Page 4

“They don’t, do they?” She scrubbed the toe of her shoe across the stone in front of her, wishing for a rock to kick around.

She looked at him sideways, biting her cheek and wanting more than anything to confide in someone who might take her side.

But she didn’t know this man. Not to mention, he was a man .

The whole conversation was not acceptable, but she couldn’t help herself for wanting it.

“You call yourself a girl, so how old are you?”

“Are you asking if it’s my first year?”

He cocked his head in answer.

“I am nineteen, and it should be my second year, and the girls in question have been at this game much longer than I have. No doubt their behavior is rooted well into their youth.”

“Nineteen?” He crossed his arms once more, a slight disappointment in the shade of a grimace across his mouth.

She should never have looked there because his mouth had the kind of quality that could seem demandingly hard when needed and soft as a kiss also when needed.

Things only the daughter of a mistress might understand.

There were some lessons her mother imparted, not because she wished the same life for Truly, but because she believed women were kept ignorant against all reason.

“My name is not Puss. It’s not Sweet. It’s not Love.”

He gave a formal bow, his arms wide. “My apologies. So, perhaps you tell me what name you prefer.”

“Yours, for one.” When he didn’t readily answer, she turned his question around. “And what are you doing here?

“I’m hiding from someone who did not see a skeleton, apparently. Whatever that means.”

That answer sparked an unexpected chuckle from her. She flipped open her fan, hiding her face behind it. Her eyes watered, clearing a path through the depression clouding her view.

“There is obviously something here I don’t understand.”

“It’s…it’s a stupid game that girls play. How old is the girl who claimed you?”

“Definitely not a girl. And you don’t have to tell me she was playing games. That is all she knows.” Looking over his shoulder, he idly checked the garden.

“And you’re not a boy, I take it?” Obviously, he was not. His black formal jacket fitted snugly over broad shoulders, and he possessed the chiseled jawline of a grown man and a beguiling mouth that surely had seen more kisses than Adonis.

“At eight and twenty, I’m hardly a boy.” He smiled at her daring. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind explaining this girl’s game, perhaps I can avoid tripping over it again as you did my feet.”

She folded her fan, her eyes squinting with a smile. “Pointing out my lack of grace is not a good way to entice me into revealing all my secrets to a perfect stranger. Especially one determined to make an arse of himself.”

“Ah, so we have met before. Why don’t I remember you?” His tone was playfully mocking as he rested his brooding chin against his closed fist, leaving his other hand tucked in the crook of his arm.

“Miss Hancock.” She offered her hand, and he took it with a wary slant of a brow. “Your turn,” she said.

Bent over her hand, he watched her through his lashes for a full ten seconds before he straightened. “Dalliance.”

She could no more stop her surprised gasp than she could stop herself from snapping her hand from his grasp. This was the worst gentleman she could have confided anything in whatsoever.

“I see you at least recognize the name, if not the man.”

She swallowed while her gaze made another sweep of his person. His long, lean legs, trim waist, broad shoulders, lethally handsome face, and sandy-brown hair gave his hard lines a boyish charm that no doubt lured one to trust him, as she apparently did now. “You are a little infamous.”

“A little infamous is a contradiction.”

“Then I am afraid you are a contradiction. Or perhaps I’m not that interesting.”

“If I’d known you were waiting for me to accost you, I’d have…” he paused with a devious grin and then continued, “I’d have left.” He winked. “Is that what you expected?”

“We’ll never know, will we?”

“You’re not going to allow me to win one, are you, Miss Hancock?”

She shook her head, holding onto a confident grin. “I play for keeps. I play to win. I employ all the strategies I know.”

“Would you like some advice?”

“From you?” She gave him a skeptical squint, but only in play. “Perhaps I should take it. I’m hardly graceful, as you’ve witnessed. I do not require the slow gait of a tall gentleman when I can outpace one with ease.” She wiggled a leg under her skirt. “I’m too tall if you hadn’t noticed.”

“I didn’t know a woman could be too anything. If you think so, then you don’t know men.”

“I believe that’s what I was trying to say. Now, I’m simply waiting for your unadulterated advice, but you seem to have the gift of gab, which nearly always belongs to a woman. In which case, how can I trust you?”

He laughed outright. “You don’t need much advice, Miss Hancock. I’m afraid you’re unaware of the strategic game you play quite naturally. Lose what you think you know, and just be yourself. It’s rather appealing.”

“I’m looking to win a man over with my beguiling, usually quiet and boring personality.” She fluttered her lashes.

“All right. My advice is to lose these friends of yours and to never play or reveal all your strategies at once. The game must be interesting, and that, my sweet, takes time.”

She looked at him askance, cocking an irritated brow.

“It also takes patience and the grace to accept some things as canon, like the little pet names men like to give. They’re not meant to be condescending.”

“Puss is condescending because it sounds like a child.”

His smirking half-grin gave her pulse a little leap. “I remind you that you tripped over my feet.”

She turned to face him completely, leaning a hip elegantly against the rail. “Your Grace, clumsiness is adorably attractive.” It was a lie, of course.

He raised both brows, uncrossing his arms. “That, my dear, is the perfect strategy.”

Her chest filled with confidence for his encouraging words, true or no. “I’m afraid your reputation is not one of selective esteem.

“I will have you know that I am a connoisseur of women. I only collect the best.”

She examined his face; the warm amber of his eyes filled with simple sincerity. Clearly, he was serious. “Let’s lose the subjective sabers for a moment.”

“And there you are again. Your knack for conversation is perfection, Miss Hancock.”

At his approval, she felt a warm feeling of acceptance. There was every chance she was overreacting to the constant rejection she had grown used to and perhaps to the charm of a rake. “And the game?”

“This one?” He circled the space between them.

She chuckled, smiling more in the last fifteen minutes than she had in the last fifteen days. “No. The skeleton in the mirror.”

“Yes.” He snapped his fingers and turned to face her. “What the living hell is that? And she said in her boudoir.”

She took his language as a compliment to the odd connection building between them. “Were you there? In her boudoir? Not that I’m judging.” She gestured with a hand to her chest for good measure.

“According to her, I was. But no. Absolutely not.”

Truly bit into a laughing smile. “I’m trying to decide whether to torture you a little longer. You were right. This is fun.” She felt at ease and strangely rejuvenated. She could hardly wait to reveal the rules of the game.