Yes, Aurora was curious, but she’d also grown up in the country. Animalsdidbreed, she reminded Aunt Lottie. Jordan had kept pigs, after all. But the older woman still insisted on drawing what she deemed the male appendage on a scrap of paper. The illustration more closely resembled one of the wintered-over carrots Aurora had once pulled out of the barren earth of Dunnings. Not something she wanted—
A giggle burst out of her thinking of that carrot and comparing it to what lay beneath Grisham’s trousers, for instance.
A sniff of disdain sounded from her left where the esteemed Lady Harriet sat perched on a chair, watching the game of bowls. Proper and demure to the core, parasol raised high overhead to protect the pale skin of her cheeks, Lady Harriet had probably never been kissed. Aurora doubted she knew males even possessed an appendage protruding from their bodies. If a gentleman so much as touched the sleeve of her dress, Lady Harriet might faint dead away.
“Lady Harriet.” Aurora inclined her head politely, struggling to keep from giggling again. “I didn’t realize you cared for bowls.”
Lady Harriet’s perfect lips pursed at the near-empty glass of punch in Aurora’s hand. “Do you think it good manners to go about half-foxed at a garden party, Lady Aurora? I suppose that’s one way of garnering the attention of a gentleman if one can’t trod the stage.”
Aurora didn’t flinch. Slurs against her mother, a former actress, were bantered about on a regular basis. She’d heard far worse.
“Much better than surveying the world with a sour countenance I would guess.” Aurora shrugged. “Doesn’t all that sneering put them off?”
“Do you plan to lure Grisham into the grass and pretend to search for butterflies?”
A direct insult to Tamsin, who’d been ruined due to a moth landing on her knee, which enticed Ware. The moth, not Tamsin. Initially.
“You should be more careful,” Aurora murmured, pointedly surveying Lady Harriet’s forehead, which she thought overly large. “Frowning so much is sure to give you wrinkles.”
Lady Harriet gasped in outrage, before burning Aurora with a look of scalding dislike.
Very well.It appeared her stay at the game of bowls was nearing an end.
She remained for at least another quarter hour, unwilling to give Lady Harriet the satisfaction of leaving too soon. Absolutely no one, outside of Lord Grisham, paid her the least bit of attention. Eventually, Aurora stood, stumbling a bit as she walked away.
What a boring party.
Waving at Grisham, Aurora decided the maze might offer more amusement.
Chapter Three
Charles Worthington staredat the subtle twitch of Lady Aurora’s pale blue skirts as she made her way toward the lawn and Grisham, legs wobbling slightly. He should never have entered the bloody tent after seeing her inside and left her to the poor chaperonage of Miss Maplehurst. Why had he chosen to attend this ridiculous garden party? Contrary to what he’d told Aurora, Charles didn’t actually adore flowering shrubs and the buzzing of insects. Lady Berriwell, their hostess, didn’t even provide decent refreshments, save the punch.
The point was to avoid Aurora Sinclair, her lush head of chestnut curls, and her tempting, generous curves. Not inhale the sweet honeysuckle coming from her warm skin. Or stare at her lips. His entire body had gone taut with lust the moment he’d seen her weaving about the tent trying not to spill her punch.
Aurora was a particular sort of madness for Charles.
Charles Robert Worthington was a rake and had no intention of being anything else. Granted, he was far from the worst in London, but he’d been blessed with a physical appearance that females of every age found appealing. He never lacked for companionship. When one is merely the second son of a viscount and not the heir, you are left to pursue your hobbies or vices as the case may be. Discreet debauchery. Which heenjoyed.
Which was why he kept his distance from Lady Aurora Sinclair.
The urge to punch Grisham in the nose if he so much as laid a finger on Aurora was merely because Charles didn’t want the sister of his best friend ruined at a garden party. The Sinclair family was only now starting to regain some standing in society, and Aurora going off and compromising herself and creating a scandal would be disastrous. Charles and Drew had business to conduct. As did Aurora’s brother, Malcolm.
So, you see, it wasn’t jealousy.
Emerson needed to rein in his youngest sister. Worth wasn’t oblivious to her thinly veiled innuendo. Nor her curiosity on sexual matters. Today she’d been studying his mouth, scant minutes from pressing her lips to his and—
An ache wrapped around his waist and sunk between his thighs.
Damn it.
There was a valid reason he didn’t venture to Emerson House.Temptation.
Charles had known the night of her debut, when he’d finally been forced to admit Aurora was no child, that staying as far away as possible from her was his only defense. One touch of her fingers was all it had taken. She hadn’t even noticed. But Charles did. The attraction to Aurora had surged like a dozen thunderbolts up his arm. He’d spent the entire evening glaring at her dance partners. He hadn’t so much as allowed her skirts to touch his legs since.
Today, just the aroma of honeysuckle, so decadent and lush, had made him wish to press Aurora into the grass and raise her skirts. Nose along the soft hair between her thighs, inhaling her essence, taste her—
He, Charles Worthington, completely undone by a girl not yet twenty.
