Susan Johnson - Gorgeous As Sin

“It was some passerby, my dear, who apparently can’t read the hours painted on the door. He’s gone. You’re quite safe.” He understood her fear of exposure; if it were revealed that she was a writer of erotica, her reputation not to mention her livelihood would be at risk. The scandal could ruin her.

A moment later, Rosalind bid good-by to Mr. Edding, left the shop, and walked home through the quiet streets. Only after she entered her apartment above the store did she allow herself to give in to fatigue. Not that she was unfamiliar with weariness after so many nights with little sleep.

Fortunately today was Tuesday-normally not a busy day, particularly in August with the beau monde having deserted London. Even the bourgeois were at the seashore with their families. She didn’t expect many customers.

She would rest for a brief time; the store didn’t open until ten.

Then fortified by another cup of tea-several actually-she would survive another day with limited sleep. But tonight, she would allow herself a rare treat and go to bed by midnight.

GROVELAND ARRIVED AT Bruton Street Books shortly before ten.

An early riser, he’d already spent some hours with his new secretary, Stanley. All his correspondence, which had been left in abeyance during his absence, was now in order, and young Stanley was much relieved. The duke’s casual disregard for his mail was unfathomable to the meticulous lad, but then Stanley was still young and idealistic-neither of which characterized the duke. The duke was thirty-five. And his youth had been marked by tumult and violence when his father was in his cups-not an atmosphere likely to foster idealism.

Fitz had explained-again-that Stanley could do what he liked with the billets-doux; they were of no interest to him. As for his business correspondence, if Stanley had questions and couldn’t reach him, he could speak to Hutchinson. The remaining mail could be dealt with in whatever manner Stanley chose. He’d tried to be diplomatic for the young man was doing his best to shoulder his new responsibilities. “The point is,” he’d finally said, “I don’t want to deal with most of this. You understand?”

Now in terms of further diplomacy…

Fitz surveyed the bookshop’s bow windows filled with colorful volumes, then the glass-paned, canary yellow door with the hours clearly noted thereon. He slipped his watch from his waistcoat pocket and checked the time. Ten. He tried the door once again. Apparently, Mrs. St. Vincent wasn’t the punctual type.

Ah, there, a woman was coming toward him from the back of the store.

Mrs. St. Vincent it appeared from Hutchinson’s brief description-her hair color and height identifying factors. But as Fitz’s connoisseur gaze swiftly took her measure, he wondered if Hutchinson could have been wrong about her background. This woman had the look of an actress: startlingly beautiful, tall, and shapely, her heavy auburn hair piled casually atop her head а la Pre-Raphaelite portraits. Or maybe it was that particular shade of hair that called to mind their work.

Although she also affected the aesthetic mode in her attire: elements of Japanese motifs embroidered on her blouse, the fabric of her moss green linen skirt handwoven from all appearances, her splendid form visibly without corsets. Having spent enough time in artists’ studios buying artwork or in pursuit of some lovely model, he recognized the avant-garde style.

Women in his world preferred French couture, opulent silks and satins, velvets and lace rather than hand-loomed wools and linens, and corsets were as de rigueur as a hand-span waist. And no lady he knew would appear in public with her hair as casually arranged as Mrs. St. Vincent’s.

She wasn’t working class, but she had definitely moved beyond the conventional world of her birth. For instance, she wasn’t wearing mourning, although her husband could have been dead for some time; he’d have to ask Hutchinson. Certainly in style and dress she appeared very much the modern woman. Not that he paid much attention to the controversial battle for women’s rights. In the insulated world in which he moved, the subject was, if not anathema, generally ignored. The ladies of his acquaintance were more concerned with gossip, the most stylish gown, or their newest lover.

Speaking of lovers, Mrs. St. Vincent definitely piqued his interest.

She was quite lovely.

Rosalind, meanwhile, in the process of mulling over a possible speaker for her Saturday reading group, didn’t notice the duke until she reached the door and looked up to unlock it. Her eyes flared wide and her first thought was: My Lord, Groveland is tall! Her second thought, thoroughly uncalled for and quickly suppressed was: He is as handsome as sin-gloriously so… like a Leighton depiction of some Greek god or Roman gladiator-all overwhelming strength and chiseled beauty.

He was a favorite of the scandal sheet gossip mongers. And whether at the races, some hunt, or a fancy dress ball, a woman was always clinging to his arm.

Not that his looks or his scandalous life should concern her in the least, Rosalind sternly reminded herself; she was well aware of why he’d come.

Groveland was here because he wished to acquire her store-and with it, her livelihood and all that was positive in her life. Not that he wasn’t offering her generous compensation. But she didn’t wish to sell for any number of reasons. Of prime importance, perhaps, was the fact that she’d fashioned a busy, satisfying, and increasingly lucrative life for herself since Edward’s death.

And she saw no cause or reason to relinquish it.

Yes, yes, she understood it might be possible to reconstruct such an existence elsewhere. But why must she disrupt her life and business simply because Groveland was wealthy, titled, and insistent?

She liked that her free library was frequented by so many of the laboring poor; she took great pleasure in knowing that her Saturday reading group was filled to overflowing because she offered speakers and books addressing the pertinent issues of the day. And while her small art gallery in the back of her store had originated by chance, the women artists who exhibited there were drawing increasing critical acclaim.

Furthermore, soon she would be free of debt without the duke’s offer.

But perhaps what may have ultimately sealed her decision was her fundamental dislike of men like Groveland-idle, leisured aristocrats who lived only for their amusements. Noble lords who had never wanted for anything, who expected immediate compliance, who resented challenge or contradiction. Who lived off the income generated by ill-paid retainers.

