Had she been any other lady, Nolan would have been bored, annoyed, and exasperated by Sybil’s outward panic. This lady, however, who moved between bold, unapologetic minx to guarded, proper miss was a conundrum wrapped up tighter than a Christmastide present. He would very much like to free it from its layered satin wrappings.
“Here.” Nolan reached inside his jacket. Sybil watched him with a deserved guardedness. He offered her his flask.
The lady sputtered. “What in blazes is that?”
Taking off the top, he took a large swig. “Sip and find out.” He handed it over, a silent challenge. He’d known her but a day and already gleaned much about the lady; the main piece he’d discovered being that Sybil Holly Cunning would never back down from a challenge.
Tipping her chin up mutinously, she accepted the flask. Took a sip. And then promptly dissolved into a paroxysm of coughing. Tears filled her eyes, but even those crystalline drops did nothing to conceal her outrage. “Y-you did that o-on purpose.”
“I assure you,” he promised, looping his ankle across the opposite knee. “I may be rumored as a rake, but I’m not one of those cruel sorts who’d take delight in a lady choking to death on spirits.” Her eyes softened as though he’d handed down a piece of his soul that she quite approved of. Unnerved by that warmth shown to him, of all miserable bastards, he shifted on his bench. “After all, I’m not inclined to waste fine French spirits.”
Sybil froze. He knew the moment she’d registered his meaning. He braced for the swift death of that previous appreciation. Instead, she fiddled with the engraved flask in her fingers and then raised it to her lips once more. This time taking a smaller, practiced sip.
He flared his eyes. Once again, boldness and strength won out. He’d wager his declining fortunes that, with this woman, it invariably did.
Sybil took another drink. And another. And with every small sip, color filled her cheeks. Her mouth softened like her doe-eyes that possessed an innocence he long steered clear of in women. With her, however, there was an almost hypnotic pull; an intrigue for a lady so very different than all the others. She tipped the flask back and he shot a hand out, grabbing it from her tight grip.
“My intentions are not to get you soused, Miss Cunning.”
Her eyes danced with merriment and mischief. “Again, you’ll shatter your own reputation, my lord.”
“Doubtfully,” he said with one of his long-practiced winks. No one saw past the image he presented to the world. Except Sybil. Unnerved, he took a long pull from his flask. Don’t be a bloody fool. Sybil Cunning sees precisely what the whole of Society, his own family, and the servants he employed, in fact, saw—the truth. A careless, reckless rake who’d nearly succeeded at bankrupting his family.
But for the wind slapping at the carriage walls, not another sound registered. At that quiet, he glanced over. She studied him, head cocked, eyes narrowed, mouth scrunched up, the way she might have attended a scholarly journal. “You aren’t.”
“I’m not what?”
“The wicked rake Society purports you to be.” Hers was stated as an empirical fact built on lazy research she’d conducted over the course of two meetings in a four and twenty-hour span. And yet, she saw too much. More than he cared or wanted. More than was safe. God help him. He, the rakish Baron Webb, cared what she thought of him.
Disquieted by that irrational truth, he forced another negligent grin. “If you believe that, love, then you’ve imbibed on too much of my French brandy.”
“You’re trying to distract me.”
Bloody hell she was clever. “Is this why you sought me out? To determine whether I’m as naughty as the papers report?” To determine if he was a man who’d sell his body for coin, like a common London street whore? That stinging question went no further than his thoughts as he proved himself more honorable than he’d ever before believed. He could not even breathe aloud the lies that had been laid by the ton.
“Well?” she challenged, tipping her chin back like a London street fighter. “Are you?” Something in her clever eyes indicated she knew the lie, when even his own brother and sister did not believe there was any good in him. And it scared the living hell out of him that this woman should see any worth in him.
