Lord Pimbroke actually backed up a step—quite gratifying after the reception her eyebrow had received from the rogue—and stammered. “I… I…”
Hero turned to Lady Pimbroke, touching lightly the horrid yellow braiding on the elbow of her gown. “That’s fixed, I think, don’t you?”
Lady Pimbroke started. “Oh! Oh, yes, thank you, my lady.”
“Not at all,” Hero murmured.
“If you’re done here, m’dear,” Lord Pimbroke said, “then perhaps you’re ready to return to the ball?”
His words may have been a question, but his tone of voice most certainly was not.
Lady Pimbroke took his arm rather sulkily. “Yes, Eustace.”
And with a perfunctory good-bye, the two left the room.
Almost immediately, Hero felt a tug upon her skirts. “Hist! I can hardly breathe under here.”
“They may return,” she said serenely.
“I think I can see up your skirt.”
She moved back hastily.
The rogue rolled out from under the settee and stood, towering over her.
Nonetheless, she glared down her nose at him. “You weren’t—”
“Now, now. If I was, do you really think I’d tell you?”
She sniffed, sounding rather like Cousin Bathilda at her most priggish. “No doubt you’d boast of it.”
He leaned over her, grinning. “Does the thought have you all hot and bothered?”
“Is your wig growing tight?” she asked politely.
“What?”
“Because I would think your swelled head would make it quite uncomfortable.”
His smile became a trifle grim. “My head isn’t the only thing out of proportion, I assure you. Maybe that’s why you came in here? To sneak a peek?”
She rolled her eyes. “You have no trace of shame, do you? Most men at least pretend to be abashed when caught in wrongdoing, but you—you strut about like a feckless cockerel.”
He paused in the act of donning his coat, one arm thrust out, the sleeve half on, and widened his beautiful green eyes at her. “Oh, of course. Moralizing. Naturally you must hold yourself superior to me when—”
“I saw you engaging in adultery!”
“You saw me engaging in a pleasant fuck,” he said with slow emphasis.
She flinched at the crudity but stood her ground. She was the daughter of a duke, and she would not flee from a man such as he. “Lady Pimbroke is married.”
“Lady Pimbroke has had numerous lovers before me and will have numerous lovers after me.”
“That does not forgive your sin.”
He looked at her and laughed—actually laughed—slow and deep. “And you are a woman without sin, is that it?”
She didn’t even have to consider the matter. “Naturally.”
His mouth twisted cruelly. “Such certainty.”
She stared, affronted. “Do you doubt me?”
“Oh, no, far from it. I believe absolutely that the thought of sin has never once crossed your perfect little mind.”
She tilted her chin, feeling a thrill of excitement—she’d never before argued with a gentleman, let alone a strange one. “And I begin to wonder if any thought of righteousness has ever crossed your shameless little mind.”
He watched her a moment, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Then he bowed abruptly. “I thank you for going against your own inclinations and saving me from having to kill Lord Pimbroke.”
She nodded stiffly.
“And I hope most fervently that our paths never cross again, my Lady Perfect.”
Unaccountably, Hero felt a pang of hurt at his dismissive words, but she made sure not to let the weak emotion show. “I will certainly pray that I never have to suffer your presence again, my Lord Shameless.”
“Then we are in agreement.”
“Quite.”
“Good.”
For a moment she stared at him, her breasts pressing against her stays with each too-fast breath, her cheeks hot with emotion. They’d drawn closer in the heat of their argument, and his chest nearly brushed the lace of her bodice. He stared back, his eyes very green in his loathsome face.
His gaze dropped to her mouth.
Her lips parted and for an endless second, she forgot to breathe.
He turned and strode to the door, disappearing into the dim hallway beyond.
Hero blinked and inhaled with a shudder as she looked dazedly around the room. There was a mirror hanging on the wall, and she crossed to it to peer at her reflection in the glass. Her red hair was still elegantly coiffed, her lovely silvery-green dress properly in place. Her cheeks were a little pinkened, but the color was becoming. Strangely, she didn’t appear all that changed.
Well. That was good.
She threw back her shoulders and swept from the room, her step graceful but quick. Tonight of all nights, it was important she present a serene, lovely, and perfect aspect, for tonight her engagement to the Marquess of Mandeville was to be announced.
Hero tilted her chin at the remembered sneer of the stranger as he’d mouthed the word perfect. What could he possibly have against perfection anyway?
GODDAMN ALL SELF-SATISFIED, perfect women—and that red-haired wench in the sitting room in particular!
Lord Griffin Reading, strode toward his brother’s ballroom in a foul mood. Damnable chit! She’d stood there disapproving and priggish and dared to look down her narrow nose at him. She’d probably never felt an honest human urge in her entire, too-sheltered life. The only sign of her embarrassment had been the pink blotches climbing her delicately pale throat as she stared at him. Griffin grunted. That censorious face should have caused any man’s pride to wilt.
Except, as it happened, he’d had just the opposite reaction—and it wasn’t because he’d not reached completion with Bella, either. No, the prospect of being discovered by an irate husband, followed speedily by a bloody duel at dawn had cooled his ardor quite thoroughly, thank you. By the time he’d rolled out from under the settee, he’d been calm in both body and mind. Until, that is, he’d exchanged heated words with that holier-than-thou madam. His cock had seemed to look upon the argument as some kind of bizarre preamble to bedsport, despite the lady’s obvious respectability, her hostility to him, and his own instant dislike of her.
Griffin paused in a shadowed corner, trying to calm himself as he fingered the diamond earring in his pocket. He’d found the thing under the settee and had meant to give it back to Lady Perfect before her tart tongue had made him forget the trinket altogether. Well, served her right to lose her pretty earring if that was how she talked to gentlemen.