Page 3 of His Scandalous Lessons
Mr. Grey shrugged. “That’s a sentiment I’m well acquainted with. Though they generally come after a clear invitation for the obvious.”
“Lovemaking,” she said with a nod.
“Fucking.”
The word was shocking. Anne ought to have been scandalized, but she admired the honesty of it. Some relationships, she understood, did not require sentiment.
When she didn’t respond, Mr. Grey added, “I have a rule against debutantes, if that’s what you’re here for.”
“A rake with rules,” she said. “How refreshing. I suppose I should have figured you’d havesomeintegrity, based on your support of progressive bills. You have an impressive habit of annoying my father.”
“Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. I consider it my mission in life to annoy Tories.”
Anne couldn’t help but smile at that. She still wasn’t looking at him; she didn’t think she could. Though she prided herself on not succumbing to her father and fiancé’s mutual goal of making her submissive and brainless, she had difficulty meeting the gazes of men.Look down, her father had always told her.It is a bold woman who stares directly into a man’s eyes; it assumes they are on equal terms. They are not.He’d told her that a downward gaze showed humility.
Anne hated it. Hated that despite her mental rebellions, she found herself staring so often at her feet.
Or, she thought bitterly,paintings of Cornish coastlines.
Mr. Gray reached out and tilted her chin so she was forced to meet his gaze. His fingers were warm, gentle. Anne pulled away with a startled gasp.
“Easy,” he said, dropping his hand. He had a kind expression, patient, as if sensing her internal battle. She did not like it. “I’m quite sorry, I shouldn’t have touched you without permission.”
All at once, Anne’s eyes stung with tears.Without permission.Without consent. Was this what it was like to speak to a man who thought women mattered? They asked permission. They didn’t force daughters to look down, or their wives to submit. They had rules that did not whittle a woman away until she was a hollowed out vase. They didn’t touch them without permission.
Even a manipulative man like Mr. Grey understood such things.
“Yes,” she whispered. “You have some integrity despite your habit of blackmailing politicians.”
Mr. Grey scowled. “If you’re here because you want me to blackmail someone for you—”
“On the contrary. It’s your skills in seduction that I require,” Anne said, standing straighter. She blinked away her tears and evened her expression. “I need your help to find a husband.”
Chapter 2
Richard tried not to laugh; Miss Sheffield’s expression a moment ago had been too vulnerable for him to jest about her proposal. “Miss Sheffield, as we’ve already established, I’m a rake. Marriage is not for me.”
Miss Sheffield raised an eyebrow. “I said that I require your help to find a husband, not that I wanted to marry you.”
Now Richard let out a laugh; he couldn’t help it. “Finding a debutante a husband is not exactly in the job description of a rake.”
Not that he didn’t appreciate an attractive woman on his doorstep. And Anne Sheffield was beautiful, quiet and intensely so. She was all graceful lines and petite, delicate framing. Red hair framed her small, lovely face, so vivid it was almost unreal. Her eyes surprised him most: they were wide enough to be innocent, but filled with an awareness he hadn’t seen in many debutantes.
When she had first met his gaze, he felt as if the world had tilted on its axis. Her scrutiny left him as off-kilter as a blade to the gut, and he’d lost control and touched her without asking. What had compelled her to come tohim? It was well known in social circles that the Prime Minister hated Richard Grey with a passion matched only by people’s hatred for rodents.
Not that Richard felt any differently.
Stanton Sheffield was a cold, greedy bastard, and was in the pocket of more than a few rich, conservative aristocrats.
It had been Stanton Sheffield who taught Richard that politics could rarely be won with honesty. It required lying, cheating, and stealing to force progress, and the men on the other side would not allow the country to move even a fraction from the status quo without a fight.
And they fought dirty.
Richard doubted Sheffield treated his only child better than his opponents in Parliament, otherwise she wouldn’t be here talking about marriage.
Richard had to hand it to her, though: it took bollocks to come in the middle of the night and take a risk on a man with his reputation.
“We’ve already established that you’re notjusta rake, Mr. Grey,” Miss Sheffield said. “You’re a manipulative schemer with enough political secrets to rival the length of a Roman history, I suspect.”
