There were a good many things wrong with Nolan. His mind, following that bloody fall from his horse. His morals. His declining financial state. There was not, however, a thing wrong with his vision. As such, it had taken but a single glance to ascertain that the unexpected visitor Stephenson had come by with a card from a moment ago, was in no way, shape, or form a Mr. Sir. Or anything of the male persuasion.
What there did appear to be something wrong with, in addition to his lengthy list of flaws—was his hearing. “Beg your pardon?” he blurted.
“Hire you,” she said with a flippant wave of her hand. Uninvited, she came forward.
Hire him? Bitterness soured his mouth. Ah, of course. At last it made sense. She’d come with the hopes he’d debauch her. The curt dismissal died on his lips as the lady unhooked the clasp of her clearly borrowed, low quality cloak. She shrugged out of the offending garment and revealed a plump, perfectly rounded in all the right places frame. One similar to others that had found Nolan in all manner of trouble before. With irate husbands. Jealous protectors.
He swallowed hard as an unwanted wave of lust bolted through him. For though he’d long been a lover of wicked, scandalous widows and wives, he’d never dared set his eyes on a single proper lady.
And yet, there was no mama about, and he looked his fill. Miss Cunning’s—he grimaced—awful name. Sybil’s, he settled for in his silent thoughts, large breasts, strained the fabric of her powder blue satin dress. A dress that clung to flesh, accentuating generous hips that would overfill his hands. An honorable gentleman would have been shamed at admiring and lusting after a lady. Nolan had never been one of those decent sorts. As such, he continued to appreciate her voluptuous form, all the while sipping at his whiskey. Questions raced through his mind. Questions, and concern.
After all, if she were discovered here, she’d be ruined, and he’d be expected to do right by her. Not that he had ever done what was expected of him. Still, he’d rather not have a lady ruined on his doorstep.
Bold as you please, Miss Cunning settled her cloak across one chair and claimed the other. “May I?”
“I believe you already did,” he pointed out. “Let me begin by saying if you are one of those fortune-hunting misses, desperate for a husband, you’d do better than to pick a bounder like me. I’ve got barely two coins to rub together.”
“I know,” she said simply, sitting back in her chair. She layered her arms along the sides of the wing back chair, perfectly at home and in control of herself and his office. “I assure you, I’ve better sense than to seek marriage to you.”
Nolan opened his mouth. And closed it. He tried again. Why, the impudent chit just insulted him.
“I suppose it would not do to insult you given I’ve come on a favor.”
He set his glass aside. “No,” he agreed. She promptly joined her hands together in what he expected was a bid for primness. His lips quirked. There wasn’t a thing prim about his unconventional visitor. “A favor?” So this is why she’d come then. Leaning forward, he pressed his palms along the surface of his desk. “Or something you’d hire me for, Sybil.”
With pearl-white, flawless teeth, she nibbled at her lower lip. Her plump lower lip. “A paid favor,” she amended.
“Ah, yes. The whole ‘I-wish-to-hire-you business’.” He pushed slowly to his feet, and his mystery visitor jumped up. Ah, so she was not as cool and composed as she’d let on. Finding his own legs in that uncertainty, Nolan wandered around the desk. “Tell me, Sybil—”
“Miss Cunning,” she interjected, backing up a step.
“Miss Cunning, who’d ask me for a paid favor?” And oddly, in addition to his lust there was something more—intrigue, for the unconventional spitfire.
Again, she worked at that lower lip, forcing his gaze to that lush flesh. Lips made for wicked acts that involved her dropping to her knees before him and taking him deep inside the warm cavern of her mouth. Desire pounded in his veins. “Very well,” she acquiesced, strolling over to his sideboard. “Sybil, then.” That nonchalance, real or exaggerated, effectively doused his ardor.
He stopped and glanced back. What was she on about?
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “You have permission to use my given name.”
He’d be damned if he showed any hint of it, but a proper miss who’d insist on using those forbidden-by-Society Christian names, had his admiration. “I’m honored.”
She continued over his dry response. “And you are?”
He’d puzzled through his confounded ledgers with a greater ease than speaking to this woman. “I am what?”
The lady emitted one of those endless sighs his beleaguered math instructors at Eton had long ago perfected. “Your name, Lord Webb. Your Christian name.”
