“Is it true what I heard? What I read in the papers? Bigamy?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, nodded. “Poor girl. The second wife. Ruined. She disappeared after. A man like my half brother has no right calling anyone names. Especially not intelligent women like?—”
“Are you trying to charm me, Richard Clark?”
His gaze on her suddenly intense, hot. “If I tried, would it work?”
“No.” Not after all that had passed between them. No matter that, when he looked at her that way, she couldn’t quite breathe as easily as she should be able to.
“Do you let Peterson charm you?”
“Who?”
“Good.” His voice sounded like a smile.
Not good! “Oh, yes. Lord Peterson. Heischarming. We’re to go out in a boat together.”
“You’re to go out with me. Evie said.” He turned back to the boat, pulled it higher on the shore until it was stuck tight, and God help her, she tried not to watch his waistcoat strain across his broad back.
And she failed, her mouth dry, the tingling between her legs returning. “Ah, yes. But that’s why I sought you out.” This was why she must take a lover. If she knew the pleasures shared between a man and a woman,this man’sforearms wouldn’t make her knees weak. She’d tried to once, to take a lover. After she’d returned from Evie’s husband’s funeral, after Mr. Clark had kissed her. Her father’s secretary had been willing, and she’d educated herself well, but she’d not been able to go through with it. Too many horrid things could have happened. To her. Not to him. A grim and unfair reality.
She would not let fear limit her this time. She’d brought a French letter. A deuced difficult thing to come by as a woman, but she’d done it.
Now she needed Peterson in that boat.
“Bell…” Clark’s voice low and so very near her ear. “Quit looking at me like that or I’ll think you like me. And”—he straightened, looking quite pleased—“use more detailed language to tell me why you’re over here undressing me with your eyes.” He dusted his hands on his thighs and grinned. “Or don’t. And continue admiring my arse.”
A couple approached before she could do more than sputter an inarticulate sound, and he helped them into the boat. Then he turned to her, and it felt like the simple quarter spin of his body through space sent all the air flying off. She was breathless beneath the magnificence of his smile, the width of his shoulders.
And yes, she had been busy admiring his arse.
She was talented enough to admire and be irritated at the same time. He had no right to be so magnetic! To cause women to imagine what his neck looked like beneath that cravat, to wish to feel the bone of his scruffy jaw. He’d clearly not shaved that morning. She’d always had a bit of an appreciation for a man’s jaw with two days’ worth of scruff. A bit of a beard, though unfashionable, showed he was a man, showed he was different from her, rougher. And she… she liked that.
“Que bruto,” she mumbled, rubbing her hand up and down her arm, trying to erase the tingles traveling across her skin.
“What does that mean?” A quirk of his lip.
“A beast.”
“Me?”
“Naturally.”
The other side of his mouth joined the first. A smile, broad and true. “So clever. I have never learned a second language, try as I might.”
Oh no. A sincere compliment. Her weakness. But also a reminder. She’d promised to teach him another language. Every good thing between them dead before their first lesson.
“Why are you being nice to me?” she demanded.
He looked out across the water, hands on hips. “For John and Evelina. Shouldn’t we make nice for them?”
“Humph.” He had her there.
“Looks like they cannot resist one another.” He nodded toward the middle of the lake where Selena rowed with Martin.
“Leave them be.”
“I will.”
