Page 35 of Too Sinful to Deny
He continued along the rocky coastline anyway. Perhaps he would come across something, anything, to shed some light on this tangle of events.
AndTimothy.On a secret mission! It defied all comprehension. Since when did his little brother hide things of that nature? Was this the first midnight venture? The first lie of omission? What else didn’t Evan know? His brother was apparently a much better pirate than he’d ever dreamed. Possibly better than Evan himself, givenhe’dnever thought to arrange a secret outing aboard the boat. But what a brilliant scheme! Wenching and smuggling all the night long, and not the slightest need to turn any spoils over to the captain, because he wouldn’t even know the ship had sailed!
True, you’d be shark bait within seconds if the captain ever found out, but who’d tell him? The other shipmates risked their necks by stealing away in the night, and as long as you weren’t fool enough to scribble down the coordinates of your secret mission right there in the captain’s logbook—
Evan snatched up a rock and gave it a violent skip across the sea. That cursed logbook. Timothy wouldnothave been stupid enough to advertise a folly guaranteed to cost him his life. But then why had Poseidon intimated that the destination might’ve been listed?
Oh, this was pointless. He couldn’t think. Not like this. He turned and headed into town.
What he needed was a distraction. Miss Stanton’s angelic face and devilish tongue flashed in his mind. No. Not that particular distraction.
That is to say, he ought to keep interest in her as the public explanation for why he wouldn’t be himself over the next days, weeks, months until he found Timothy’s killer. But he wouldn’t be able toreallydistract himself with her. Not in the sweaty way that left him limp and lifeless and brainless for several sweet moments of total relaxation. Delicious as that sounded.
He still couldn’t believe she’d stopped a simple kiss. Well, her loss. She wouldn’t know what it was like to have his mouth cover hers, to have his fingers in her hair, to have his tongue thrust deep inside—Evan’s blood ran a little warmer. Trouble was, he was more than a bit curious to know what it would be like to feel her palm caress his body in passion, not strike him in outrage.
Assuming uppity high-society virgins could feel anything so base as passion.
But what if she could? What if with the right moment, the right words, the right touch, she would not only like it, butwantit, beg him not to stop? What if beneath her haughty demeanor lurked a woman as wild and wanton as any tavern wench? A woman evenbetter.
He couldn’t prevent a quick glance at the facade of Moonseed Manor rising in stark censure atop the cliff overlooking the town. No. He would not tramp a mile uphill just on the chance he might see her. He wasn’t a boy of fifteen anymore. Women came to him, or they weren’t worth his trouble.
As if on cue, a too-high voice rang out, “Evan! Evan!”
He bit back a sigh. Unfortunately, most of the women who came to him these days were more trouble than they were worth.
“Miss Devonshire,” he answered politely.
She came to a breathless stop before him, all flushed cheeks and bouncing curls and saccharine desperation. “I asked you to call me Dinah.”
And he’d never asked her to call him Evan, but had that done any good?
“Shouldn’t you be sewing clothes, Miss Devonshire?”
“Well, yes, but I saw you from the window—at least, I thought it was you. I couldn’t be sure from such a distance, of course, but the shoulders were about right and the waistcoat looked awful familiar—so I left everything where it was and I ran all the way over here, and here you are, and here I am, and since it is you after all... Why haven’t you been to the shop to see me?” Her eyelashes fluttered at him like hummingbird wings. “I wait by the window every day. I expected you to call, and you didn’t. Or were you on your way to see me just now?”
Evan tried to keep his expression placid, but his balls shriveled a little more with every word tumbling from her lips. Miss Dinah Devonshire was a living, breathing reminder of why a man should never steal so much as a kiss from a woman he would have to lay eyes on again the next day. Tenterhooks grew from her fingers. If he weren’t careful, he’d wind up fastened among the cloth stretching to dry in her workroom.
“Actually,” he said, “I was on my way to—” Where could he possibly be on his way to that she wouldn’t follow him? Ah, yes. She’d avoid her least-favorite swain. “—Sully’s.”
“Oh.”
She didn’t bother to hide her disappointment. In fact, if his ability to discern a woman’s manipulations weren’t mistaken, she was batting her eyelids and biting her cheeks in the hopes of drumming up a pitiable expression of watery-eyed misery.
He took a step in the general direction of the tavern. With the way the barman had been making eyes at her lately, there was no way Dinah would follow.
She kept right to his heels.
“Did you know there’s to be an assembly in Bath a fortnight from now? Mr. Forrester mentioned it to me. Next time he’s in town, I think he’s going to ask me to accompany him for the weekend. With chaperonage, of course. He’s a dear soul, and a very good catch, but I’m not interested in going with him if you’re going to ask me to go with you. Were you going to ask me?”
Why, oh, why had he ever allowed his cock to convince him to spend a few moments alone with this woman? As soon as he’d realized her interest was mercenary, he stopped before they could go too far… but she refused to take no for an answer.
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“Oh! Good! Then you haven’t asked anyone else. Not that you would’ve. I mean...” High-pitched, rapid-fire giggles shot from her mouth like the jabber of an over-excited squirrel. “We’re more than just friends now, wouldn’t you say? I know you said you weren’t interested in a romantic relationship, but I was thinking I could be your companion to social functions. We might start with riding together to Bath in your phaeton. Nobody else has a phaeton.”
Ah. So she was enamored with his choice in carriages. Evan cursed the day he made that ill-advised purchase. He was probably the only one in Bournemouth whocouldtake her to the stupid assembly.
“I’m afraid I’m out of town that weekend.”
