A Rake's Midnight Kiss

“Perhaps you should sell.” A critical light in his eyes, he surveyed the shabby room. “Think what you could do.”

She shrugged. “I owe Lady Bellfield better return for her generosity.”

Damn, why must Genevieve be such a stickler? “Did she forbid any sale?”

If there was a ban on disposing of the thing altogether, he’d have to steal it. Which meant he could never display it openly. With every moment, his quest became more tangled.

“It’s mine unconditionally, as long as I never sell to Richard Harmsworth or his heirs.” She paused. “I hope that my article creates opportunities for me. I’d only sell the jewel out of dire necessity.”

Relief flooded him. There was still a chance he could buy it. “Once your article comes out, people will know you wrote your father’s pieces.”

Irritation lit her gaze. “My father’s work has been devoted entirely to the high Middle Ages. He isn’t renowned as a Dark Ages specialist. Any similarities in style will be credited to my father being my teacher.”

Unable to resist any longer, he reached out. “May I see it?”

Her hand curled around the jewel as if she mistrusted his intentions. By heaven, nothing was wrong with the girl’s instincts. “It’s very fragile.”

“I’ll be careful.” He had more reason to respect the jewel than any man in England.

She sighed and he thought she might refuse. But after a hesitation, she passed it across.

The breath jammed in his throat and he lowered his eyes to conceal his possessive excitement. The gold was warm from her hands. What an intimate sensation, like touching her skin instead of inanimate metal. The jewel was unexpectedly heavy, as though it carried the weight of the centuries. Holding this heirloom left him surprisingly moved. Finally he claimed his right to the Harmsworth name.

He rose and stepped toward the window on mortifyingly shaky legs to inspect the piece in the light. And also to escape Genevieve’s all-encompassing stare. She mustn’t guess this moment’s significance.

The drawings he’d seen didn’t do the object justice. The jewel was about five inches long. A chased gold handle shaped like a dragon supported a gold oval containing an enamel image of a saint with large dark eyes like a child’s drawing. It was a thousand years old; beautiful, uncanny, unique. The blue and red enamels were as vivid, he was sure, as the day they were fired.

Here in Oxfordshire, he played at finding the past as fascinating as the present. But touching this tangible link to generations of Harmsworths, he sensed something of Genevieve’s passion for history. The need to guard this talisman was the most powerful emotion he’d ever felt. His hand closed around the relic. Every atom in his body revolted at the idea of relinquishing it.

He forced himself to look toward the woman, the woman he came to want almost as much as he wanted the jewel. “Shouldn’t you lock it away in a strongbox or a bank?”

Genevieve looked troubled. “I need it for my work.”

“The article is important enough to risk this priceless artifact?”

“My whole future depends on it.” For once he had no doubt that she revealed her soul. “If I establish an independent reputation, I can support myself as an antiquarian, doing everything that I currently do for my father. I’ve told you that I’ll never marry—a husband would constrain my pursuits—so I need an income.”

And, he guessed from what she didn’t say, a life away from the vicar.

Inconvenient it might be, but he couldn’t help admiring that she’d refused to sell the jewel to his agents. Ten thousand guineas would set her up in her own household for life. “Does Dr. Barrett know of your plans?”

Guilt shadowed her features. “I haven’t told him yet.”

“He won’t like the competition.”

She raised her head, a plea in her silvery eyes. “I want to present everything as a fait accompli.” She paused. “You must think me unnatural.”

He smiled and moved closer. “It’s time you claimed your due.”

“Thank you.” She flushed and glanced to where he clutched the jewel as though his life depended upon it. Right now, mad as it was, he thought his life did.

Genevieve continued. “I’m surprised the thief last week didn’t take the jewel. Aside from the historical interest, it’s solid gold. I’ve thought over and over about what he hoped to find. Anyone can tell there’s no money in the house, so why break in? The jewel is the most valuable item we have. Yet outside the family and Lady Amelia’s solicitors, the only person who suspects it’s here is Sir Richard Harmsworth. If Sir Richard sent the thief for the jewel, the fellow must have seen it. It was sitting on the desk as clear as day.”

“Perhaps he was blinded by your beauty.” Richard wasn’t entirely joking, even as he cursed her clever brain for narrowing blame for the burglary down to his real self.

