Chapter 3
Chapter Three
As she entered Foxworth Manor, Althea realized why she’d agreed to Nev’s preposterous proposal. It hadn’t been his charming but highly suspicious promises not to seduce her. Nor solely to ensure he called off the duel.
No, it had been her perverse curiosity to see whether the teasing, protective young man she’d been infatuated with as a girl had truly become a callous rake or if the accounts of his character had been wildly exaggerated.
And walking into the familiar surroundings of a place she’d visited as a child, she felt sure in her heart that the latter was the case.
For some reason, she trusted him. She was probably a fool to do so, but she did. After all, he could have demanded her virtue of her. He could have forced himself on her in the carriage. No one could—or would—have stopped him.
Instead, he’d asked for her company for the evening, and what woman in her right mind could resist an appeal like that? Especially a woman who’d never had someone ask for something as mundane as her company nor gone to such lengths to get it.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
She smiled at the warm solicitude behind the request. “No. I was so nervous about the ball that I didn’t eat all day. Then when I got there, I was so famished, I ate everything in sight.”
He laughed. “You know, you’re the only woman I’ve ever met who’d admit something like that.”
“You’re right,” she said mournfully as the footman took her cloak, and Nev led her down the hall. “I’m always doing and saying improper things. But I can’t help it. I don’t know how to make small talk, and I can’t pretend to like things I don’t. I have a bad habit of speaking my mind.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“The thing is . . . I don’t know how to behave in polite society. My uncle’s fiancée did her best this past summer to teach me how, but after seven years in a bachelor household, I was too woefully ignorant for her tutelage.”
He opened a door and ushered her through it. “I don’t know about that. You handled yourself well on that balcony when any other woman your age would have been blubbering and screaming and making a general fool of herself.”
“Oh, that. Well, that’s different. I do try to keep my wits about me.” She shrugged. “It’s people I don’t know how to deal with. I didn’t handle you very well, did I? That’s why I ended up in this mess.”
“By ‘mess’, I hope you’re referring to the awkward situation with your uncle and not the condition of my study,” he quipped.
She looked up, startled to find that she’d followed him into his study without a thought. A twinge of unease hit her when he closed the door behind her. Then she relaxed. At least he’d brought her to his study and not his bedroom. If anything convinced her of his sincerity, that did.
She surveyed the room as he poured himself a glass of brandy from the decanter on a writing table. Then she laughed. “Believe me, your study is a picture of neatness compared to Uncle Winston’s. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
The room was tastefully decorated with mahogany furniture, and the other furnishings--drapes, rugs, overstuffed sofa, were just rumpled enough to make the room look comfortably male.
To her surprise, there were estate ledgers scattered across the desk and other obvious signs that he used the room for more than just a male retreat.
Then again, if memory served her correctly, the marquess had shown interest in his father’s business affairs even before the old marquess had died and left the running of the estates to his son.
The present Lord Foxworth might be a rake, but that obviously wasn’t the only facet of his character.
And somehow it only enhanced his trustworthiness in her eyes.
Then he began to untie his cravat, renewing all her unease. “Wh-What are you doing?” she blurted out as he slipped off the strip of silk and loosened the neck of his shirt, then tossed the cravat across a chair and removed his coat.
He smiled wide enough to bring out his dimple. “I’m getting comfortable. Surely you’ve seen your uncle do the same.”
She stared in horrified silence, unwilling to tell him that her uncle never so much as wore a banyan in her presence, though he occasionally did it when he was alone with his friends and thought she couldn’t see.
“I’d say that you should get comfortable, too,” he went on. “Loosen your stays. Let down your hair. But since you’d construe that as an attempt at seduction--and you’d be right--I’ll refrain from making that scandalous suggestion.”
When she opened her mouth to retort, he held up a hand. “Look here. I shan’t sit here all night with my neck in a vise. Nor shall I wear my coat and suffer through the suffocating heat that will be necessary to keep you warm in that . . . ah . . . less than adequate gown.”
Heat rose in her cheeks when he let his gaze trail down to her low-cut bodice, which bared an alarming amount of her skin to the air, even if it was fashionable. She had to admit her satin gown was no match for his clothing in warmth.
