Page 80 of An Affair with a Notorious Heiress
“Such as?” His tone was low, flat, curt. For a moment, she almost believed he might be jealous.
“I began a new book this afternoon. I want to finish it this evening.”
“You can finish it at my residence.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to spend every night in each other’s company.”
“It’s not going to beeverynight. There’s a finite number, and Somerdale is likely to make that number a small one.” He didn’t bother to disguise his disgruntlement.
“Today is the first day he’s called. He’s not going to ask for her immediately. Please, let’s not argue about this.”
He gave a brief nod, and she took it as his acquiescence. If she didn’t care for him so much she would go to him tonight. The problem was that her heart was becoming much more involved than it should.
“He seems rather besotted,” Rexton said.
“Yes, he does, doesn’t he? But she doesn’t.”
“She hasn’t taken her eyes off him.”
“I know, but...” Unable to pinpoint what exactly bothered her, she nibbled on her lower lip.
“Keep doing that and I’m going to drag you behind a tree and kiss you.”
With a start, she looked at him. He appeared deadly serious. “Doing what?”
“Nibble on that enticing lip of yours. If there’s any nibbling to be done, I should be the one doing it.”
Heat rushed into her cheeks. “Oh, the things you say.” They made her feel incredibly powerful and beguiling.
“The things I do are better than those I say. And oh, the things I’d like to do with you right this moment.”
She could see in his eyes what a good many of those things entailed. Naughty, incredible things. “Behave.”
“I love when you blush.”
She imagined she was blushing even more. The day seemed unbearably hot all of a sudden.
“Come to me tonight and I’ll make you blush all over.”
He would. She knew it without reservation. She needed to change the conversation. “Tell me everything you know about Somerdale. Is he capable of great love, do you think?”
“Where your sister is concerned, I suspect any man is.”
She couldn’t argue with that. Gina was lovable. Tillie had once considered herself so, but now she was brittle and cold, afraid to trust any man with her heart, even Rexton. The reason she couldn’t go to him every night. She had to protect her heart. How did other mistresses do it? she wondered.
At least in her relationship with Rexton, she held some power. Still she didn’t know if it would make things easier when their time together came to its conclusion.
Rexton was a selfish bastard. He didn’t want her returning to New York, didn’t want the Season to come to an end, didn’t want his association with her to be finished.
He wanted more of her laughter, her smiles, her company. He wanted people to see her walking with him and to know his interest was in her—not her sister. He no longer cared that she’d been seen kissing a footman, that she was divorced, that she wasn’t suitable for a man who would one day be a duke.
“Did you enjoy the carousel?” he asked casually, knowing he should be paying more attention to the couple in front of them, ensuring Somerdale did nothing to compromise Gina, nothing that would result in a rushed marriage that hastened the ending of his relationship with Tillie.
She smiled, the soft, gentle curling of her lips that filled him with a sense of satisfaction and joy unlike any he’d ever known. “You know I did. It was marvelous.”
“Then I won the wager, and you owe me another night.”
Her lips shifted into a straight line, but he didn’t think she was truly irritated with him because her eyes remained warm, sparkling with merriment.
