Page 41 of Enticing Odds
Mrs. Rickard wrinkled her nose.
“Point taken.”
Cressida stood, and Mrs. Rickard followed. They carefully made their way through the assembled chairs, all of them now empty. Lady Louisa still stood at the front of the room in conversation with Mr. Gillig.
“I suppose we ought to thank him,” Mrs. Rickard groused under her breath.
“Or thankher, for arranging an unexpected afternoon of satirical entertainment.”
Mrs. Rickard paused to look over her shoulder. Cressida halted, so as not to crash into her bustle.
“Egad, you really are past thirty years of age, aren’t you? I confess I feel foolish for not realizing it until just now.”
Cressida would never dare shrug in public, but she made an approximation of the gesture with her face. “Six and thirty, if we’re keeping score, Mrs. Rickard.”
“Well, knock me down with a feather,” she breathed, as if it were a curse.
“That, I suppose, is meant as a compliment?”
“Of course it is,” Mrs. Rickard replied haughtily as she turned about. “And you better well take it, for I’m not often in the habit.”
Cressida smiled. Neither was she.
Chapter Eleven
Christ, but he feltantsy.
Matthew shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, not paying a care to traffic as he picked his way across the street. His mind was a muddle, his body tight and waiting. But for what?
That blessed release.
No. Stop it, he silently admonished himself, squashing the thought as soon as it arose. Instead he focused on his feet. Oh dear—the shine was gone from his shoes. Earlier that morning they’d been gleaming and sharp; he’d had the housemaid clean them up last night, even instructing her to use the whole damn tin of Sedley’s Satin Black Boot Polish if need be. But now, only halfway to his destination, they were already dusty and dull.
He stifled a groan.
He never should’ve walked. He ought to have hailed a cab and arrived at the Athenaeum like a proper gentleman. But he wasn’t a gentleman, now, was he? He didn’t even have a valet to tend to his shoes. Here he was, just one of the city’s hundreds of thousands of pedestrians, shoulder to shoulder with every officeclerk and shopgirl who refused to splash out a paltry sixpence for the omnibus.
He was painfully middle-class. But even worse…
Dr. Matthew Collier was a sordid, thrill-chasing reprobate. A man who would stake his entire savings on card games, and use his skills—underhandedly if necessary—to minimize his losses and maximize his gains, smirking confidently all the while. A wicked man who concealed himself with ease under a cloak of civility, politely offering his aid to a widowed noblewoman. Teaching herson, for fuck’s sake, to follow in his footsteps. And then turning around and frigging himself to such a shocking fantasy. All because she trifled with him.
Matthew blew out a sigh, and twisted his giant form so he might skirt around an elderly couple making slow progress along the pavement.
No, that wasn’t why he’d done it.
He could resist a trifling. Ever since he’d first come to London as youth and filled out his tall form, he’d been the recipient of plenty of suggestive smiles and teases about the supposed size of his prick; evidently his considerable size and strength suggested something commensurate in his drawers.
None of those women had tempted him in the least.
His mood darkened as he charged forward, not caring who he might push past.
Was it her hair, and the way it gleamed in the light? Her dark, penetrating eyes, her low and velvety voice? Or those magnificent tits? Perhaps it was the way her dimples appeared when she smiled wide, rare occurrence that it was. Matthew found himself wondering if she possessed another pair of dimples, positioned seductively above her rear, at the base of her spine: the dimples of Venus. And then another image burst forth, equally horrifying and delicious, of him spilling upon her,upon those dimples, if they did indeed exist under all her skirts and smallclothes and—
A man’s shoulder crashed into his, coming from the opposite direction, spinning him halfway around.
An inelastic collision, his mind inanely stated as he stumbled. Matthew found his balance and straightened up, an apology for his carelessness on his tongue when he heard a rough, familiar voice.
“And where are we off to today, Doctor?”