“Let me spare you any further questioning,” Nolan said, eager to disabuse her of those foolish notions. He dropped his elbows atop his knees and shrank the space between them. Again, to the lady’s credit, she held her ground. “I sleep with widows and miserably married wives. I’m in dun territory with more creditors than friends to my name. I’ve a brother who can’t marry because of my handling of the finances and a sister who can’t have a proper London Season for that very same reason. Now tell me, Miss Cunning,” he peeled his lip back in self-derision, hating himself as much as he did her for forcing these unwanted thoughts upon him. “Is that a man who is at all different than the rake written about in your scandal sheets?”
She said nothing for a long moment, just continued to examine him in that contemplative manner. “It depends,” she finally said.
Nolan closed his eyes and prayed for patience. With her temerity, he should have known better than to believe the discussion at an end.
“Answer me two questions,” she said. “And I’ll let the matter go.”
“How very generous of you, Miss Cunning,” he said with a dryness that had little effect on the determined tilt to her luscious mouth. He sighed. “Proceed.”
“Do you seduce innocents?”
“No.” He’d never been one of those rakes to debauch a virgin.
She gave an approving nod and he recoiled. She’d make more of that then there was.
He opened his mouth to disabuse her of that foolish notion.
“How did you lose your finances?” she asked.
“How?” he echoed dumbly. He gave his suddenly too-tight cravat a tug.
“It is just you indicated your brother could not marry, nor your sister have a London Season because of how you handled your finances. You did not mention anything about wicked clubs or outrageous wagers.”
Nolan went cold and, yet, at the same time, sweat dotted his brow. How had the astute miss picked up on that very subtle, but important detail? How, when the ton was always content to see precisely what was on the surface? Sybil waited patiently, like a barrister allowing his client time to collect and compose his thoughts. When he trusted himself to speak, he asked, “Is that a question?”
“It—”
The carriage rocked to a sudden, blessed halt, saving him from answering. Nolan gave thanks when his driver hopped down and immediately yanked the door open.
Sybil’s face fell; that crestfallen glint in her eyes, indicating she’d far prefer a discussion about his character and history than the damned role she’d hired him to fill. Blasted peculiar lady.
He hopped out and reached back.
“But—?”
“Never tell me you’d prefer to sit inside my carriage and continue with your speculations?” Why did he believe he already knew the answer to that?
“Actually I would,” she said, confirming that very thought. “I—eek.” Her words ended on a sharp cry as he tugged her out of the conveyance and drew her into his arms. Even through the fabric of their cloaks, her generous breasts pressed hard against his chest, and desire coursed through him. Welcome and safe. Far safer than her damned probing.
Giving his driver a quick nod, Nolan reluctantly set the lady away and pulled her along. “Where are we going?” she asked, thankfully abandoning her earlier queries. Her breath stirred little white puffs of air due to the cold. “Green Park?” she asked, skepticism heavy in her voice. “What are we doing here?”
“Providing you your first fun event,” he muttered. Anything other than fielding her probing questions.
“I’ve been to nearly all the parks in London.”
Nolan took her on a winding trail through the grounds. The towering oaks throughout the park were barren but for the snow weighting their branches. “Not like this,” he muttered.
“Yes, just like this.” Her long-legged strides matched his with a bold confidence when ladies normally took gingerly, dainty steps. He far preferred Sybil’s boldness. It matched her spirit.
They continued on with Sybil falling into an unexpected and, more, uncharacteristic silence—until they reached the notorious clearing. “Do you know the rumors surrounding this place?”
He eyed the now snow-covered field. “It is a place of duels, once frequented by thieves and highwaymen.”
Did the lady shiver from fear or from cold? He pushed away the thought. Sybil wasn’t one to be afraid of a damned thing. “Indeed?” she asked, drifting closer, that familiar glitter of curiosity brightening her eyes. “I did not know that particular detail about the park.”
“And what stories have you heard?” he asked before he could call the question back. Despite the winter chill, Nolan’s neck heated. Outside of which gardens or rooms would a widow sneak away with him to, he didn’t ask ladies questions. Something about this woman prompted a need to know and speak of things that moved beyond the sexual. And there was a greater, more terrifying intimacy in that than all the naughty acts he’d performed with and on every woman before her.
