The whole of Miss Sybil Cunning’s dowry would never be the sum to save a man from total ruin. But the one thousand pounds she offered in exchange for his assistance was an amount that would see his sister properly attired for her first London Season. It might save him from selling off their late mother’s remaining sets of jewels. It did not, however, involve him selling himself off to a bride. Or debauching an innocent.
And all he need do was…was…show her a thrilling time. For a fortnight.
He would do it.
He’d known he would accept the terms of her offer before she’d even mentioned that staggering amount. Mayhap it was the maudlin feeling of the Christmastide season or his own boredom with all his fellow rakes and wicked widows off for the holidays, but the moment she’d debated the word “fun” with him, he’d been hopelessly enthralled by the unconventional beauty.
The lady shifted back and forth on her feet in a telltale hint of nervousness. Still, even facing ruin, she’d come here today, anyway. He was filled with an unexpected wave of admiration for the bold chit. Oh, he’d sooner carve out his tongue than admit as much to her.
“You’ve heard the rumors, then.” He braced for her lie.
Sybil angled her chin up. “That you trade sexual favors for coin from wealthy ladies?” She nodded. “I have. Are they true?”
He’d give it to the chit. She was far bolder than both the colorless English ladies whose paths he’d crossed and the wicked widows whose beds he’d climbed in. Nolan briefly steepled his fingers together in false contemplation. “A fortnight,” he repeated, ignoring the latter part of her question. He let his hands fall to his side.
Sybil nodded and dabbed again at her injured palm. “Do you know Francis Bacon looked at our gestures as a way of reading a person’s frame of mind?”
What was she on about now?
Like one of those stodgy instructors at Oxford handing down a lesson, she explained. “He said the lineaments of the body disclose the disposition and inclination of the mind; but the motions of the countenance and parts also further disclose the present humor and state of the mind and will…”
He frowned. “What are you saying, Miss Cunning?”
She flashed a decidedly wicked smile that dimpled her left cheek and danced in her brown eyes. “I’m saying by your brief steeple,” kerchief in hand, she demonstrated the gesture in question. “And abrupt cessation of that pose,” she mimicked his exact movements. “That you already determined you’d take on the assignment.”
Clever chit. Far too clever. As a rule, Nolan steered clear of all clever people—his own brother, included. And yet, the truth remained, a lie he lived, that not a single lord, lady, or servant would ever dare believe—he did, in fact, care about someone more than he did his own self—Josephine. Oh, he’d take that piece to his grave before admitting as much. Just as he’d sooner share the damage he’d suffered to his brain all those years ago that had riddled him useless with his own finances. “We begin tomorrow.” The lady shot thin, golden eyebrows to her hairline. “Missives will be sent from my footman, who is hopelessly in love with your maid.”
“Hannah?” she asked, surprise in that query.
Nolan dug his fingertips against his temples and rubbed. God, even in his greenest days he’d never been as innocent as this one.
“Oh.” Bright splotches of color filled her plump cheeks, leaving an endearing blush. “It is part of your scheming. You are a good deal more proficient at…” She waved a hand back and forth between them. “All of this than I am.”
“You will learn in time,” he said, flashing a wolfish grin. What would she one day be like in her scheming?
The lady rolled her eyes. “If I’ve not learned as much in my ten years in London, I daresay the time for mastery has come and gone.”
She’d be wrong. He’d not debate the point with her. What she did with the next nine and twenty years of her life was of no consequence. Only the coin she’d dangled forth mattered in the scheme of their brief relationship.
“You’re to come without a maid. We’ll meet each morn at eight o’clock.” When the fashionable world slept on. With the handful of polite families remaining in London for the Christmastide season, it would rid them of the possibility of discovery. “Weekends are excluded from the days which you’ve hired me on for.”
Her plump lips formed a small moue of displeasure. “That means of the whole fortnight, you’ll only assist me with ten days.”
He fetched his glass and again saluted her. “Brava, Miss Cunning. Our lessons will not require us to brush up on your mathematics skills.” Meeting officially concluded, Nolan swallowed the remainder of his drink. His throat muscles worked quickly. Then with a grimace, he abandoned his glass. He registered the absolute silence and glanced over at the still purse-mouthed Miss Cunning. “You disapprove.”
“I am hiring you for fourteen days, my lord.” There was a resolute edge to that statement.
So she my lorded him when she was displeased. He stored away that useful detail about the lady.