Nolan scrubbed a hand over his eyes and cast a quick look over at his forgotten glass. He was foxed. There was nothing else accounting for this maddening, imagined exchange. Alas, the lady, with lips tensing and eyes glinting with annoyance, remained real as ever. “Nolan.”
“Nolan,” she murmured, those two syllables rolling from her lips as though she tasted them and tested them all at the same time. Her brown eyes brightened. “I always believed it sounded a bit like Noel.” He furrowed his brow as she grabbed the very origins of his damned family moniker from the vault of his past. “As in a Christmas Noel,” she elucidated.
“As in you have five minutes before I toss you out on your arse, Miss Cunning.”
“I thought we’d agreed to call one another by—”
“Miss Cunning?” he warned. The last thing he cared to do was circle around a discussion on how they might refer to each other. He’d have her get to the paid favor that brought her here.
Another breathy sigh spilled from her lips, fanning a lone golden curl that had fallen over her brow. She tucked the recalcitrant strand behind her ear. “I wish to hire you.”
“Yes. You’ve said as much. And just what do you require, Miss Cunning?” Despite his desire to be rid of her, his damned intrigue doubled. He started over to her. When she spoke, it brought him up short.
“A rake.” She smoothed her palms up and down over her immaculate satin skirts. He’d known from the moment she’d slipped in his office with the dreadful false name of Mr. Thomas Thomason what brought her here. Only, having her confirm it left him with a bitter taste in his mouth. “I require a rake,” she clarified. “And you are one.”
Indeed. One of the most notorious, whispered-about ones in the whole of England. And he’d never be one of those marrying sorts. Which could only mean—He tipped his lips up in a slow, practiced grin. “You desire a rake,” he repeated, wrapping that slightly emphasized word in a husky purr. Even as an unwanted disappointment filled him…and regret, that she, too, should seek him out for a wicked assignation.
The lady darted her tongue out, the pink tip marking a little path over the seam of her lips. “O-or a rogue.”
He’d hand it to the bold chit. But for that faint tremor, she’d not shown a moment’s hesitation or unease—until now. Good, she’d do well to fear him, and more—being here. Nolan rested his hip against the previous seat she’d occupied and folded his arms at his chest. “Now, tell me, Miss Cunning.” He flashed her a dangerous, practiced grin. “Which service may I provide?” And for the first time in his miserable existence, he wished he were the rake Society took him as so he could bed Miss Sybil Cunning and embrace both the diversion she offered and that much needed coin.
Oh, dear.
So the gossips had been correct. He was one of those desperate gentlemen who’d sell his services. Sybil hadn’t done a single iniquitous thing in the whole of her life. Well, outside of pilfering Cook’s desserts on the eve of her mother’s annual Societal ball all those years ago. But even she would have to be a lackwit to fail to detect the scandalous undertones to that husky question.
She reached behind her and captured the edge of his well-stocked sideboard; that vast collection of bottles a telltale testament of scandalous proclivities that had seen his pockets to let. Sybil could certainly see how such a gentleman would be prone to trouble. He inspired wicked yearnings no respectable lady would surely have. Yet here she was, sensible Sybil, as her mother had often praised, losing control of her wits after but a single exchange with the notorious Lord Webb.
“Cat got your tongue, Miss Cunning?” he whispered. Heat exploded in her cheeks.
And she, Sybil Holly Cunning, now less than one year away from thirty years of age, a grown woman with ten miserable Seasons to her disastrous credit, found herself—blushing. All because of the silken promise he wrapped that single word in. “D-Do you know they believe the whole cat-caught-your-tongue phrasing came from the sailors who…” He shoved himself upright. “Were speechless from the sting of the cat o’ nine tails?” Her breath caught loudly as he closed the short distance between them.
Nolan merely reached past her for a bottle of whiskey and a new glass. Crystal touched crystal in a soft ping as he poured the tall glass full. The small stream of liquid filling that glass sounded across the room, blended with the crackle of the fire in the hearth and the slap of wind against the windowpane. Those mundane sounds proved calming and Sybil relaxed for the first time since she’d entered Lord Webb’s household.
“Tell me, Miss Cunning, do you have a good deal of experience with the sting of a lash?” he drawled, setting down the decanter.