“They say this is a burial ground.” Sybil dropped her voice and spoke in an eerie tone that broke through his tumult and pulled a laugh from him. “That lepers from the nearby hospitals were taken to the swampy ground, over…” Her words trailed off as they stepped into those once-swampy grounds. She gasped, touching a finger to her lips. “What is this?” she asked on a breathless whisper.
Nolan tweaked her nose. “Come, a lady who knows the origins of handshakes and the history of Green Park must have an inclination as to what it is,” he jested. But that teasing dissipated as she tugged her hand free and made for the plaid blanket laid out under an old juniper. Sybil trailed a path around the fabric, where a tray rested, filled with small crystal cups.
“It is a picnic,” she breathed, her voice carrying in the quiet.
“Of sorts.” He strolled over. For the first time in the whole of his life, he was properly abashed. Given the limited time they had and his own dismal finances, options had and would continue to be limited—in every regard. Including this task she’d put to him. A task that didn’t feel like much of a task when I set it in motion after her departure yesterday. “Yes,” he said, making a clearing noise with his throat. “You didn’t give me much time to properly plan the most thrilling—”
“It is perfect,” she whispered, wheeling around so quickly that she knocked her hood back. That same errant curl broke free of her familiar tight chignon, giving her the look of an ice princess who’d begun her beautiful thaw. With a wide smile that dimpled her plump cheeks, she reached for one of the crystal cups from Gunter’s.
“Ah-ah,” he called, staying her movements.
She stared questioningly back through her round, wired spectacles. He removed them and tucked them inside his jacket.
Reaching inside his cloak, Nolan withdrew a silk cravat. Curiosity darkened her eyes as he came forward. “They say being blindfolded heightens the senses.”
“Who says that?” she asked as he draped the cloth over her eyes.
There was never not a question on this one’s lips. He grinned. There would be time enough to wonder or worry after the ease with which she enchanted him. Nolan started. Enchanted? By God, where had that come from? He was a rake. Not a lad just out of university staring with dazed eyes at an enticing miss.
“I asked—”
“Scandalous people who’d rather not be named,” he supplied, bringing an immediate cessation to her words. The color in her cold-stained cheeks turned a crimson blush.
“You’re trying to shock me.”
“You don’t shock easily,” he murmured, closing his eyes briefly to draw in the whisper of jasmine that clung to her. Did she dab that fragrance behind her ears? Or place it in her bathwater and soak it into her cream white skin? Imaginings flooded him. Of her naked, her breasts bobbing above the surface of the water, revealing crimson tips. Or would they be pink? Or—
“Are you all right?” she worried aloud, reaching around to unfasten the blindfold.
“Fine,” his voice emerged garbled. When was the last time he’d had a bloody woman? That was the only accounting for this potent hungering.
“You groaned.”
God, she let nothing go and questioned everything. “It was the wind.”
“Remember, my senses are heightened.” Damn him and his blasted plans for the lady. “I felt your chest rumble—”
“I said it was the wind, Sybil.” There was a faint entreaty that, with her cleverness, he’d wager she heard.
Fortunately, she let the matter rest and allowed him to guide her down upon the blanket. One of his few remaining footmen had set it out moments before Nolan had arrived with her. Then, collecting several of the crystal cups, he set them in the snow, holding them in place, and sat beside her.
He reached for the first one. “Open your mouth,” he urged. They were three words he’d uttered too many times to count in his thirty years. To wicked women. Whores. Lonely widows. Never, however, had he breathed them aloud to an innocent. Yet, speaking them to Sybil was oddly more erotic than all of those exchanges combined.
She formed a wide circle with her lips and he laughed, the expression full of mirth, real and foreign to his ears. He’d practiced the jaded chuckle for so many years he’d believed himself incapable of any other form of amusement.
