A Season of Ruin Read online

  She didn’t want that, did she? Perhaps it wasn’t too late to set it right again. If they stopped right now, maybe . . .

  The floor disappeared from beneath her feet as Robyn swept her into his arms. He buried his face in her hair and then he was sitting, and he’d pulled her onto his lap. She felt his thighs under her bottom and his breath coming hard and fast against her neck. His chest rose and fell under her hands.

  He dragged a warm palm down the front of her neck, and before she could take another breath, she felt his finger against the neckline of her gown. Just one finger, a slow, teasing caress. He barely touched her, just drifted his fingertip over the narrow band of silk where her gown touched the skin at the top of her breast, but his touch felt like a trail of fire against her flesh.

  Oh, dear God. He’d thrust his tongue into her mouth and now he’d put a finger on her breast. She wasn’t sure what came next, exactly. His entire hand? They’d already gone too far, and it felt too good to be in his arms—so good she couldn’t trust herself to stop him from taking it farther.

  She tried to draw away but he held her fast against him. Even when she began to struggle in earnest, he only tightened his arms around her. She had to get away from him. Now, before he touched her again and she no longer wanted to escape at all . . .

  Crack!

  Her palm landed on Robyn’s cheek with enough force to make his head snap sideways. Lily stared down at her hand in disbelief. She didn’t realize she had such a spectacular slap hidden in her palm. How thrilling to find it there! But as gratifying a slap as it was, it didn’t deliver the desired result.

  The confounded man still held on to her.

  Why hadn’t he released her? Perhaps young ladies slapped his face so often he’d grown accustomed to it? She’d intended to flee faster than she’d ever flown, before he could get a good look at her, but Robyn was wilier than she expected, and quicker. She twisted and flailed like a fish on a hook, but he held on like a champion angler.

  He rose from the settee with her dangling from his arms as if she were a sack of flour. Her feet touched the ground, but one of his arms clamped around her midsection before she could get any traction.

  “Release me this instant—”

  But she wasn’t going anywhere until he decided she could.

  “The devil I will. I think I’ve a right to see your face, given you’ve just slapped mine.”

  He followed this declaration with a long string of curses and hauled her along with him toward the lamp in the opposite corner of the room.

  Lily wanted to sink to the ground in mortification, but it was too late for a swoon. Robyn snatched the lamp off the table and raised it so the muted light shone fully on her face. She closed her eyes and waited, breath held.

  His fingers tightened at her waist, but he didn’t say a word. Lily opened one eye and peeked at him, but shadows hid half his face and she couldn’t read his expression.

  Perhaps he’d fallen into a swoon?

  “Damnation,” he muttered after what felt like an eternity of silence. He released her, and his arms fell to his sides.

  Lily didn’t approve of profanity, but the word did seem appropriate, given the circumstances.

  Damnation, indeed.

  Chapter Three

  His shy, chaste young virgin, his meadow-scented innocent with her dainty, delicate hands—hands that had lain against his chest so sweetly only moments before—had just delivered a blow so powerful, his brain wobbled like a jelly inside his skull.

  And that was the least of it.

  His shy, chaste young virgin was none other than Lily Somerset. Lily, his sisters’ dearest friend, and a guest in his mother’s home. Lily, his sister-in-law. Lily, the one woman in London irrevocably off-limits to him, and perhaps the only woman in London he didn’t care to despoil of her virtue.

  At least, he hadn’t cared to despoil her before tonight, before he’d discovered straitlaced, proper Lily hid the softest lips he’d ever kissed and the most tempting curves he’d ever laid a finger on under her starchy exterior. He hadn’t even needed all of his fingers to tell that her breasts were . . .

  Stop it! Never mind her lips or her breasts. Robyn closed his eyes for a moment and concentrated instead on what would happen if his brother Alec ever found out about this particular incident. Robyn didn’t like his chances of keeping his head attached to his neck if Alec did.