“You are hiring me for what I’m willing to assist you with,” he corrected. “You see, Sybil,” he went on, deliberately commandeering those two syllables as he strolled over to her. “You’ve heard rumors that I’m a man who whores myself for coin, hmm?” If her cheeks turned any redder, she was going to go up in flames. Taking advantage of the painfully tight coiffure that left her long, graceful neck exposed, he placed his lips close to her nape. The lady’s breath caught and he reveled in that slight intake that spoke of her desire. How very…interesting. The bookish, research-driven woman had fire in her blood. Why did that make his own run hot? “What you failed to take into account is that it is I whose services you requested. As such, I set those terms.” He took a step away. “There are no Saturday and Sunday meetings. If you wish to take your coin and find another rake?” She briefly dropped her gaze to her slippers, the gesture telling. “Ahh,” he murmured, stretching out that utterance. He walked a slow circle about her. “I was not the first rake you’d considered. I was merely the most handy, no?”
With his every step, the lady brought her shoulders further and further back until her stiff carriage could rival a veteran military man in the king’s army. “Have I hurt your feelings?” The vipers of Nolan’s acquaintance would have turned that question into a cruel and derisive one. Not this woman. Worry marred those words, filled her eyes, and marked her very different than all the ladies he dallied with.
“I do not have feelings to hurt, Miss Cunning,” he said with an automaticity borne of truth. “We’re done.” He paused. “For now.” Collecting her cloak, he tossed it at the lady. She immediately caught it to her chest. “Take yourself off and have a care to keep your hood closed.”
She gave a jerky nod.
“And, Sybil?” he added, after she’d shrugged into the offending garment.
She froze, fingers on the edge of the hood. “Take care to at least have a cloak that will not give away your actual station.”
Sybil followed his gaze downward to the four inches of velvet fabric, that damning fabric that hinted at a lady concealed underneath the drab wool. “Thank you, my lord.” And then, as though they met in a parlor for tea and a formal visit, she sank into a flawless curtsy. She then made a quick path for the door.
He took a brief moment to appreciate the sway of her generous hips. The cloak did little to shield her from his appreciative gaze. Another wave of desire coursed through him. Nolan closed the distance in several long strides. He placed his palm on the doorjamb, effectively trapping her in.
Sybil gasped. She swung her gaze from his fingers, to the door handle. “M-My lord?”
She was right for that suspicion. After all, he’d already dismissed her. Yet, he was suddenly hesitant to see her go. It’s only because you’ll then be alone with the reminder of your own dire straits…“Surely you’ll not leave before we make our agreement official?”
The lady tapped four fingertips against her forehead, as though dislodging the thoughts there. “Of course, you are correct.” She stuck her fingers out. “Did you know the handshake goes back centuries and centuries?”
“I…” Feel like I’m in a Drury Lane production.
“Oh, yes.” As she spoke, there was an increasing enthusiasm that set the golden flecks in her irises dancing, transforming her from a rather ordinary creature to someone quite enchanting. Good God. Enchanting? Next thing, he’d be spouting sonnets about those damned flecks. Which were rather remarkable and—he swallowed down a groan. He cast a covetous glance back at his sideboard.
All the while Sybil prattled on. “…Scholars believe warriors would extend their right palm,” she demonstrated that simple gesture. “As a means of conveying they were unarmed and therefore safe.” Then the bold-as-brass miss collected his palm in her own. A heated charge burned at the point of contact. He eyed her long, gloveless digits in his own and his mouth suddenly went dry. He’d always been a man with an affinity for a woman’s lips. It was all too easy to conjure the wicked pleasures that flesh could bring and bestow. Yet he’d never given proper thought to a lady’s hand—until now. Until this woman’s hand.
She sighed. “Like this.” And pumped his hand, giving no outward show that any desire on her part even now demanded more than a damned handshake. “They also believe that this was a way of dislodging daggers or knives that might be hidden up a person’s sleeve.”
It was official. His reign as rake was at an end. Could there be any other fate for his ignoble rank, when a woman invaded his office and delivered a lecture and lesson on handshakes and idioms? He drew his hand quickly back. “I’m not sealing this with a handshake.”
She opened her mouth and then scrunched it up. Her eyes lit. “Of course.”
“Of course,” he echoed dumbly. Why did he even now believe he’d rather not hear what the peculiar chit had to say?
“A contract,” she said with a firm nod. “Given it is a business arrangement, involving one thousand pounds and the one hundred I’ve already given you, at the very least—”
“No.”
“—we should do is have it formally documented.”
“And risk our names being linked to that document,” he purred in the bedroom tones he’d affected with bored wives.
“Hmm.” Sybil tapped the tip of her index finger against her lips, drawing his attention back to that plump flesh. Just like that, a subtle tap, and all the wicked thoughts tumbled forth again. “Or—”
“A kiss,” he whispered. With his spare hand, he gathered the lone curl that defied her miserable chignon. That stubborn strand that spoke more to her character than the coiffure her straitlaced mama, no doubt, insisted on. He raised it to his lips and inhaled the aromatic hint of jasmine.