She sent him a quelling glance. “He wasn’t much of a thief. We haven’t found anything missing.”

Bloody hell. What a stupid mistake. He should have lifted something worthless from downstairs. A burglar fleeing empty-handed aroused unwelcome curiosity. Too late now. “Would you rather he’d stripped the vicarage?”

“Don’t be absurd.” She sounded uncomfortable. Did she recall that thrilling moment when he’d held her close? It haunted his dreams.

He braced his shoulders. “Will you sell it to me? I’ll double Sir Richard’s offer.”

Silence crashed down. Even his heart seemed to stop beating. Shocked silvery gray eyes focused on him and the hands she laid on the desk closed into fists.

Her reply seemed to take forever. “It’s not for sale.”

His relief made no sense. He was here for the jewel. Buying the bauble after a few days counted as a major victory. Or at least it should.

He forced himself to continue negotiations. “You’d be welcome to keep it until you’ve finished your article.”

She already shook her head. “Thank you, but no.”

So the game played on. He tried to tell himself that he was disappointed. Even he didn’t believe that was true. It was a long time since he’d found a woman as intriguing as he found Genevieve Barrett. He wasn’t ready to abandon her.

Her eyes sharpened. “Can I have the jewel back, please?”

Surrendering the jewel felt like treason. In the transaction, his hand grazed hers. She jerked back as if his touch burned. Heat shuddered through him.

Her gaze leaped to meet his and he read renewed wariness in her eyes. “You offer more than the jewel is worth.” He shrugged and stared hard at her. “When I want something, I go to any length to get it.”

She paled. “You … scare me when you say such things.”

His eagerness threatened to send her fleeing in fright. If he wasn’t careful he’d lose both jewel and woman—it became increasingly inconvenient to remember that only a cad played fast and loose with a lady’s reputation.

He might be a bastard, but he wasn’t quite a cad. Or not yet.

“You mistake me. I merely found myself with a fancy to own a pretty thing.” Two pretty things, in fact. He adopted an innocent air as he stepped away from the desk to stretch ostentatiously. “I’m off for a ride before breakfast.”

“I trust you not to share anything we’ve discussed.” Unsurprisingly she regretted her confidences.

“You have my promise.” His carefree smile didn’t extinguish the doubt in her expression. “I’ll see you later, Miss Barrett.”

Beneath his nonchalance, his thoughts were troubled. Nor had he conquered the turbulent emotions that had stirred when he’d touched the jewel. After this morning, he knew more about the jewel and he knew more about Genevieve, but everything he’d learned fouled his path.

Chapter Six

As everyone sat in the parlor before dinner, Genevieve watched Mr. Evans from her place on the window seat as unwaveringly as she’d watch a cobra. He played some silly card game with her aunt, who would be his willing slave even without her unconcealed ambitions for marrying him to her niece.

Within ten minutes of his departure from her study this morning, Genevieve had realized her terrible mistake. Why, oh, why had she been so forthcoming? She didn’t trust Mr. Evans. She hadn’t trusted him from the moment she’d seen his too-handsome face. Now he knew her authorship and her hopes for the future. Her recklessness placed her firmly within his power. Would he use his knowledge against her?

Years of thankless devotion to her father had taught her that the last thing she wanted was to subject herself to another man’s will. That was why she’d never marry—she longed to use her talents for her own purposes. Any husband would expect her to accept the helpmeet role she’d adopted too long with her selfish parent. Mr. Evans guessing her authorship wasn’t quite as onerous as submitting to a husband, but he still might try to influence her choices. Now that freedom beckoned, she could hardly bear that.

The vicar and Lord Neville swapped opinions over a table covered in folios. New acquisitions of his lordship’s, Genevieve supposed. She should be grateful that he shared his collection with the Barretts. But her charity with her father’s patron was in short supply. Since Mr. Evans’s arrival, Lord Neville had become a ubiquitous presence, like a grumpy rhinoceros guarding his territory. If she wasn’t tripping over one gentleman, she tripped over the other. She wished them both to perdition.

It had been a difficult week. She’d only just come to terms with facing down her charming but inexplicably inefficient burglar. She supposed she should be grateful that Mr. Evans’s arrival at least provided distraction. No longer did she jump at shadows. Instead she jumped at the sound of one particular baritone voice.

