Felton told him to get out so he could marry Tess himself. Now everyone thought him a despicable rake, who had left a woman at the altar, whereas Felton was hailed as the knight who stepped in to save a lady’s reputation and future.

And considering that the Feltons were nauseatingly happy, he rather thought he should take credit for the match. In fact, it was amazing how he seemed to leave a trail of happily married women in his wake. First there was Countess Godwin—and he counted it quite a success that he could think of her without wincing, a full year later—and now there was Tess. Both of them were, by all accounts, blissfully happy, and never mind the fact that he was turning into a permanent bachelor.

Since the countess had rejected him, he hadn’t had even a simple intrigue. Nor a mistress. People didn’t quite realize it; sometimes he couldn’t believe it himself. At this point, he hadn’t been in a woman’s bed in a year, and given the apathetic state of his interest in the female sex, it was likely to be years more.

Tess smiled at him as he kissed the tips of her fingers, and that made him think about how well they would have got along as a married couple, if only his best friend hadn’t decided to take her away.

“Feeling sorry for yourself again?” she suggested sweetly.

“I could have been a happy man,” he grumbled.

She smiled at that and walked on, her fingers light on his arm. “I need to ask a favor.”

In his experience, when a married woman asks you for a favor, it’s often something that leads to pistols at dawn. Still…“Has Felton been misbehaving?” he asked with some surprise. It was positively unnerving to sit about with his old friend, the way that smile kept creeping onto his face.

“Not yet,” she said. “No, it’s about Imogen.”

“I met her Scottish beau last night. Rafe was doing his best to persuade the man to marry elsewhere, but I gather Imogen has her own plans. What’s the matter, don’t you care for him?”

“It’s not him that I’m worried about,” Tess said. “She would do better with you.”

Mayne blinked. “With me?”

“Yes.”

“Are you talking about marriage or something other?”

“Other,” she said, just as calmly as if she were discussing raspberry syllabub.

He cleared his throat. “I’m not quite sure how you missed this pertinent fact, m’dear, but I’m not exactly a proper matron’s first choice. And, more to the point, your sister hasn’t chosen me for that honor.”

“Yes, but you’re quite experienced in all that…” She indicated that with a wave of her hand. “And Imogen—”

“Does your husband have any idea you’re speaking to me on this matter?”

“Of course not,” she said tranquilly. “Lucius is much occupied with affairs of business.”

“I think he would still be interested to know that you’re—you’re—” But he couldn’t think of a polite way to phrase exactly what she was suggesting.

“Let me be more clear,” she said. “You haven’t had a mistress since the Countess Godwin returned to her husband, am I right?”

He waited for that sour twinge of bitterness, but it didn’t come. “I have not.”

“Imogen does not truly wish to take a lover. But she seems willfully self-destructive at the moment…I’m not sure why. At this rate, she will bankrupt her reputation and ruin herself. She’s throwing herself out of the ton. Perhaps so she’ll never be eligible for marriage again.”

“Ah,” Mayne said. He could almost understand that kind of grief.

“But hardly anyone takes notice of your affaires, and if they do, the scandal seems to wear off within days.”

“Humph.” It wasn’t an attractive picture.

But she didn’t stop there. “I’d like you to dislodge the Earl of Ardmore, if you please. You can reuse some of those compliments you wasted on me.”

“Tess—”

Quick as a cat, she turned on him before he could even voice all the reasons why this plan of hers would never work. “You owe me.”

He opened his mouth, but she raised her hand to stop him. “I know that you were merely obeying Lucius when you jilted me, but the truth of it is that you acted as you did from loyalty to your friend, and not loyalty to me, your betrothed. And when Lucius asked you to say nothing to me, you simply galloped away without a second thought. What if I hadn’t wished to marry Lucius? What then?”