hadn’t really meant to say the words out loud, but she glanced over, her eyes following the direction of his gaze. Sighing, she clapped a hand over the exposed bosom. ‘Fiddle—I shall have to add a fichu to the neckline. As if the garment were not over-trimmed enough!’
The shadowed valley of décolletage just visible beneath her sheltering fingers was even more arousing than the unimpeded view, he thought, his heartrate notching upwards. Adding a fichu to mask that delectable view would be positively criminal.
Shaking his head to try to rid himself of temptation, he said, ‘Your speech is so forthright, I would have expected your dress to be … simpler. Did Lady Denby press the style upon you?’
She laughed again, a delightful, infectious sound that made him want to share her mirth. ‘Oh, no, Stepmama has excellent taste; she thinks the gown atrocious. But I put up such a fuss about being forced to waste time shopping, she let me purchase pretty much whatever I selected. Although I couldn’t manage to talk her into the yellow-green silk that made my skin look so sallow.’
The realisation struck with sudden clarity. ‘You are deliberately dressing to try to make yourself unattractive?’ he asked incredulously.
She gave him a look that said she thought his comment rather dim-witted. ‘Naturally. I told you I was trying to avoid matrimony, didn’t I? The dress is bad enough, but the spectacles are truly the crowning touch.’ Slanting him a mischievous glance, from her reticule she extracted a pair of spectacles, perched them on her nose and peered up at him.
Huge dark eyes stared at him, so enormously magnified he took an involuntary step backwards.
At his retreat, she burst out laughing. ‘They make me look like an insect under glass, don’t you think? Of course, Stepmama knows I don’t wear spectacles, so I can’t get away with them when she’s around, which is a shame, because they are wondrous effective. All but the most determined fortune hunters quail at the sight of a girl in a hideously over-trimmed dress wearing enormous spectacles. I shall have to remember about the fichu, however. The spectacles can’t do their job properly if gentlemen are staring at my bosom.’
Especially when the bosom was as tempting as hers, Max thought. Still, the whole idea was so ridiculous he had to laugh, too. ‘Do you really need to frighten away the gentlemen?’
Probably hearing the scepticism in his tone, she coloured a bit. ‘Yes,’ she said bluntly, ‘although I assure you, I realise it has nothing at all to do with the attractions of my person. Papa’s baronetcy is old, the whole family is excessively well-connected and my dowry is handsome. As an earl’s son, do you not need stratagems to protect yourself from matchmaking mamas and their scheming daughters?’
She had him there. ‘I do,’ he acknowledged.
‘So you understand.’
‘Yes. None the less,’ he continued with genuine regret, ‘I’m afraid I can’t reconcile it with my conscience to ruin you.’
‘Are you certain? It would mean everything to me and I’d be in your debt for ever.’
Her appeal touched his chivalrous instincts—the same ones that had got him into trouble in Vienna. Surely that experience had cured him for ever of offering gallantry to barely known females?
Despite his wariness, he found himself liking her. The sheer outrageousness of her proposal, her frank speech, disarming candour and devious mind all appealed to him.
Still, he had no intention of getting himself leg-shackled to some chit with whom he had nothing in common but a shared sympathy for their inability to pursue their preferred paths in life. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Denby. But I can’t.’
As if she hadn’t heard—or couldn’t accept—his refusal, she continued to stare at him with that ardent, hopeful expression. Without the ugly spectacles to render them grotesque, he saw that her eyes were the velvety brown of rich chocolate, illumined at the centre with kaleidoscope flecks of iridescent gold. A scattering of freckles dusted the fair skin of her nose and cheeks, testament to an active outdoor life spent riding her father’s horses. The dusky curls peeping out from under an elaborate cap of virulent purple velvet glowed auburn in the fading light of the autumn sunset.
Miss Denby’s ugly puce ‘disguise’ was very effective, he realised with a something of a shock. She was in fact quite a lovely young woman, older than he’d initially calculated, and far more attractive than he’d thought upon first seeing her.
Which was even more reason not to destroy her future—or risk his own.
‘You are certain?’ she asked softly, interrupting his contemplation.
‘I regret having to be so disobliging, but … yes.’
For the first time, her energy seemed to flag. Her shoulders slumped; weariness shadowed her eyes and she sighed, so softly that Max felt, rather than heard, the breath of it touch his lips.
Those signs of discouragement sent a surge of regret through him, ridiculous as it was to regret not doing them both irreparable harm. But before he could commit the idiocy of reconsidering, she squared her shoulders like a trooper coming to attention and gave him a brisk nod. ‘Very well, I shan’t importune you any longer. Thank you for your time, Mr Ransleigh.’
‘It was my pleasure, Miss Denby,’ he said in perfect truth. As she turned to go, though it was none of his business, he found himself asking, ‘What will you do now?’
‘I shall have to think of someone else, I suppose. Good day, Mr Ransleigh.’ After dipping a graceful curtsy to his bow, she walked out of the conservatory.
He listened to her footfalls recede, feeling again that curious sense of regret. Not at refusing her absurd request, of course, but he did wish he could have helped her.
What an unusual young woman she was! He could readily believe her father had treated her like a son. She had the straightforward manner of a man, with her frank, direct gaze and brisk pace. She took disappointment like a man, too. Once he’d made his decision final, she’d not tried to sway him. Nor had she employed anything from the usual womanly arsenal of tears, pouts or tantrums to try to persuade him.
He’d always prided himself on his perception. But so well did she play the overdressed spinster role, it had taken an unaccountably long time for him to realise that she was a potently alluring female.
She didn’t seem to realise that truth, though. In fact, it appeared she hadn’t the faintest idea that if she wished to tempt a man into ruining her, her most powerful weapons weren’t words, but that generous bosom and that kissable mouth.
Now, if she’d slipped into the conservatory and caught him unawares, still seated on the bench … pressed against him to whisper her request in his ear, leaning over to place those mounded treasures but a slight lift of his hand away … lowered her face in invitation … with the potent scent of jasmine washing over him, he’d probably have ended up kissing her senseless before he knew what he was doing.
At the thought, heat suffused him and his fingers tingled, as if they could already feel the softness of her skin. Damn, but it had been far too long since he’d last pleasured, and had been pleasured by, a lady. He reminded himself that he didn’t debauch innocents—even innocents who asked to be debauched.
If only she were not gently born and not so innocent. He could easily