Mr. Evans glanced across to where she caught the evening light for her needlework. Behind her, the window was open in hope of attracting a stray drift of air. September had turned abnormally sultry and the parlor was stuffy. Or perhaps the crowded room was at fault. Her aunt, her father, Lord Neville, Mr. Evans. Not to mention Sirius and Hecuba.

Irritated with the heat, Genevieve brushed back stray tendrils escaping her chignon. Mr. Evans continued to stare. Did his gaze hold a conspiratorial light? Or was that her guilty conscience speaking? The secret of her father’s work wasn’t hers alone. She’d had no right revealing it to a stranger.

When the vicar had invited fifteen-year-old Genevieve to collate some notes on local churches into an article, she’d leaped at the chance. Any adolescent girl with pretensions to intellectual achievement would find such a request flattering. Especially motherless Genevieve Barrett who craved her father’s attention. Even more exciting when the piece she wrote appeared in a journal.

So the deception had continued and thickened until Genevieve’s work shored up the vicar’s fame and any suggestion that he share credit made him sulk like a child. Her resentment had curdled over the last year, as she realized that her father was content for this arrangement to last indefinitely.

Then Lady Bellfield had bequeathed her the Harmsworth Jewel and her research had uncovered interesting and potentially explosive facts about the object. The chance of independence from her father had finally become a reality and she meant to seize it with both hands. When she’d told the interfering Mr. Evans that her whole future depended on the Harmsworth Jewel, she hadn’t exaggerated.

But ruthless as she strove to be, that lost young girl still lurked in her heart. Even now when she was so angry that she could strangle her father with his clergy stole, she still loved him. She didn’t want to destroy his reputation, however unjustified it was. She just wanted to claim her work and use it as the basis for a life of her own.

How on earth had Mr. Evans recognized her authorship so quickly? A sharp brain lurked behind those languid manners, but nobody would call her father’s latest pupil an academic specialist. A premonition of disaster shivered through her—and Mr. Evans already made her as wary as a fox in hunting season.

Again she uselessly berated herself for succumbing this morning to guileless blue eyes and a ready smile and a voice that made her blood flow like warm honey. Mr. Evans had everyone dancing to his tune. Why was she the only person in this house to see that?

She stabbed her needle into her embroidery with a savagery that threatened to burst her bloated peonies. Neither her aunt nor her father heeded her suggestions that Mr. Evans should move back into Leighton Court. When Genevieve had insisted that she didn’t trust the way Mr. Evans infiltrated their life, both had said she was unreasonable. Her aunt had gone so far as to accuse her of jealousy now that Mr. Evans monopolized the vicar’s attentions. How ironic to hear that when Genevieve worked so hard to break free of her father.

“Your elephant grows apace, Miss Barrett.” Mr. Evans abandoned his card game and crossed the room to stand beside her, regarding her woeful embroidery with a quizzical expression. Sirius trotted after him to sit at his master’s feet. She liked Sirius. Genevieve wished the dog’s master was nearly as easy to stomach.

“You know very well it’s a peony garden, Mr. Evans,” she said frostily. After this morning, she’d prefer he kept a greater distance, physically and otherwise.

Her chill tone attracted her aunt’s notice, but no rebuke. Perhaps Aunt Lucy finally saw that her matchmaking was futile.

Mr. Evans remained unabashed. Of course. “That explains the pink. I thought perhaps the elephant was embarrassed.”

“You have no manners, sir,” she bit out, and bent over her embroidery frame, but not before she caught the unholy amusement in his eyes. He was a strikingly good-looking man, but when laughter lit his face, he was irresistible. Even she, who mistrusted everything about him, felt her heart beat faster.

“Sincerest regrets, dear lady.”

She knew he wasn’t sorry, so she didn’t grace his apology with acknowledgement. Furiously she stitched at the central flower which, now she checked, did rather resemble a pregnant elephant. A blushing pregnant elephant, curse Mr. Evans.

Despite lack of encouragement, Mr. Evans showed no signs of leaving. He sat without invitation—he was smart enough to know no invitation would be forthcoming. “Clearly my eyesight fails.”

