A Rake's Midnight Kiss (12 page)

“We’ve kissed now,” she stammered, hardly aware what she said. “You can let me go.”

“Devil take that for an idea.” He cradled her face between his strong palms. “That wasn’t a kiss.”

“It felt like a kiss.” She struggled to sound resolute, but only managed breathless and bedazzled. She could hardly blame Mr. Evans for responding with wry amusement.

“How would you know, my sweet little lamb?”

He kissed her again. This time his tongue’s invasion didn’t seem so alien. A thrill coursed through her, tightening her breasts and settling heavily between her legs. She shifted to relieve the building pressure.

The sensation wasn’t uncomfortable. It was just… odd.

A kiss was astonishingly intimate. Her mind might insist that Mr. Evans meant trouble, but close to his big, strong body, she felt safe. Safe, yet brave and verging on some marvelous discovery. It was like entering a hitherto forbidden section of the library.

She should be frightened, but she wasn’t. His touch was inexplicably familiar, as though he’d touched her before. As though she belonged in his arms. As though she’d waited all her life for this man to set his lips to hers.

By offering her mouth, she surrendered something of her soul. The experience was overwhelming, too complex to analyze. Instead she drifted into velvety pleasure where his lips lured her with what even a novice recognized as breathtaking expertise.

Tentatively she moved her tongue, copying him. This time Mr. Evans’s growl expressed satisfaction. What remarkable communication he achieved without words.

Encouraged, she slid her tongue over his, then more daringly, she slipped it between his lips, tasting him as he tasted her. At first the activity had seemed outlandish. No longer.

Mr. Evans plunged his hands into her hair and angled her upward, changing the pleasure. This time the moan was hers. After exploring every inch of her mouth, he lured her with delicious nips and nibbles. She loved his rich taste. She pursued him, seeking more soul-melting kisses.

She was vaguely aware of Mr. Evans stroking her hips. When his hands cupped her buttocks, she started.

An intimation of danger pricked.

As her skirt inched upward, the breeze brushed her bare legs. A warning strove for purchase in her foggy mind. Mr. Evans had promised a kiss to enlighten ignorance. Now this encounter escaped those boundaries.

As if to confirm that thought, he pressed the small of her back, bringing her nearer. Inexperienced she might be. Stupid she wasn’t. And she’d lived in the country all her life. She couldn’t mistake that throbbing hardness against her stomach.

Roughly she broke away. “No.”

She wasn’t sure he heard. Or if he heard, whether he’d take note. Fear, long overdue, crammed her throat. Then to her relief, he released her and her skirt flopped to her ankles with a damp slap. He breathed unsteadily, but otherwise seemed unaffected.

Genevieve, on the other hand, felt like she’d barely survived a tempest. For one traitorous moment, her heart leaped with hope that his kiss had required feelings as well as technique. Then she reminded herself that she was safer by far if it hadn’t.

Unexpectedly his expression turned sheepish. “I apologize, Miss Barrett. You were right to stop me.”

She panted, still quivering with reaction. How could she have been so stupid to let this go so far? How could she have started at all?

The ghosts of his kisses lingered on Genevieve’s lips and in her mind. Grimly she suspected the ghosts of his kisses would haunt her for too long. Well after Mr. Evans forgot her.

For the first time, she comprehended the full extent of her rashness. She’d trusted his honor, and thank goodness, he hadn’t disappointed her. But after this glimpse of pleasure, the door to desire didn’t close as readily as she’d hoped.

“I must go.” Just as before, she didn’t move.

“Yes.”

Blast him. That monosyllable shouldn’t sound like an invitation to stay and explore new worlds. She leaned forward to claim another drugging kiss before lurching back to reality and stopping herself. Her yen for this man terrified her, as did the possibility that he might reveal her foolishness to the world. “You can’t say anything about this.”

His lips lengthened in an unamused smile. “I thought you intended to tell your father so he banished me from the vicarage.”

Admit that Mr. Evans had caught her swimming naked on Sedgemoor’s estate? Admit she’d kissed Mr. Evans? Lord above, it didn’t bear considering. “No.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

The silence extended. She knew they both relived those heady moments. She must go. Before he reached for her. Or heaven forbid, before she sprang at him and begged him to kiss her again and never stop.

“Good night, Mr. Evans.” The formality was ludicrous, but she desperately needed to establish some distance between them.

When he wasn’t being superior, he had a nice smile. “Good night, Miss Barrett.”

Dear God, what was wrong with her? She mooned after him like a twelve-year-old. She straightened and struggled to summon the scowl that usually greeted his attempts at charm. Except he wasn’t attempting charm. He
was
charming. And she was in dire trouble.

“To Hades with it,” he muttered. He seized her shoulders in an uncompromising grasp. Before she could protest or run—not that she tried to do either—he hauled her into his arms and kissed her hard.

That inexplicable feeling of familiarity returned. Before she could examine it, he released her and strode away under the trees, Sirius following.

Genevieve stood trembling where he’d left her. The moon slipped behind a cloud and the night turned dark and lonely. She drew a breath redolent of clean male scent. Clean. Tangy. Lemony.

Lemon verbena…

M
r. Evans was Genevieve’s inept burglar.

The next morning as she struggled to work in her study, the revelation still appalled her. How she kicked herself for taking so long to realize. The clues had always been there. The height. The subtle elegance. The beautiful voice. Curse him, the confidence with women. Although he’d been masked then, and now he dyed his hair. That dull brown had always seemed incongruous on such a spectacular man.