She cocked her head, singularly focused on…his fingers. How strange that a gentleman should possess that olive-hued skin. Lords and ladies of the ton had hopelessly pale cheeks to rival the snow and, yet, this man’s hinted at Roman roots. Then his words registered. “Do I have experience with the sting of a…?” She creased her brow. “No. Why would I have experience with a lash?”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” he said with a regretful sigh that only deepened her confusion. He held out his glass.
She eyed it. “What do you expect I’d do with that?”
“As it is a drink, my expectation would be that you drink it, Sybil.” He moved in and out of her proper form of address and her Christian name. Yet there was something wholly seductive in the way he took those two-syllables and laid claim to them in a husky baritone.
She looked between the glass and his face. With his chiseled features and glorious, golden perfection, he was a rake personified. You are not a silly miss to be tempted by those thick, blond lashes. Sybil tried to calm her racing heart. “I do not drink spirits,” she finally said.
“A pity.”
Though, in fairness, he sounded a good deal more bored than concerned about her spiritless state. He hovered, sipping away at that very drink. Waiting. Watching. At seven inches past five feet, Sybil stood taller than most of the gentlemen of her acquaintance. This man, however, was at least six inches taller than she was. He would tower over a room of lesser lords. Unnerved by his nearness, she sidled away, putting some space between them.
“You know what you also do not do, Miss Cunning?”
His gaze lingered on her face with amusement. “Finish a complete thought or explanation.”
She blinked slowly. Of course. Her reasons for being here. “I need a—”
“A rake or rogue. Yes, you’ve said as much.” Must he sound so very bored? This was, after all, the singularly most outrageous thing she’d done in her life.
Brought back to the sole purpose in being here, Sybil went on to clarify. “You see—”
“I do not see anything about you clearly.”
“I’m looking to experience certain…things,” she carried on over that sarcastic interruption.
Nolan froze, glass midway to his mouth. She braced for a barrage of questions and even shock. Alas—a slow, feral grin curled the corners of his hard lips. “Indeed,” he whispered. Abandoning his glass, he started forward.
Oh, dear. She beat a hasty retreat. “Y-You misunderstand.” For the first time since she’d crafted this scheme, reservations reared their heads—too late.
“Do I?” He wandered closer. “You desire a rake. Or rogue, to teach you certain things,” he purred. That silken whisper was something a midnight jaguar would have fought him for. “What could be clearer?” She continued backing away from him. “And you wish to pay me for my…services?”
His services. Then his words registered. She choked. What had she expected of a rake, after all? “L-Lord Webb—” A gasp exploded from her as he wrapped a hand about her forearm.
“Careful, love,” he whispered, tipping his chin. She registered the heat at the back of her knees. Sybil swiveled her head around to the roaring hearth he’d saved her from stumbling into. “It’s bad enough you’re here, unchaperoned. It would be even greater trouble if you went and burned your lily white skin in my fireplace.” He’d noted her skin. It was an odd thing for him to remark on or for her to note. It was just skin, after all. But the way he held her—
His long fingers scorching her even through the fabric of her sleeves in ways the fire behind them couldn’t even hope to do. Get a hold of yourself, Sybil Holly Cunning. “Not those kind of services,” she said on a scandalized whisper. It was, of course, silly to whisper. There wasn’t a soul about.
Sybil pressed her palms to his chest to appeal for space. “W-Would you please…” Except, her fingers curled reflexively in the midnight black fine wool, and that husky plea came out wanton to her own inexperienced ears. But there was no helping it. Her gaunt father padded his garments and she’d been of the assumption that all English gentlemen were wont to do so. Only, nothing but the hard contours of a thickly muscled chest filled her grasp. She found herself fascinated by that discovery, for reasons that moved beyond her usual bookish pursuits. What was this headiness Baron Webb inspired? A headiness that was more potent than any book or periodical.
He dipped his lips close to hers. Oh, God, he’s going to kiss me. With heat steaming off his tall, muscled frame and his lips so very near her own, Sybil accepted the late-to-dawn realization—she’d been wrong earlier in the assurances she’d given to Hannah. There was all manner of trouble an unchaperoned lady could get in to with Baron Webb. A whole lot of it. Who would have figured her mother had been right on any score? But then, he placed his mouth near her earlobe. “Miss Cunning?” His breath, tinged with whiskey and peppermint, tickled her ear and she giggled.