As if to emphasize his point, he hung his coat over the back of a chair. But when he removed no more clothing and only rolled up his sleeves, she let out a sigh.
He grinned and held up his hands. “You see? Nothing to be alarmed about.”
Not true, she realized as he turned around and bent to stoke up the fire. His coat had shielded certain parts of his anatomy, but with it off, she couldn’t help noticing for the first time the sleekly muscled thighs outlined by his breeches and the taut, firm shape of his buttocks.
Oh, dear. With a low groan, she averted her gaze. What on earth was she thinking about, looking at a man’s behind? Women were not supposed to notice such things. Theresa had been adamant about that.
Then why did she feel a rabid curiosity to see more of him unveiled? Why did the very sight of his bared forearms make her remember the excitement of being held by him on the balcony?
“Now we’ll be nice and cozy,” he announced in a cheery voice once he’d finished with the fire.
She could never be nice and cozy with him. Agitated and hot was how he made her feel. Very unladylike, to be sure, but she couldn’t help that.
He seemed to know it, too, for he flashed her a devil of a grin before he gestured her toward a chair.
She moved to it and sat gingerly on the edge, wondering how she’d ever make it through this night without doing something to disgrace herself. “What now?” she asked, needing to get her mind off the unsettling feelings he stirred in her.
Picking up his brandy glass, he shrugged.
“Why don’t you tell me what you want to do?
Consider this your stolen night. No one will ever know what you do during these hours, so why not do something you’ve always wanted?
Whatever you choose will be our secret. You’re free to engage in any activity your heart desires .
. . within the confines of this house and its grounds, of course. ”
She stared at him. He was right. This was a stolen night. There was no Uncle Winston or Theresa to please, no crowd of earls and duchesses to impress. There was only Nev. And nothing she did seemed to shock him.
“Would you like to drink a brandy?” he offered as a suggestion, his eyes twinkling. “Or perhaps some port?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve already had my share of champagne tonight, and liquor gives me a headache.”
“Then I suppose cigars are out,” he quipped, eliciting a giggle from her. “What then? What would you like to do that you’ve never been allowed to do before?”
With a frown, she thought of all the restrictions placed on her through the past seven years . . . nay, through her whole life. There were mountains and mountains of them, yet absurd as it seemed, all she could think of was--
“I should like to slide down the bannister in the hall.”
He sputtered, nearly choking on his brandy. “You’d like to do what?”
“Slide down the bannister.” When he continued to regard her as if she were mad, she explained.
“When I used to visit here, Isabella and I would watch you and your friends slide down that lovely long bannister. It looked like such fun, and we were green with envy. Yet the only time we attempted it, we were caught before we could go down, and then soundly chastised by your father, who said girls shouldn’t do such things, for it might ruin them. ”
He snorted. “That sounds like something Father would have said.”
“At the time I wondered what he meant. How could it possibly ruin us to slide down a bannister?” She tossed her head back. “Anyway, I think he only said it to keep us from doing something he thought was too dangerous for girls but perfectly safe for boys.”
“Sliding down a bannister isn’t perfectly safe for anyone,” he muttered.
“You did it. I should like to try it, too.”
He cast her a look of pure exasperation.
She met his gaze with an angelic smile. “You said I could do anything. Are you going to renege?”
He drained his glass, then set it down on the table with a sigh. “Of course not. If you want to break your bloody neck on the bannister, then by all means, have at it.”
Her smile widening to a grin, she leapt to her feet. Perhaps this night wouldn’t be so bad after all. It might even be fun.
She changed her mind about that minutes later when she was standing at the top of the staircase staring down the smooth length of oak bannister.
She hadn’t remembered it being quite so long or so high above the ground.
Suddenly she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to slide down a bannister. Nev was right. It didn’t look safe.
Glancing down at Nev, who stood at the bottom of the stairs, she caught his smug glance and knew he’d noticed her sudden reluctance. Blast him! If she didn’t do it now, he’d tease her about it the rest of the evening.
She would not give him the satisfaction.
Flashing him a look of pure defiance, she set herself up on the even stretch that came before the drop.
“You don’t have to do this,” Nev called up from the bottom.