Page 8 of When the Scoundrel Sins

With his back turned and his eyes focused on the darkening shadows cast across the countryside by the sunset, Quinn heard the soft splash of water as Belle moved quickly toward the bank.

He smiled. Annabelle Greene. Quick-tempered, defensive, serious…exactly as he remembered. When they were children, she’d been a bluestocking whose nose was forever pressed into one book or another. So he’d nicknamed her Bluebell, a combination of her name and bluestocking, just to antagonize her. The name stuck.

So did his enjoyment of irritating her.

He hadn’t lied to her—he liked seeing the fire in her eyes, always had. Perhaps it was because all the society ladies he knew kept their true emotions carefully hidden. Not so with Annabelle, whose pretty face had never been able to hide what she was thinking, whose bright smiles had always lit up a room.

Maybe it was even simpler than that. As he’d ripened into manhood, he’d come to realize how close anger lay to passion. Fires stirred by teasing were nearly as sweet as those flamed by desire.

“Are you all right?” he called out over his shoulder. Then he added, just to taunt her, “Bluebell.”

“I-I’m fine!”

He heard her teeth chatter. Guilt stabbed him for keeping her in the cold water longer than he should have. Or perhaps her answer was forced out between teeth clenched in anger.Thatwould certainly be the Annabelle he knew.

Good Lord, had it really been six years since he’d seen her?

The last time had been in London when she was starting her first season. As a late bloomer not yet grown into womanhood, she’d been at that age when her curves were just beginning to blossom and soften. The stick-with-ears she’d been all her life had grown into her long legs and big honey-hazel eyes, her gawkiness turning graceful and her shyness mellowing into a natural demureness. The Bluebell had suddenly turned interesting, even to the jaded buck he’d already become.

Then he’d kissed her.

He remembered the sweet tang of honey on her lips, the wild scent of heather that clung to her skin, the pliant softness of her curves…the utter confusion that gripped him afterward. She was the Bluebell, for God’s sake. Aunt Agatha’s companion. Innocent and inexperienced. And wholly intriguing for all of it.

Six years had passed, and he hadn’t seen her since. Based upon the barbs they’d just exchanged, though, she hadn’t changed. And oddly enough, he was more relieved than he wanted to admit that she hadn’t.

He offered affably, unable to stop himself, “Need any help with your stockings?”

“Just stay right where you are!”

“But I’m very good with ladies’ stockings,” he drawled.

“Oh,” she muttered beneath her breath, “I’m sure you are.”

He chuckled. Same old Annabelle, all right.

Good to know that some things hadn’t changed, especially when everything else in his life was turning on end. Including the unexpected invitation to visit Glenarvon, which had nearly knocked him flat. Aunt Agatha had implied in her letter that she had financial matters to settle, which only boded well for him.

“Lady Ainsley said you’d planned to travel to America,” Belle called out from behind him. “Is it true? Are you really going?”

He smiled at her stilted attempt at casual conversation. Or rather, at her not-so-subtle attempt to suss out when he planned to leave. “Yes.”

But first, he needed to pay his respects to his aunt and collect whatever funds she had for him. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and he needed every penny he could get his hands on for what he had planned. To say his prospects as a third son were limited was a grand understatement. Oh, certainly he’d proven himself successful in managing the family’s estate, assisting Sebastian after he’d inherited. More successful, in fact, than anyone who knew of his wild reputation would ever have imagined. In just two years, he’d increased estate profits by over fifteen percent.

But it was Sebastian’s estate, not his, and he’d always chafed under the title’s shadow. Proving himself on his merits meant that he had to find another path for himself, where his own capabilities decided his success and where his connections to the Duke of Trent meant nothing.

“To New England or Virginia?” she persisted, as if this conversation was nothing more unusual than discussing weather over tea. As if she wasn’t naked.

“South Carolina, actually.”

“Why?”

He grinned at her interrogation. “I promised my father.”

“No,” she corrected. “I mean, why South Carolina?”

“An old friend of my father’s lives there.” Asa Jeffers had served in his father’s regiment during the first war with the Americans, then stayed on in the former colonies after the war, where he’d bought a significant amount of property outside Charleston along the Ashley River and settled down to raise a family. But he and his wife had only daughters. “He’s getting up in age now and has no one to continue working the land for him. So he’s putting it up for sale.”

“And you’re going to buy it?”