Through her laughter, she grimaced. Egads, she was giggling like a debutante. If only his breath weren’t so blasted close to that sensitive skin at her neck.
Nolan tightened his grip. “Are you addled?”
He elicited a snorting laugh.
“N-No,” she managed to rasp out. “C-can you please step back? You’re t-tickling me with your…” He hastily backed away. “Breathing. Thank you.” After she’d regained control, she again smoothed her fingers down the front of her gown and got back to the heart of it. “I’m not looking for that kind of assistance. I’m looking to experience…” She gave a wave of a hand. “Whatever activities that bring a person pleasure.”
“Pleasure?”
Did she imagine the smile playing at his hard lips? Her heart tripped a beat and she told herself to nod a reply to his faintly mocking echo.
“Miss Cunning, why do I suspect we have two very different understandings of the word pleasure?”
“Because we do.” Or, in some ways they did. His also included the wicked types. She? Well, she knew even less about that but one had to begin somewhere. “However, you see, I’m looking to experience life.”
It was his turn to chuckle. “And you wish me to teach you the meaning of it?”
“Not the meaning,” she said, exasperated. “I wish you to show me whatever it is that makes life…entertaining.” Outside of her books and studies.
He said nothing for a moment and then whistled. “You are mad,” he breathed, earning a frown. “You came here, risking your reputation, all to hire me to teach you—?”
“The headier pleasures of life.” She nodded emphatically. “Yes.” Humph. When he said it like that, it made perfect sense—to her. Just not to his jaded ears.
“I am sorry,” he said, returning to the sideboard. Even with the warmth of the fire, she went cold as he took himself off. “I am not interested, able, willing, or any variation between, in helping you find a diversion from your staid life.”
Her staid life. Sybil pursed her lips. The bounder. She eyed him at the sideboard, wholly at home there, as though he’d been born to sip that elegant drink. Taking large, purposeful strides that not a single governess could have drilled from her person, Sybil retrieved Hannah’s cloak. She reached inside the pocket and withdrew a purse. “Here,” she said, tossing it down on the edge of the sideboard. Except—it knocked over a nearly empty bottle of bourbon. The piece tumbled over the edge and exploded in a fiery spray of glass. She gasped. “Oh, dear. Forgive me. I was trying to be breezy.”
“You failed,” he drawled., The pure, unjaded humor in that deep baritone voice momentarily froze her, doing odd little things to her heart’s rhythm. How could a man’s voice have that powerful effect? No book had ever made mention of such a phenomenon. Yet, for the havoc he now wrought on her senses, Nolan had the bag of coin in hand, weighing it, completely composed and self-possessed. And also wholly ignoring the mess now on his floor.
Sybil promptly knelt and set to work picking up the larger shards. “It is one hundred pounds,” she said, directing her words to the small pile of glass she amassed. “By the papers’ accounting, it is enough to cover the cost of your mount for the year.”
He said nothing to her ramblings. The slight jingle of coins hitting wood indicated he’d discarded her precious funds.
Nolan’s gleaming black boots came to rest just under her line of vision. She gasped, closing her hand unthinkingly. A jagged edge of glass bit painfully into her bare palm. She winced. “Leave it, Miss Cunning.” She set aside the pieces.
Curling her hand into a soft fist, she attempted to staunch the flow of the warm blood seeping from that slight wound. Splendid. Now she’d gone and broken his decanter. And she would bleed all over his office. She donned a forced smile and folded her hands behind her back. “That one hundred pounds,” she nudged her chin in the direction of the coinage he’d set aside, “is just a courtesy for your hearing me out today.”
“All right,” he drawled, hitching his hip on the edge of the mahogany sideboard. “I’m listening.”
Now, this was the humbling part. Baring all of herself and her own humiliation, to a stranger. A stranger who already thought her mad. “I am nine and twenty,” she said, shifting her hands over her skirts. All she needed was to return home, her satin skirts covered in blood. Mother would expire from fear and shock together. “I wear spectacles.”
“I see that.”