Then he registered her shoulders shaking. Sybil’s full, throaty laugh filled his office. That husky sound of her mirth not at all the restrained titters of a Societal lady. She slapped his hand away. “Well, I assure you, Nolan, I’m not kissing you now. Or ever. A kiss?” She gave her head a shake and slipped out from under his arm. “Who knew one of Society’s most notorious rakes should have a sense of humor?” With that, she opened the door and sailed from the room, like a specter he’d merely conjured of his own imaginings.
He stood motionless, staring at the oak panel many, many minutes. What in blazes had just happened here? Shaking his head, he collected the velvet purse handed over by her and reclaimed the chair behind his desk. The same seat his father had occupied long, long ago. Back when the finances had been in order. Back when there had been a Pratt clever enough to not trust all their wealth to even the most trusted man-of-affairs.
Restless, he yanked open the center drawer and dropped the purse inside. The coins jingled noisily. “Taking coins from a bloody spinster,” he muttered. This is what he’d been reduced to. He almost preferred the myth that surrounded him, of his bedding ladies for coin, to this pathetic fate. Almost. Self-loathing swirled in his breast. He dragged over a stack of correspondences. He sifted through them. Propping his elbow on the smooth surface, he dropped his forehead into his palm. Or rather, the stacks of notes from creditors. It was going to take a good deal more than Sybil Cunning’s thousand pounds.
The door flew open with such force it bounced off the wall. His sister sailed into the room. “Who was that?”
Heart racing, Nolan cursed. “Don’t go sneaking up on me, brat.” And then her words registered. He suppressed a groan. Was it too much to hope there was another “who” his meddlesome, troublesome, and always inquisitive sister spoke of? “Who—?”
She kicked the door closed with the heel of her boot. “Don’t treat me like a lackwit, Webb,” she warned. He’d learned long ago, he was Webb when she was angry. Nolan when she was indifferent. And Noel when she was the adoring sister, which she was decidedly less and less these days. All with good reason, of course.
Despite the misery of their financial state, a smile twitched at his lips. “You don’t miss anything do you?” he hedged, neatly stacking the notes and dropping those, too, inside his desk.
Josephine snorted and stalked over. “It wouldn’t take a damned Bow Street Runner to note the peculiarity of a lady, a poorly disguised one at that, striding through our halls.”
He winced. Yes, it hadn’t. Truly for the first time since Sybil Holly Cunning had invaded his home and office, he registered the perils of her having visited and just how close he had been to a scandal that would have required him to either marry the chit or prove himself the bounder the world knew him to be.
“Well?” Josephine probed, plopping herself down on the arm of the chair previously occupied by Sybil.
“The young woman was here on a matter of business,” he settled for.
“Wicked business?”
“I…what…?” He dragged his fingers through his tousled hair. “No.” Which was, shockingly and surprisingly, one of the first truths he’d uttered in more years than he could remember.
She snorted. No doubt because she had also become accustomed to those lies. “Regardless of your company,” Josephine went on in regal tones that were so very much like their mother’s, that he was stricken. Somewhere along the way, she’d grown up. How their parents would have despised him for how he’d failed all the Pratts. An unwanted pang struck. “…It will soon be Christmas,” his sister finished.
He sighed. “Joe—” At her narrowing gaze, he was wise enough to go silent.
“You had me away at that horrid school last year.”
“Mrs. Belden’s,” he supplied automatically.
Josephine leaned forward. “I well know the school, Webb. I was the one there.” He’d be deaf to fail to hear the accusation there. And once again, it was deserved. It didn’t matter that living in a bachelor’s residence was no place for an innocent. It mattered that his lack of business acumen had seen her not at home with a governess where she’d belonged but at a finishing school that they could afford.
“I’m sorry,” he said solemnly, earning another snort.
Of course, she wouldn’t see anything beyond the careless image he’d expertly crafted these years. “Spare me your show, Nolan.” All right, this was safer.
“What do you want?” he put to her with a bluntness that earned an appreciative nod.
“I want a Christmas celebration this year. See that you make it happen.” She jumped to her feet and glided to the door, pausing to toss a saucy look back. “That is, between your naughty business with the lady you had to visit.”
After she’d closed the door, he sank into the comfortable folds of his chair and rested his head along the back. Naughty business with Sybil Cunning? Why, with the bold, prattling bluestocking there was a greater chance of the late King George coming back from the grave to celebrate the holiday season.