He was dressed plainly, but even a country mouse like her noted his superb tailoring. He always made Genevieve feel a frump. Last night, she’d caught herself gussying up her yellow muslin with her mother’s silver brooch. She pinned it to her bosom before realizing what she did. With an unladylike imprecation, she’d flung the brooch onto her dressing table.

“Clearly.” She refused to give him the satisfaction of shifting away. Unfortunately, that meant remaining too near his long, lean leg, encased in fawn breeches, extended inches from hers. His boots were so shiny, she could see her face in them. How on earth was he turned out so beautifully without a valet?

Absently, Mr. Evans fondled Sirius’s head with one elegant hand. Yet again, she wondered at the contrast between the man’s sartorial perfection and the scruffy dog. Before she reminded herself that curiosity only inflated Mr. Evans’s pretensions, she spoke. “Your pet doesn’t befit your dignity, Mr. Evans.”

She caught his quick frown and for a moment, he wasn’t the impossibly polished man she feared, but someone considerably more intriguing. Then the expression vanished and he was once again someone whose motives she suspected to her last atom. “On the contrary, Miss Barrett. He’s far too good for a rapscallion like me.”

That she could believe. “I picture you more with a greyhound or a pug.”

His low laugh vibrated along her veins like a distant storm. She didn’t want to be aware of him as a male, but it became increasingly difficult to pretend that some deeply feminine and hitherto unrecognized element in her liked Mr. Evans very much indeed.

“A … pug? A hit. A palpable hit, madam. You seek revenge for the elephant, I see.”

“A dog with a pedigree, at least.”

At the mention of pedigree, a haunted expression darkened his eyes. She couldn’t imagine why. He reeked of good breeding. “Pedigrees are overrated.”

She frowned. Something stirred below this prickly, half-flirtatious conversation. Why did he clam up at the mention of pedigree? “How did you become Sirius’s master?”

He smiled more naturally, confirming her instincts that discussions of bloodlines discomfited him. “I’m not sure I’m his master. His colleague, perhaps. He’s been with me for three years. He turned up not far from my estate and seemed of a mind to stay. I’m glad. He’s deuced good company. And far too clever for the likes of me.”

Against her better judgment, Genevieve’s hostility ebbed. It was hard to maintain virulent dislike for a man so openly fond of his dog. She reminded herself that Mr. Evans’s kindness to animals didn’t make him one iota more trustworthy. For once, the warning didn’t strike true.

He glanced up from patting Sirius to stare into her face, catching her brief softening. Without her usual defenses, her heart stuttered to a standstill. Her entire body vibrated to his presence. Speech deserted her. She could only look. And admire. Never before had she been so aware of a man’s beauty. The perfect planes of his face, the glittering dark blue eyes, the long, powerful body—all melted resistance. Mr. Evans was a dangerously beguiling man. Particularly dangerous if he drew this response despite her inchoate suspicions.

His gaze sharpened. “What is it, Miss Barrett?”

“I—”

With a sharp crack, her embroidery frame snapped in two. He frowned and reached for her hand. “Genevieve—”

Dear Lord, she couldn’t let him touch her. Not when she was so on edge. Even as she cursed her betraying reaction, she jerked away before he made contact.

Her aunt chose that moment to rise and lift Hecuba from her snooze near the empty hearth. The hallway clock struck six. “Perhaps we should move through to the dining room.”

Only the greatest exercise of will stopped Genevieve from bolting for the door. Anything to escape Mr. Evans and that terrifying interval where attraction had turned her into a lunatic.

Pride straightened her spine and insisted that she had nothing to fear. Then she risked a backward glance. Mr. Evans lounged on the window seat and his expression as he watched her tied her stomach into sick knots. She’d expected her erratic behavior to bewilder him. But he didn’t look surprised. He looked like a man who eyed a prize for the winning. He looked like a man who put some great purpose into effect. He looked invincible.

Another chill rippled down her spine and she tore her gaze away. She revolted at the possessiveness that she read in his face. Even as unforgivably, unacceptably, excitement coiled low in her belly, reminding her that she might be a scholar, but she was also a woman. And the woman responded to Christopher Evans in ways that had no truck with intellect.