Oddly, nothing in that matter-of-fact concurrence hinted at disgust or disapproval that so many of the ton gentlemen had exhibited when she’d first made her Come Out all those years ago. Which only brought her round to her next point. “I’ve suffered through ten Seasons and am no longer required to suffer through any others.” That plea had been long denied by her mother and upheld by her father—until this year.
Nolan took another sip from his whiskey, looking hopelessly bored. Since bored was far preferable to pitying, she found the courage to continue.
“I will return to the countryside and visit London only when I wish.” Which she didn’t.
“Which you do not?” he correctly ventured, swirling the contents of his half-finished drink.
She nodded. “In ten years, Noel—”
“Nolan.” He cursed, grimaced, and then—“Webb.”
Sybil frowned. “I’m not calling you by your title if you’re calling me by my Christian name.”
“I hadn’t agreed to call you by anything.” The golden-haired Adonis toasted her and took a long swallow.
Yes, well, he had a point there. But they were getting off-subject—again. “I’ve never had a suitor.”
He choked on his drink, waving off her concerned query. “Y-you wish me to court you?” he asked, after he’d gained control of his breathing.
“No.” She sighed and glanced around his barren office. How to make him see? Sybil turned her uninjured hand up. “I’ve a straitlaced mother and a father who’ll do anything to keep his wife,” silent. “Happy.” Frustration thrummed to life and filled her with a frenetic energy. She began to pace. “I’ve always been a dutiful daughter. Helping my father document his fauna and flora collection. Helping my mother with the upkeep of the household.” When her sisters, Aria and Rosaleen had been off making mischief. “Attending miserably dull affairs,” she muttered. With every step, her annoyance grew. When had she ever put her own desires or interests before that of the Cunning family? “I’m really quite contented with my life. Or I believed I was,” she said, more to herself. Until now. Until her youngest sister had uttered a charge that had cast questions about Sybil’s existence. “I operate my life in logic and reason,” she continued when still he said nothing.
“Sounds dreadfully dull.”
“Mayhap. But I think not. That is what I’m trying to ascertain.”
“What if you do ascertain that your life is, in fact, dull? What happens to you then?”
Why was he asking questions? As a rake, she’d expected him to simply take her purse and show her those allegedly thrilling activities she’d not previously experienced. Never had she thought Nolan Pratt, Baron Webb, would heap doubts upon the very ones Aria had raised. “I’m not wrong, my lord,” she said at last. Because if she was, what would it say about her existence? It would mean she would have her books and research to occupy her through the years and never anything more. For gentlemen didn’t wed bespectacled spinsters with too many books.
Nolan caught her gently by the shoulder, immediately staying her. She gasped, having momentarily forgotten his presence. He turned her slowly back to face him and her body went hot as she braced for his derisive response. “You’ve injured yourself,” he murmured, setting aside his glass. He yanked out a white kerchief and pressed it to her wounded flesh. Her breath lodged somewhere between her lungs and airway as she studied his bent head. A golden curl fell over his eye as he saw to her wound. This gentleman ministering to that injury fit not at all with the careless image of rake and rogue. A truth that somehow made him all the more dangerous than one of those unfeeling cads.
“I-it is fine,” she hurried to assure him, her voice breathless and weak to her own ears. Belated in that offering. The risk to her had more to do with the warmth exploding in her chest.
“You’re not only mad but stubborn,” he muttered, turning over the bloodied scrap and finding a fresh portion of the hopelessly ruined fabric. He applied pressure and she winced.
“Yes. I’ve been a-accused as such. About being stubborn, that is.”
At last, he turned the cloth over to her care. He sighed and folding his arms at his chest, eyed her cautiously. “So you want to hire me not to court you or to ruin you, but to squire you about London and show you those pleasures you’ve missed until now.”
It wasn’t a question. Nonetheless, she nodded. “Indeed. I reached my majority long ago. The five thousand pounds set on me as my dowry is fit to use as I will. If you’ll assist me over the next fortnight, before I depart for the Christmastide season, I’m prepared to offer you one thousand pounds.”
His mouth fell agape and, with her uninjured hand, she tapped his jaw. He closed it. “One—”
“Thousand pounds. Yes.” She confirmed. “For showing me the thrill of life. And then the funds are yours.”