Good Lord, I’ve become a bona fide radical!

Whether it was Groveland’s rapping on the window pane or the shock of her latent radicalism jarring her back to reality, she quickly slipped the latch free and opened the door.

“A pleasant good morning.” The duke bowed faintly. “Mrs. St. Vincent, I presume. I’m Groveland.”

“Good morning, Your Grace. Are you in the market for some reading material?” Rosalind sardonically inquired. That he looked every inch the exquisite noble from the top of his deliberately ruffled hair to his biscuit-colored summer shoes inexplicably annoyed her.

She is a bitch, he thought. But adept at humoring women, at the top of his game according to Brooks’s betting books, Fitz offered a practiced smile. “Actually, I came to speak with you about your bookstore,” he said, smooth as silk. “I was hoping you would allow me a few moments of your time.”

She found his suave charm and easy smile insufferable, his expectation that she would succumb to it even more irksome. After a deliberately long pause, she said, “I suppose I could give you a few minutes. Come in and say what you have to say.” She waved him in with a flick of her hand. “Not that it will do you any more good than the ten others who came here to do your bidding.”

He flexed his fingers against an urge to throttle her, her tone, her stance, the chill in her emerald eyes, like a gauntlet thrown.

Hutchinson was right. She was audacious.

His mind racing with options other than that of throttling her, he moved past her into the store. Was it possible his architect could redraw the plans and work around her damned corner property? Could Williams design a new entrance to Monckton Row and the luxury townhomes planned for the site. Could he tell this shrewish bitch to go to hell?

The sound of the door closing behind him brought him back to his senses. Marginally. He understood that responding to her insolence in kind would hardly serve his mission, that tact and diplomacy would more likely win the day. But Groveland rarely met a quarrelsome woman; in fact, he never did, the women in his life universally disposed to please him. So he reined in his temper with effort. “We can trade insults if you wish.” He smiled tightly. “I’m more than willing and better at it than you I expect. Or you can do me the courtesy of listening to my proposal. I promise to be brief.”

Rosalind blew out a small breath; he was asking for little. She could at least hear him out. “I apologize. I was unnecessarily rude. I didn’t sleep much last night.” She smiled faintly. “At least I have an excuse for my incivility.”

Fitz couldn’t help but smile in return, although he hadn’t intended to. No more than he’d intended to say in a lazy drawl, “For all you know, I may not have slept much last night either.”

“But then no one would expect a man of your proclivities to have spent your night sleeping, would they?”

The little vixen was a flirt. “What could you possibly know of my proclivities?” he murmured, back on familiar ground, seduction his particular metier.

“The whole world knows, Your Grace. You’re infamous.”

“Should I apologize?” His voice was low and velvet soft, his gaze explicitly carnal.

It was unconscionable that a tremor of desire should immediately spike through her senses. That his deep, husky voice and heated gaze should prompt her cheeks to flush rosy pink. That for the briefest moment she’d fall prey to his tantalizing allure.

But she was a woman of resolve, even more so since her widowhood, so she resisted the heady temptation. “No need to apologize, Groveland.” She offered him a bland look and a blander smile. “May I offer you tea?” Clearly, a moment of respite was in order. She understood now why he was the byword for amorous play. He was quite impossible to resist-a wholly inexplicable phenomena to date in her life, but shockingly real.

She really could use a cup of tea if for no other reason than to put some distance between herself and Groveland’s disconcerting sexuality.

“Yes, thank you,” he murmured with a polished bow. He could drink tea if he had to, although cognizant of Mrs. St. Vincent’s tantalizing response, he would have much preferred a taste of the lovely widow’s heated passions.

At his graceful bow, Rosalind immediately pictured him on a ballroom floor, bowing to some woman, poised and elegant in full evening rig. Good God, I’ve been writing fiction too long.

“I heated the samovar earlier,” she quickly remarked, finding the sudden silence disturbing, feeling the need to fill the hush. “I keep tea at the ready for my customers and myself. I’m addicted I’m afraid, and customers like it as well… especially when the weather turns cooler-not that it’s cool today, of course,” she added, chiding herself for sounding like some dithering young miss just out of the schoolroom. “Please, over there,” she restively finished, gesturing to two chairs near the window.

After a cup of tea, she’d politely refuse his offer and send him on his way. She was no innocent maid whose head could be turned by a handsome face and a captivating smile. Truly, seriously, she silently admonished herself.

The lady’s contemptuous hauteur had vanished, Fitz reflected, following her, along with her abrasiveness, and in their place was this lovely, sweet tremulousness. His next thought was bluntly male and hackneyed: What she needs is a good, hard orgasm to calm her nerves.

His third thought was perhaps even more of a cliche considering his reputation for licentious pleasures: Might she be available for a bit of dalliance this morning? He was fresh and rested after a good night’s sleep. Although he fully understood that his lustful desires had more to do with the lady’s fascinating sensuality than a bracing night of repose.

Taking a seat in a worn leather club chair while she busied herself pouring tea, he slid down into a comfortable slouch and observed her from under his lashes. He had only to pull out a few pins and her heavy, silken hair would tumble down her back. His fingers unconsciously flexed in pleasant anticipation. Her blouse buttoned down the front. Convenient. She wore a minimum of petticoats under her simple skirt, too. Really-it was as if fate was taking a hand, he thought, contemplating the ease with which he could disrobe her. He shifted slightly as his erection grew, the image of Mrs. St. Vincent nude vastly arousing.