  He opened his eyes to find Lily looking up at him as if she dreaded what he’d say next.

  “If you wanted to kiss me, Lily, you could have just asked. You needn’t have gone to all this trouble.”

  Her mouth dropped open, then she crossed her arms over her chest. “If you wanted me to slap your face, Robyn, I would have been delighted to oblige, even without the kiss.”

  He grinned. “You didn’t have to slap me at all, you know. I would have let you go. I only wanted to see your face before I did.”

  So I could find you again. And ruin you.

  Alas, there would be no ruination now. He’d never find another woman in London with her taste and scent, either. Wild strawberries, a meadow on a sunny day . . . good God. He was going to have to move to the country.

  She ran a hand over her hair to smooth the curls he’d disarranged. “Well, I didn’t know that, and I didn’t know it was you. I thought it far more likely to be one of those conscienceless seducers London is infamous for.”

  “Or else you did know, and you just wanted to slap me.”

  Her face flooded with color. “I—I didn’t know. I didn’t kn-know it was you I’d slapped,” she said, as if she could barely get the words out.

  Robyn moved a step closer. “I didn’t know it was you I’d kissed. If I let you slap me again, may I kiss you once more?”

  He grabbed her hand and held it against his smarting cheek, unable to resist teasing her a little. What did a prim, proper young lady do when a rake teased her? This would be his only chance to find out, for once they left this room, he’d never touch or tease her again.

  Anything that might happen between them while they were still here didn’t count, did it?

  Lily didn’t seem to share that logic. She tugged at her hand until he released her. “I have a better idea. I’ll slap you again, only harder, and you’ll let me go as you should have done the first time. I’ll hurry back to your sisters and you can get on with kissing whomever you’re lying in wait for.”

  Lying in wait? Surely he wasn’t as predatory as all that? After all, he’d been invited here. Not in so many words, perhaps, but invited nonetheless. That made him the prey, not the predator.

  But somehow he didn’t think Lily would see it that way.

  Admit nothing. He blinked at her and tried to look innocent. “What makes you think I’m lying in wait for someone?”

  Lily expelled an impatient breath. “Why else would you be in here alone, lurking right by the door, watching it so closely I’d scarcely set a toe across the threshold before you whisked me off my feet and into the room? Then you locked the door behind me.”

  He laughed. “That proves nothing, except I have great presence of mind in seizing an opportunity.”

  Lily pursed her lips. “It wasn’t precisely an opportunity you seized. Or did you mean you’d seize anyone who happened to walk through the door?”

  “I’d lurk by the door forever for another chance to seize you,” he said, surprised to hear the words leave his mouth. He’d never had any inclination to seize Lily before, yet even now he itched to close his hands around her waist.

  Robyn shook himself. Why all the bloody honesty all of a sudden?

  Admit nothing.

  “Let that be a lesson to you,” he added when she remained silent. “Anything can happen when you follow a gentleman into a dark room.”

  “Follow? Don’t be absurd. I never followed you. I hadn’t
any idea you were in here. I thought this was the ladies’ retiring room.”

  Robyn raised an eyebrow. “You mean to say you’re perceptive enough to notice a gentleman lying in wait by the door, but not perceptive enough to realize this isn’t the ladies’ retiring room?”

  “I did realize it! Only it was too late to do anything about it by then.”

  He took a step closer. “Ah, yes. I forgot. You were all atremble by then, in fear for your virtue, certain you were in the arms of a conscienceless seducer.”

  She bit her bottom lip nervously. “Wasn’t I?”

  Robyn’s gaze drifted down to her lips. “Perhaps you were. The kiss was far more devastating than the slap, you know.”

  Damn it. More confounded honesty.

  “You’re only teasing me—”

  He shook his head. “No. Even more devastating after I knew it was you.”

  Christ. Admit nothing. Was that so difficult?

  Admit nothing, especially if it’s true.