Now she understood why every instinct had leaped to alert the first time he’d sauntered into the parlor. No wonder his touch had always felt familiar. It wasn’t some mystical affinity. He’d held her close when he’d disarmed her.

Last night she’d stormed back through the dark woods, determined to denounce Mr. Evans. How she loathed a thief. Her father had spent the last ten years stealing her work without an ounce of compunction. Now the first man to kiss her turned out to be a thief too.

Yet however much the double-dealing devil’s betrayal smarted, bewilderment outweighed anger. While she might
call him a thief, so far he’d stolen nothing except her peace of mind and a few kisses. For the life of her, she couldn’t discern his motives for leaving empty-handed and then infiltrating the vicarage.

What did he want? Would she be better to discover his purposes before she exposed him? Even if she accused him, what proof did she have? How could she confess that she’d been close enough to Mr. Evans to recognize his scent?

Did he want the Harmsworth Jewel? It was the only thing here worth stealing. But so few people knew she had the artifact. Dr. Partridge at the Ashmolean Museum, who considered her article for publication. Her father was so focused on his princes that she wasn’t sure he remembered Lady Bellfield’s bequest.

Sir Richard Harmsworth…

Was Mr. Evans’s arrival part of a campaign to retrieve the jewel? With a nasty start, she remembered Mr. Evans offering to buy the jewel. Did he want it for himself or for Sir Richard?

If Mr. Evans worked for Sir Richard, why hadn’t he pocketed the jewel when he broke in? He must have noticed it. After these last days, she was convinced that his deceptively lazy gaze missed little. Even if he’d overlooked it that night, she, gullible idiot she was, had placed it in his hand yesterday.

And how on earth did Sedgemoor fit into the puzzle? He’d introduced Mr. Evans to the district as an old friend. Was the duke part of the plot? If so, why?

She sighed with frustration and impatiently shoved aside the half-written page lying on the blotter. So many questions. And no answers that made a jot of sense.

From now on, she’d carry the jewel on her. And one thing above all—no more kisses. Ever.

However necessary that decision was, it made her want to howl. Because the secret she’d take to the grave was that she’d loved Mr. Evans’s kisses. However much she might want to skin him with the butter knife now, she’d never felt so alive as she had in that sneaking liar’s arms.

“Ah, here you are. Your father is asking for you.”

She was so focused on the duplicitous Mr. Evans, she needed a moment to realize that the man in the doorway was Neville Fairbrother.

“My lord.” She was surprised to see him. He’d never ventured upstairs before. “You didn’t need to fetch me.”

Despite the lukewarm welcome, he approached. “I’ve always wondered where you disappeared each day.”

Genevieve couldn’t help contrasting his graceless trudge to Mr. Evans’s tigerish prowl. Mr. Evans’s every move proclaimed him a rake. So what did Lord Neville’s gait say? That he asserted rights over everything and everyone in the vicarage?

As if to confirm that unpleasant thought, Lord Neville lifted the Harmsworth Jewel from the desk. She stifled the urge to snatch it back. Lord Neville’s acquisitive streak was well known to her. Her father, taking advantage of Genevieve’s expertise, had sourced many
objets d’art
for his collection.

“Good God, what is this?” Lord Neville twirled the jewel, setting the dragon’s ruby eyes sparkling in the light flooding through the windows. “Is it twelfth century?”

She had even less desire to confide in Lord Neville than in Mr. Evans. Odd, when Lord Neville was her family’s benefactor, and Mr. Evans was here under false pretenses.

“It’s the Harmsworth Jewel.” To her educated eye, the relic’s design belonged to an earlier period, but she’d long ago learned that Lord Neville pretended more expertise than
he possessed. “The family legend is that Alfred the Great presented it to an ancestor.”

Lord Neville’s hand fisted. Genevieve bit back a demand to take care. “Ninth century, then. What on earth is it doing here? And why hasn’t your father offered it to me?”

Because I knew you’d want it the moment you saw it.

“It’s mine,” she said stiffly. “I inherited it from a friend.”

“The Harmsworths have become lamentably rackety. The current baronet is reputedly a stablehand’s bastard.”

“I didn’t know you followed gossip, Lord Neville.”

He shrugged, not shifting his attention from the jewel. Her fingers curled against the leather blotter. She burned to lunge across the desk and pry the artifact from his grip. “I don’t, of course. I focus on higher things. But the scandal has been the talk of the town for years.”

Lord Neville’s sneering tone made her range herself on Sir Richard’s side, whatever his schemes. How horrible to have everyone sniggering over something he couldn’t help.

“Can I please have the jewel back?” She rose behind her desk. “I’m sketching it.”

He rotated the artifact. “How much do you want for it?”

She stared into his square face. Greed lit his eyes. “It’s not for sale.”

“Come, dear lady, price is no object. Name a figure.”

When Mr. Evans called her dear lady, she didn’t like it. When Lord Neville called her dear lady, she wanted to thump him with the inkwell. “Lady Bellfield left me the jewel. I will always keep it in memory of her.”

“I’ll pay ten thousand guineas.”

Dear Lord…

“That’s a fortune,” she said in amazement. It was the same sum Sir Richard’s representative had offered. She’d
refused double that from Mr. Evans. Perhaps she should hold an auction. She’d be set for life.

“For something so rare, who cavils at price?”

Her brief amusement died. The hard light in Lord Neville’s eyes made her distinctly wary. Or perhaps her nerves were on edge after cavorting in a scoundrel’s arms. She extended her hand. “Please give me the jewel. I’d hate you to damage it.”