Slowly, his heavy eyelids lowered, hiding triumph. Her lips tightened and she whirled away to find Lord Neville regarding her with unmistakable disapproval. Her color rose and shame gripped her throat. As though she’d been caught dancing naked in a tavern or kissing a married man in church. For the love of heaven, was her every move under observation?

On a spurt of temper, she marched through to the hallway. Lord Neville followed. When he took her arm, sensitive as she currently was to overbearing males, she resented his proprietorial air. She tried to withdraw, but his grip tightened. Shocked, she looked up. The parlor door had swung shut, closing Mr. Evans and Sirius inside. Ahead past the stairs, the light from the dining room hardly penetrated this dark corner. For a fleeting moment, Lord Neville’s expression struck her as menacing.

What a fanciful idiot she was. Clearly she still wasn’t as easy with last week’s burglary as she’d hoped. Although perhaps she should blame Mr. Evans rather than the thief for her nerves. She’d known Lord Neville most of her life. He wasn’t her favorite person, but he had never hurt her. Nonetheless, she dearly wished he’d unhand her. And stop looming. She forgot what a substantial figure he made until he stood close.

“I can’t like that young fellow,” he said in a low voice. “He has an insinuating way about him.”

“Papa likes him.” She wondered why she didn’t join Lord Neville in deriding Mr. Evans.

His lordship’s smile was sour. “Your father is one of nature’s innocents. And Mr. Evans flatters him.”

This was nothing she hadn’t thought herself, but still she found herself reluctant to agree. “I doubt that Mr. Evans means any harm.”

What a lie that was. With Mr. Evans, she wasn’t sure of very much at all, apart from his ability to turn her into a nitwit.

“But we don’t know, do we?” Lord Neville’s fleshy lips turned down. “He has no right to use your Christian name.”

Her color rose. Hopefully the shadows concealed her embarrassment. “It was only once—”

“He offers you insult. And he has the run of the house.”

Annoyance made her draw herself up to her full height. This time when she tugged, he released her.

“Do you imply there’s something between Mr. Evans and myself?” Her voice was so cold, icicles practically hung from every word.

Even in the gloom, she read Lord Neville’s dismay at her reaction to his well-meant if inopportune advice. “Genevieve, you’re a woman of unimpeachable virtue. I lay no blame at your door. Any wrongdoing is entirely the gentleman’s fault.”

The apology didn’t mollify. “My lord, none of this is your business.”

Now she’d offended him. “A man of principle must speak when he sees a woman he … respects at risk of making a fool of herself.”

His concern struck her as overweening. After all, he was a colleague of her father’s, not a member of the family. “Lord Neville—”

Luckily for her relationship with her father’s patron, the door opened and Mr. Evans emerged with Sirius at his heels. The parlor faced west, so it was purely a matter of geography that the setting sun lit him like a saint in a painting.

She had no idea what Mr. Evans saw, but he went still and his tall body radiated danger. Sirius stood alert at his master’s thigh.

“Miss Barrett, are you all right?” he asked softly. With his back to the light, she couldn’t read his expression. His voice was steady and he sounded protective. Or he would if she trusted his sincerity. Even so, she battled a traitorous surge of warmth.

Lord Neville lurched around. “You interrupt a private conversation, sir.”

Did she imagine it or did Mr. Evans deliberately relax back into his easygoing self? “I go through to dinner, my lord.”

No love was lost between them. But tonight for the first time she wondered if mutual antipathy might verge on something stronger. Something approaching loathing. She’d always considered Lord Neville a dominating character. But it was the older man who shifted on his feet and turned to stump into the dining room.

“I take it he warned you against me.” Mr. Evans stepped into the hallway, clever enough not to crowd her. Right now she thought she’d clout the next man who tried to intimidate her with his physical size.

Genevieve glared at her rescuer, fleeting gratitude evaporating. “Shouldn’t he?”

She waited for Mr. Evans to claim ignorance of her meaning, but she misjudged him. He leaned close enough for her to see his half smile in the gloom. “Do I make you nervous, Miss Barrett?”

With a flick of her skirts, she turned and headed for the dining room. “Not at all, sir.”

She waited for him to challenge an assertion that they both knew was untrue. He merely gestured her ahead with the smooth dispatch that both attracted and frightened her.