Page 14 of Seduced by a Scoundrel (The Spinster Society #3)

K eir’s coachman took them to Spinster House. The bridge was all sleet and frozen mud as they crossed the river to the north side. It would have been dismal to cross on foot, even if the falling snow was pretty. The cold would have easily gripped her, set her ankle to aching, her mind to running in jagged circles.

Instead, she was back inside a warm carriage with Keir as if it was a perfectly normal thing for him to see her home from horse races and secret missions during musicales.

“Thank you,” Sybil said, her feet perched on the wrapped warming brick. She still liked the cold sneaking in through the sides of the door, pinkening her cheeks. But she no longer cared for it to touch the rest of her for too long. She was going to have to work on that.

But not tonight.

Tonight, she was comfortable and pleased with her success and sitting across from a ruggedly beautiful man who, although too serious for his own good, had helped her at some cost to his dignity.

And dignity was everything to a Montgomery.

They might not know Minos’s true identity, or how he knew so much about them, or even why he was coming after them. They could guess that they had foiled one of his plans, but it was just a guess.

But they could help Miss Venetia. And Miss Maddox. And any number of other ladies in the meantime. And it was all the sweeter now that each victory was a thumbing of their noses at their unknown attacker. It was worth every insult, every disdainful sniff, every loud mutter about her lineage, or lack thereof.

Although Keir, it seemed, did not agree.

“Don’t ask me to sit by again while they treat you like that,” he said. “I would have an easier time carrying a house on my back. And the way you bowed your head meekly…” He shuddered. “Look at me, I’m sweating.”

She had to smile as the carriage pulled to a stop. He was adorable. Somehow, stern, solemn, inscrutable Keir Montgomery was also adorable.

That didn’t seem fair.

“I didn’t think marquesses were allowed to sweat. I’m sure it’s a rule.”

“Clearly, a rule made by someone who has never met you .”

She bit her tongue on a highly inappropriate suggestion about other ways to make him sweat. He was not for her and she was not for him.

It was getting harder and harder to remember that.

Spinster House waited, with lamplight at the windows, welcoming in the swirls of snow. One of the footmen had already shoveled the walk. It would smell like flowers and fire and warm, delicious things cooking in the oven. It was home.

And yet she wanted to linger in the carriage, which was not quite large enough to fit Keir, with melting snow dripping from her cloak and hair. His eyes were on her. She licked her lower lip and his gaze flared. An answering tingle sparked low in her belly.

“I’ll walk you to your door,” he finally said.

Some things were simple enough.

She enjoyed Keir’s company and did not wish for him to say goodnight just yet.

If it was torture of a kind, she was only torturing herself.

“Would you like some tea? And shortbread? We have a cook who makes shortbread like your Scottish granny.”

He smiled briefly. “My Scottish granny did not make shortbread.”

“Oh.”

“But surely, had she done so, it would have far surpassed anything made by your English cook.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“Absolutely.”

She was grinning as she led him inside the house. He frowned at the empty hall, the oil lamp burning on a marble-topped table with carved peacocks. “Where’s your butler?”

“We keep odd hours,” Sybil explained, untying the knot of her cape ribbons. “There’s no sense in keeping everyone up all night just to open a door for us. I’m perfectly capable of moving my arms. I’ve been doing so for nearly thirty years.” She was supposed to hide her age, to be demure about her spinsterhood.

Not in this house.

“There is sense in it when someone just tried to abduct you,” Keir grumbled.

“We have sturdy locks.” She took his hat and his gloves and tossed them carelessly onto a chair. “And footmen.”

“Footmen.”

“Aye,” one of the footmen said, appearing at the end of the hall. “All right, miss?”

“Yes, thank you, Peter.”

“Peter, is it?” Keir asked, peering down the hall. Sybil saw the exact moment he noticed the other man’s military bearing, the knife at his boot. He nodded. “Good man.”

Sybil took Keir to the parlor because it seemed a bit brave to drag him to her bedchamber and beg him to undress her. With his teeth. Or to let her undress him. With her teeth. Not that they had never done so, just not like this. Not without a clear escape route.

Keir followed her, no doubt perfectly aware of the fact that this was scandalous enough for a man like him. A deserted parlor with a fire burning low and snow at the window was precisely a place where a lady was seduced by a scoundrel. If she was lucky.

“And I’m not the scoundrel here,” he said. “That distinction belongs entirely to you.”

He was not precisely wrong, she supposed.

How delightful.

Sybil tried to get her wayward thoughts under control as she had not even realized she had spoken out loud “Just so you know, our cook is French.”

“I should have guessed.”

“And I shouldn’t like to bother her for tea at this hour.”

“Lured by the promise of tea and shortbread and left wanting.” He shook his head, as if disappointed. “Worse and worse.”

“I do have shortbread, though.” Sybil went to the side table, always well stocked with whisky and brandy and chocolate fondants. Also: knives, sharpened hatpins, bundles of herbs with various unsavory uses. Hopefully, Keir would not notice those. “And whisky.”

“Sybil?”

“Yes?”

“May I tell you a secret?”

She turned to stare at him. “ You have secrets?”

That fond twitch of his mouth again. “Everyone has secrets, Sybil.”

As he was standing in a house filled to the rafters with secrets, she did not disagree. “And yours is?”

He bent his head closer, eyes shining, tone heavy with the gravity of what he was about to impart. She held her breath because he was so close and she liked it so much. And he never told her secrets anymore. “I do not care for whisky,” he said.

She gasped on a chuckle. “Blasphemy.”

He nodded gravely. “Don’t tell my Scottish granny. Now, she loved whisky.”

Sybil shook her head, clicking her tongue. “You’ve given me a dangerous power over you, Keir Montgomery. Was that wise, do you think?”

“You already have power over me,” he said, but he murmured it so softly that she was half convinced she had misheard him.

Pity.

She cleared her throat. “Brandy, instead?”

“Please.”

Now that she had him here in the parlor, she could not think of a single thing to do with him that was not deeply scandalous. Salacious, even.

He swallowed his liqueur, and she watched the muscles of his strong throat working above his simple cravat and wondered if she was going mad. Neck muscles were not sensual. Were they? Why was she mesmerized?

“Don’t look at me like that, Sybil,” Keir said quietly, roughly.

She swallowed, caught. “Why not? I mean to say, what do you mean?”

He put his brandy down carefully, as though everything was made of glass, not just the cup. As if he might break apart.

As if he might like to look at her the way she was looking at him.

“I think you know.”

“I don’t think I do.”

“Dangerous games, my little scoundrel.”

“And you play it safe.”

“Yes. But there’s nothing safe about you, is there, Sybil?” The way he said her name made her toes curl, as did the way he advanced toward her, crossing the carpet in two giant strides. She had to tip her head back to meet his gaze.

They stood there for a long moment, the fire crackling, the hot, sweet taste of brandy on her tongue, the warmth of his body just barely touching hers. His mouth so close, so close.

Closer still.

And then, because they were in a house full of women who meddled in the affairs of men, it was at that very moment that a stone crashed through the window, shattering the glass.