  The truth was that before tonight, before he’d kissed her, he’d hardly even noticed Lily. Oh, she was beautiful, just like her sister Delia, with the same thick golden brown hair and those famously blue, blue eyes.

  But Lily . . . well, she was too neat. Too proper. She was buttoned, laced, smoothed, and groomed to perfection. There wasn’t a stray curl to finger or a hint of ankle to admire. Any lust he might have felt for her was overwhelmed by an urge to wrinkle her gown or pull every pin from her hair, then shove it back in, upside down and backward.

  He’d met Delia and Lily at a country ball in Surrey when he’d come from Kent to escort Charlotte and Ellie home from a visit with their aunt Mathilda, who lived near Maidstone. On their last night in Surrey, his sisters had teased and cajoled until he’d agreed to attend a country ball and meet their new friends, Delia and Lily Somerset.

  Robyn hadn’t anticipated much pleasure in the evening, but he’d had nothing better to do, so he’d gone and been stunned to discover either of Charlotte and Ellie’s new friends could rival London’s most celebrated belles. He’d never imagined such lovely young ladies were hidden away in the depths of Surrey, or he would long since have taken up farming. Or fox hunting.

  Or whatever it was gentlemen did in the country.

  The ball had been made up mostly of families from the surrounding neighborhood, but one young matron had brought guests who were on a visit from London. Robyn had been standing by when these fashionable young ladies were introduced to Lily and Delia.

  “Oh, yes,” one of them had said, looking down her long nose at the two sisters. “I believe I recall the name Somerset. Your mother was quite famous when she debuted, wasn’t she?”

  “Infamous, you mean,” the other young lady put in with a smirk.

  Millicent Somerset, or Millicent Chase as she’d been known before her marriage, had been a famous jilt. The ton still spat shards of glass over Millicent Chase’s story, for she’d been one of their own, and she’d betrayed them all by marrying some nobody without family or fortune, and then she’d had the gall to move to the country, bear five beautiful daughters, and live in a state of unrepentant happiness until her sudden death a year ago.

  Delia had looked the first young lady right in the eye. “It’s odd, isn’t it, Lily, how often London visitors make that very same comment? I can’t account for it, unless every lady in London stands around the same ballroom night after night, exchanging the same vicious gossip.”

  Delia had drawn breath to deliver another scathing set-down, and he’d been wild with impatience to hear what she’d say next, but then Lily had laid a hand on her sister’s shoulder, and Delia had fallen silent. Lily herself hadn’t said one word, and not a flicker of emotion had crossed her face. If he hadn’t known otherwise, Robyn would have believed she hadn’t heard the sarcastic comment at all.

  He’d been fascinated with Delia after that. Briefly anyway. His infatuations never lasted long. He’d spent the better part of his mother’s recent house party at Bellwood sniffing after Delia like a hound on a fresh scent, but he’d lost interest even before they all returned to London.

  Just as well, too, since Delia had married his brother, Alec, six weeks ago, at the start of the London season, and not a moment too soon. More than one high-minded dowager would be counting the weeks between the wedding and the birth the minute their child arrived.

  As for Lily, he’d dismissed her out of hand. He liked women with spirit, and he’d concluded from this episode that she hadn’t any. Even worse, she was a scold.

  Had that been it? Or had Delia simply been wearing the lower-cut gown of the two of them? He was a man, after all, and not a terribly complicated one.

  Perhaps he’d been a bit hasty in his determinations. Lily kept it well hidden under that prim exterior, but she did have spirit, and it took only a few stolen kisses and one finger to a breast to unleash it in full force. His cheek still smarted.

  Not that it mattered. Spirit or no spirit, the rules were clear. Robyn didn’t generally bother with rules, but debauching his sister-in-law was a bit much even for him. It would be more than a bit much for Alec, who’d strangle Robyn with his own cravat if he found out Robyn had laid a finger on Delia’s sister.

  It was quite simple, really. Don’t touch Lily.

  If he wasn’t permitted to touch her, then . . . “We’d better return to the drawing room. Charlotte and Eleanor will be looking for you.”

