Regency Rumour: Never Trust a Rake / Reforming the Viscount. ANNIE BURROWS

had agreed on the names of their children between themselves. A pang of yearning shot through him. What would it be like to hang over a cradle, and discuss with his wife the naming of each and every one of the children she bore him? His own father had decreed that his name should be Jonathon Henry and had not cared what his mother chose to name any of the successive siblings that she periodically deposited in the family nursery.

      He squeezed his eyes shut. He was letting his imagination run away with him. He could not start filling his nursery until he got Miss Gibson to accept a proposal of marriage from him and, judging by her present demeanour and what he already knew of her, she was not going to seize upon it with the delight he might expect from any other female present in town this Season.

      He opened his eyes and regarded her slumped posture thoughtfully. For one thing, she had just told him she didn’t particularly like him. Unlike the other débutantes he’d been discreetly interviewing for the position, rank did not mean anything to her. Then there was the mysterious suitor who’d abandoned her for Miss Waverley’s surface charm. She might still have some lingering feelings for him. She’d claimed she had come to him because she did not want to disappoint her brothers, but he would wager it was more complicated than that. He could not leave the mysterious swain out of the equation.

      But nor could he risk allowing her to slip through his fingers.

      Then it hit him.

      There was a way, just one way, he could definitely get her to accept a marriage proposal—and that would be if he asked her precisely one minute after taking her virginity.

      For once she’d yielded to him, sexually, she was the kind of woman who would salve her conscience by telling herself she’d only succumbed because she was in love with him. She wouldn’t be, of course, but that was immaterial. He did not need her to really love him, only to believe she did.

      His blood stirred. The moment he started to think in terms of bedding her he couldn’t help noticing what wonderfully clear skin she had. Her cheeks were soft as rose petals. And the upper slopes of her breasts, just visible above the modest neckline of her gown, looked so luscious he was already salivating at the prospect of closing his lips around them.

      He took a deep breath, reminding himself he needed to keep a clear head. Though he was pleased she aroused the lust necessary to make her an acceptable bed partner, most of the desire he felt towards her had very little to do with the physical. Not that it was sentimental in nature. No, he was not such a fool that he would permit mawkish sentiment to cloud his judgement. It was just that there were so many things about her that made the prospect of marriage entirely … palatable.

      As he eyed her dejected form an intensity came to his eyes, like that of a hawk hovering over its prey. For all her protestations of dislike, for all her rigidly held morals, she was not immune to him. He’d caught the occasional glimmer of appreciation in her eyes as she examined his face, or the set of his shoulders, or the skill with which he handled the ribbons. And if he wasn’t mistaken, she had deliberately set out to make him laugh in the recounting of the tale of Crimmer and the yahoos. She’d wanted to impress him, at least, if not to enchant him.

      Which was a start.

      He wouldn’t mind wagering that during the entire two weeks he had held aloof, she had been thinking about him, too, for she’d as good as admitted she’d wanted him to have been the one to send Lady Dalrymple to clear her name.

      And she had not returned the handkerchief he’d pressed upon her, the first night they’d met. If she was completely indifferent to him, she would have had it laundered and returned via one of her wealthy uncle’s footmen.

      Yes, she was susceptible.

      So, the only question remaining was how best to embark upon her seduction. In some ways it was a pity he’d already put the notion in her head that he was only going to pretend to find her fascinating. It was another reason why he’d seen it would be damned difficult to make her believe he was in earnest when he began to pursue her.

      On the other hand, it would give him opportunities to sneak beneath her guard which she would never yield to a real suitor. All he needed was a plausible explanation for why he would push her beyond the bounds of what she would consider acceptable behaviour from a make-believe suitor.

      All kinds of interesting possibilities occurred to him …

      It felt like getting back on to familiar, firm ground after wading through a patch of quicksand. Because, even though she would no doubt make a spirited attempt to preserve her virtue, he had complete confidence that he could breach her walls. She was such an innocent she would not have a hope of maintaining a lengthy resistance to the range and sophistication of weapons he could wield. He knew how to lure a woman so stealthily that she thought she was the one doing the enticing. How to tease, and arouse, and torture a woman with sensual delights until she was begging him for the mercy of release.

      And not once, in his entire amatory career, had any woman ever objected to his methods, or his technique. Even the married ones purred that he was a tiger in bed. And when he ended an affair, they had all, without exception, let him know they would welcome him back.

      Though, he frowned, none of them had been cut from the same cloth as Miss Gibson. Nor was his interest in her merely sexual and temporary. What he wanted from Miss Gibson was something entirely new. In some indefinable way, he wanted more from her than just her body.

      But taking possession of her body was where he was going to start.

      ‘Well,’ she said impatiently, after he’d been staring at her in complete silence for some minutes, ‘are you going to keep your promise, or not?’

      ‘Oho, Miss Gibson, that sounds like a challenge.’ He stalked towards her, but instead of taking a seat beside her, he bent and took her hands, tugging her to her feet. ‘Turn around,’ he said, letting go of her hands.

      ‘What? Why?’

      ‘Just do it,’ he said, affecting irritation. ‘I need to see what material I have to work with.’

      Shooting him just one look loaded with resentment, she turned, then plumped herself back down on the sofa and crossed her arms.

      ‘Completely graceless.’ He sighed. ‘And far too thin to be fashionable,’ though hers was not the pared-down, weakened frame that poets described as ethereal. She had the whipcord leanness of a girl who led an energetic lifestyle—playing cricket with her brothers, for one thing.

      ‘The quickest way to make you fashionable would be to procure you vouchers for Almack’s. And attend myself …’ He had never set foot in the marriage mart before, and to do so now would be such singular behaviour that everyone would understand his intent. People were already beginning to speculate about his sudden interest in débutantes. When he began to devote himself entirely to Miss Gibson everyone but she would understand that he’d got her in his sights. It would afford her the kind of protection he would never otherwise be able to provide. Though his own treatment of her from now on must be utterly ruthless, he would make damned sure nobody else dared to so much as look at her sideways.

      She was going to be his wife. His countess. Everyone needed to understand that and accord her due respect.

      ‘If people suspect you are about to become the next Countess of Deben, they will be falling over themselves to win your goodwill,’ he predicted.

      It was just typical of her that instead of taking the lure he’d dropped into the conversation, about the potential for gaining a title, she wrinkled her nose, and said, ‘Almack’s? Don’t be ridiculous.’

      ‘Ridiculous?’ Why would she consider going to Almack’s ridiculous? Did she care so little for the superficial glamour of the society in which he moved that she would eschew the highest honour it could bestow on a girl with limited connections?

      It would, he saw, take a very, very long time before Miss Gibson ever began to bore him. She was like no other female he’d ever encountered. Every time he thought he’d begun to grasp the essence of her, she’d surprise him all over