Page 60 of A Relentless Rake

Christ!He hurled his tumbler into the fireplace. It exploded in a shower of glass and flames.

“What did that glass ever do to you?” a soft voice chided from the doorway.

He spun around.Olivia.

She leaned against the doorframe in the flickering firelight as the flames drank up the whiskey and slowly diminished, but her blue eyes remained bright even in the shadows. Beneath her cloak, she wore the same dress he’d nearly stripped off her tonight, and her hair still showed signs of being mussed from their embrace. His gut twisted, and it wasn’t from anger or blame. Despite her deception, he still ached to finish what they’d started in the gardens, remove that dress completely, and lose himself in her.

He bit back a curse. “How did you get in here?”

“The rear door was unlocked.” She gave a small shrug. “But I can leave and come back in through the window if you’d prefer.”

Despite her teasing words and her calm demeanor, he could sense both frustration and pain boiling inside her the way old sailors sensed changes in the weather. Tonight, one hell of a storm was brewing.

“And you’d like an explanation for what happened in the gardens,” he drawled.

Her blue eyes boldly met his. A quick pain pierced him when he saw their puffiness. She’d been crying.

His shoulders sagged. She’d deceived him, but she didn’t deserve to be wounded. Life with his father’s brutality had taught him that much compassion at least.

She crossed her arms in feeble protection as she stepped into the room. “A very thorough one, I should think.”

He hadn’t given her one earlier. At that moment in the gardens, she’d reminded him too much of his father’s secret life and lies to remain, so he’d left while fireworks still boomed overhead. He’d desperately needed to put as much distance between them as possible while he struggled to understand what she’d confessed to him and the ramifications of it.

But he didn’t have to explain himself to anyone, nor did he plan on starting with a woman who made her way through the world behind a false façade.

“My lord! I heard glass break.” Bivvens rushed into the room and drew up short in surprise at finding Olivia. His face reddened. “My apologies, sir. I didn’t realize—that is, I didn’t know that you had…an appointment this evening.”

Alec grimaced.An appointment. As if he had so many women coming to his home in the middle of the night that he had to write them into his social calendar.

From the way Olivia silently arched a brow, she certainly thought so.

“Shall I clean up this mess, sir?”

Alec waved him away. There weren’t enough kitchen towels and brooms in England to clean up the mess he’d found himself in.

The butler’s puzzled gaze shifted to Olivia, and Alec pushed down an aggravated sigh. He could only imagine what Bivvens must be thinking. How wrong the man was, too, because Alec would never sin the way his father had. In the six years since he’d returned from the continent and learned what his father had done, Alec had never once brought a woman into his home.

Yet of all the women to first grace his doorstep after midnight…her. The irony was biting.

“Leave it for the morning and retire,” Alec ordered quietly. His gaze returned to Olivia. “And please close the door when you leave.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bivvens hurried from the room. Only a parting glance at Olivia as he drew shut the door registered his disappointment that the son might be falling into the same kinds of perversions as the father.

Alec glanced at the shards of glass and blew out a hard breath. Bivvens, of all people, deserved to know the truth. There would be more than one mess in this house to explain in the morning.

He gestured toward the chairs positioned in front of his desk. “Please have a seat.”

“I prefer to stand.” She punctuated that by placing her hands on her hips in what he assumed was her best scolding schoolmistress posture.

But the effect was lost on him. He’d faced down both his father’s rage and the French artillery. She couldn’t wound him. Not that way, at least.

“As you wish.” He crossed to the side table by the window and reached for a crystal decanter of cognac. “I approached you in the gardens because I was trailing your brother. I followed him to the clearing and found you there.” He yanked out the stopper and splashed a generous pour into a tumbler. “Then I kissed you. Simple as that.”

When he didn’t continue, she said softly, “You did a lot more than kiss me.”

His hand jerked and spilled a trickle of cognac onto the tabletop.Damnation.He shoved the stopper back into place. “So we did. And both enjoyed it.”