  Lily gave him a meaningful glance. When he failed to move, she made a twirling gesture with her fingers to indicate he should turn around. “Yes, very well. But I need a moment first.”

  “Whatever for?”

  A blush stained her cheeks. “I can’t go back to the drawing room looking like this.”

  The fragile neckline of the gown, low-cut to begin with, had succumbed to the struggle with him. He supposed he couldn’t let her skip back into the drawing room looking like that—as if she’d just been kissed and then tumbled in a meadow of warm grass and daisies.

  “Of course.” Robyn tried not to devour the sight of her bosom and failed miserably. When had she started wearing such low-cut gowns? “I noticed the same thing myself.”

  He hadn’t. But then he was accustomed to seeing women in various stages of undress.

  She turned away from him and made some mysterious adjustments to her gown only another female would understand. When she turned back, he couldn’t help but notice her repairs hadn’t been entirely successful.

  Robyn choked back a laugh. “Can I help you?”

  She glared at her bodice, then glared at him. “I think not.”

  He held up his hands in an innocent shrug. “I’m not looking.”

  He was.

  She tried to smooth the neckline to cover her breasts. His mouth went dry as he watched her pat at the fabric.

  “I’m ready,” she announced.

  He leaned a hip against the door. “No, you’re not. Your sash is twisted.”

  She mumbled something about “dratted ribbons” and tried to smooth the wrinkle out of the sash, but it was no good.

  Robyn crossed his legs at the ankles and grinned at her. If she wanted perfect ribbons, she’d have to remove her sash. While he watched. Then she’d likely need his help to tie it again.

  So. Just how badly did Lily want perfect ribbons? Badly enough to practically undress in front of him? At least, that was how she’d see it. He’d find it less thrilling, of course, as he routinely stripped women of far more than their sashes.

  With his teeth.

  She bit her lip, then reached around to untie the sash.

  Robyn felt his grin widen. Ah-ha. The high price of perfection.

  He watched, more intrigued than he should be, as she pulled the bow loose and the green ribbon fell away from her waist.

  Thrilling enough, though.

&
nbsp; She ran the twisted end of the satin through her fingers to smooth it. She held it in place against her front, hesitated, then turned her back to him. “If you wouldn’t mind?”

  Mind? He was jealous of a length of ribbon. “Not at all.”

  He took the ends of the ribbon in his fingers and pulled the sash firmly around her. He let his knuckles brush against her slim waist as he tied the bow.

  She turned around to face him. “There. Is that satisfactory?”

  He looked her over. Smooth ribbons. Every hair in place. Breasts covered. This was the Lily he recognized. “I liked it better before.”

  She gave a haughty little sniff and turned back toward the door. “You would.”

  He hooked a finger around her sash and drew her back again. “You can’t just wander out into the hallway as if you’re picking flowers in a meadow, you know.”

  Funny, the way that particular image kept coming up.

  He opened the door a crack and scanned the hallway. “Let me at least look first. If there’s no one about, you can return to the drawing room. I’ll follow after a few minutes so it doesn’t look like we’ve been off somewhere alone together, for you may as well go back to Surrey tomorrow if you’re seen leaving a dark room with me—Christ!”

  The door jerked out of Robyn’s hand. A petite brunette wearing a dark blue gown dashed through it, straight into his arms.

  “You waited for me,” she breathed in low, husky tones as she wound her black-gloved arms around his neck. “It took me an eternity to get away, and all the while I could think of nothing but this.”

  She sank her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck and pressed her lips passionately against his.

  Alicia had finally arrived.

  * * *

  Lily stood there, white-faced, as Robyn seized his second opportunity of the evening.

  He did have great presence of mind, just as he’d claimed, for he kicked the door shut behind the woman. To be fair, he didn’t precisely seize her, though his hands closed around her waist. “Alicia! Give me a moment, pet,” he said, trying to hold her away from him.