Sybil promptly pressed her lips closed. “Are you making light of me?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he murmured, tucking a loose, golden strand behind her ear. “Now, open your mouth, again.”
“If you laugh at me, Noel Pratt, I’m going to—”
He dipped the ice-filled spoon inside her mouth, quelling that warning. Her lips automatically closed around it and all the air froze in his chest as the crimson, cold-kissed flesh surrounded that spoon. Giving thanks for her blindfold, Nolan closed his eyes for a long moment as a wave of lust ran through him. Who would have imagined a damned ice from Gunter’s could turn him hard?
“Nolan?”
He hastily scooped another spoonful. “What flavor do you taste?”
She sniffed the air and, again, warmth suffused his chest, distracting him from the hunger she inspired. “You’re supposed to taste it,” he reminded her, stuffing the spoon past her lips, once more. Except, with his prompting, he only drew forth further wicked musings of all the delicious joys to know with that mouth.
“I’m trying to use all my senses as you said,” she said around the mouthful. “Orange?” she ventured.
Nolan set aside the cup and gave a little clap. “Brava.”
From under the blindfold, she beamed. He grabbed the next and held the spoon close to her mouth. Sybil darted the tip of her tongue out and experimentally tasted the ice. His gaze devoured that erotic gesture. Imagining the satiny soft texture as he tangled his own with that delectable flesh. He suppressed a groan. Of all the rotted ideas, this was the one he’d come up with. A lesson in self-torture.
“Pineapple?”
“Yes,” he replied hoarsely, his answer coming without hesitation. She may have been tasting rhubarb and cinnamon for all he knew.
“May I blindfold you?”
Sybil’s words conjured a forbidden image. Her sprawled upon his bed, naked, with nothing more than a fire’s glow on her skin. Those long fingers of hers, holding out that scrap of cloth as she set out to seduce him. Nolan dropped the ice. God help him. He groaned.
“Are you sure you are all—?”
Cupping her about the nape, Nolan crushed her mouth under his, devouring her lips as he’d longed to since she’d stepped inside his office. The lady froze in his arms. And then with the utter unrestraint she’d shown in their every exchange, she levered herself up, and met his kiss.
As she twined her arms about his neck, tangling her fingers in his hair, he marveled at her abandon. Yanking off the blindfold, he tossed it aside. Needing to taste her, he parted her lips. Their tongues touched and it was like tinder being set to gunpowder. There was no hesitancy on her part. No reservations. She kissed with the bold curiosity and spirit she’d shown since their first meeting. He wanted to absorb all of her and lose himself in her forever. They mated with their mouths. Her moans blended with his groans in a symphony of passion. Fueled by the evidence of her desire, he caressed his hands over her generously curved frame, molding the fabric to her body in a bid to learn the feel of her.
“You are so beautiful,” he rasped, dragging a trail of kisses from the corner of her lips to her earlobe. He suckled the satiny soft flesh and she cried out. That sharp peal echoed in the quiet. She could have brought every last stern-faced dowager in London running with that cry and he couldn’t have stopped. Nolan nipped at the place where her pulse pounded.
“You are beautiful,” she panted, anchoring his head close to her neck. “A-Although I expect it seems like an un-original compliment, given your…given your… You are touching my buttocks.” She arched her hips against his and his shaft swelled.
If he were capable of laughing, capable of anything other than feeding this raging desire for her, her prattling even through her desire would have been the cause of it. And he proved himself the rake the world saw for nothing could stop him from exploring all of her.
A cold blast of wet snow tumbled from the branch overhead. It landed on Nolan’s head, wringing a gasp from him. He jerked away from the temptress in his arms. He’d been wrong. There had been something to quell this molten hot fire burning through his veins.
Sybil remained on her knees, a dreamy smile on her lips as she fluttered her lashes open. “Th-that was quite an adequate f-first day,” she whispered. And there was no hesitation in her eyes. No regret. Only a dangerous desire to know more.
God help him.
What have I agreed to?