The Dangerous Debutante. Kasey Michaels

blond hair had been ruthlessly combed straight back off his only slightly lined forehead to brush at the collar of his shirt.

      His long, leanly muscled body was clad seemingly carelessly in that open-necked white shirt, a dark leather vest, fawn buckskins and high-topped riding boots.

      Her brothers dressed much the same way at Becket Hall. But this was different. This was…this was dangerous. Personally dangerous.

      And she was being silly! She wasn’t intimidated by a man. Why would she be? Men were intimidated by her.

      But not this one. He was the most man she’d ever seen.

      A dangerous man. Definitely dangerous; a clear warning positively radiated from him. She could all but see it, an aura of deep red ringed with yellow surrounding him, which could be some trick of the sun but she was certain was not.

      Years earlier, Odette had told her about such things, how certain creatures, human or beast, stood apart from others merely by being alive. Their power was stronger, for good or for evil, and a wise person who encountered one of these creatures recognized that and made subsequent choices, decisions, accordingly.

      Odette had told her that Ainsley Becket was one of the dangerous ones. Odette had seen that in an instant and she had followed him, because to be with him was much preferred to being against him, as she had also sensed his good heart.

      “But he’s only Papa, he’s not dangerous to me, not at all. What should I do, Odette?” Morgan remembered asking the voodoo woman. “If I ever see one of the dangerous ones, I mean? What should I do?”

      Odette had laughed, that deep, rich laugh that came from somewhere deep inside her. “Child, you already know the answer. You are one of them, one of the dangerous ones. You do not pick the danger, it chooses you, and only a foolish woman would deny that truth. But, inquisitive child, to answer your question…the good Virgin only knows what would happen if you ever came up against one of your own kind, one with your own powerful will.”

      Morgan wondered what the good Virgin might be thinking if she chanced to be looking down from heaven at this moment.

      She really should stop staring at him. But he was staring at her, and fair was only fair.

      He waited, watching her look at him, enjoying the luxury of looking at her, then finally broke the silence. “You were about to say something?”

      Morgan raised her chin slightly, refusing to be embarrassed that she had been staring, and instinctively went on the attack. “And who, sir, are you?”

      “Me?” His grin was boyish, unaffected, carving long, slashing dimples into his lean, tanned cheeks—which made him seem even more dangerous than before. “Why, I’m abashed,” he drawled, slowly advancing toward her. “Bedazzled. Enchanted. And, for my sins,” he added, bowing from the waist, while keeping his amused green gaze on her, “I am also Ethan Tanner, Earl of Aylesford, at your service and your every command, madam.”

      “Really,” Morgan said, wishing her heart would show some sympathy and slow from its furious gallop. She’d already half expected him to be somebody important, as he was dressed well, if casually, and his horse was not the possession of a simple country squire.

      As the stallion nuzzled her shoulder, she schooled herself to calmly raise one hand to stroke Alejandro’s strong neck, never realizing how striking woman and animal looked together. “How wonderful for you.”

      Ethan tipped his head slightly to one side, looking at her quizzically. How wonderful for him? Harriette Wilson wouldn’t be so bold, and she was a practiced courtesan. And damn Alejandro for the traitor he was.

      Who did this luscious woman belong to? And how much would it cost him to take her away from any fool so stupid as to let her roam free? Half his fortune didn’t seem too much to pay.

      “Yes, thank you,” Ethan said, “I am rather pleased my mother had the good sense to marry well. And, if I may be so bold, as no one else seems to be present to do the honors, may I ask your name, beautiful lady?”

      Should he have called her a beautiful lady? Morgan doubted that he should. She more than doubted it, after enduring long hours of Eleanor’s lessons on how one behaves in society. Still, he intrigued her, and she’d never backed either away or down from anything or anyone that intrigued her.

      She’d play his game to see where it might take her, but she’d be damned if she’d curtsy. “I suppose turnabout is only fair. I am Morgan Becket, of Becket Hall. That’s in Romney Marsh, so you probably won’t have heard of us or it.” And then, before she could bite her tongue, she added, “I’m on my way to London for the Season.”

      “Is that so?” Ethan said, hastily attempting to reshuffle his initial conclusion that she was a kept woman. “Unaccompanied, Miss Becket? How…very original.”

      Morgan blinked at this, at the earl’s tone that suddenly seemed entirely too familiar, as if, in the blink of an eye, the game had turned serious. She suddenly wished the six outriders back. She looked toward the stables just in time to see Jacob leading Berengaria out into the yard.

      Yes, there he was. Her remaining “accompaniment.” And here she was, having disobeyed her papa’s strict orders to stay as private as possible and for God’s sake not cause any disasters between Becket Hall and Upper Brook Street. “I can rely on you to do this one thing,” Ainsley Becket had asked her, “can’t I?”

      Obviously her papa had overestimated both her limits of obedience and Jacob’s power to control her.

      But if she was in a pickle now it was through her own fault, and she couldn’t allow Jacob to become involved, try to defend her honor or any such nonsense. Not with a man like the earl, who could easily chew up Jacob and spit him out again before the younger man could count to three.

      She quickly looked at the earl once more.

      He was still smiling at her. As if he knew something she didn’t know, and delighted in that fact.

      Damn. This was no longer even in the least amusing. Now she truly understood why she was supposed to stay in the coach, or in her private dining room when they stopped for meals, and in her private bedchamber at the inn where she’d passed the single night they needed to be on the road.

      Bringing a maid from Becket Hall had been out of the question, partly because Morgan didn’t actually have a personal maid there, partly because no one at Becket Hall had the faintest idea of how to properly dress a lady’s hair or such things…and mostly because the fewer tongues hanging about and liable to flap, the better.

      Careful. Through years of practice, the Beckets had learned how to be careful. Too careful, Morgan had always believed, which was one reason she’d always tugged so hard on the reins. After all, the island had been so many years ago….

      Yet now here she was, alone and seemingly unprotected, strutting about as if she had an army at her back, when Jacob was her only soldier—and with no reason for the earl to believe her better than it had to appear she was.

      How different from Becket Hall, where everyone knew her and every last man there would stand in her defense against any danger. Why, if Jacko or any of the others had heard the earl’s words, even seen the unnervingly familiar way he was now smiling at her, Ethan Tanner’s life wouldn’t be worth a bucket of warm spit.

      But Jacko wasn’t here. The outriders weren’t here. Nobody was here. And Morgan couldn’t simply stand here and brazenly stare back at the earl while waiting for Jacob to do something that would probably get his nose broken. She had to talk her way out of the predicament she’d created.

      “My maid has taken ill, my lord,” she improvised quickly, “and therefore is on her way back to Becket Hall in the company of my outriders. I know my position to be precarious at the moment, except for the fact that my groom, Jacob, along with my coachman, would skewer anyone who dared to so much as look at me crookedly or take insulting notions into his head. You wouldn’t be addlepated enough to do either of those things, would you, my lord?”