Page 8 of A Rose for a Rogue

“I’m afraid I can only take you as far as the outer drive.” She cut him a swift sideways glance before returning her attention to the cobbled road. “I’m forbidden to go farther.”

Forbidden?

That was an interesting turn of phrase.

He angled toward her to better see her expression. Running a hand down Mr. Wiggle’s spine—for which he was rewarded with a doggy grin—he regarded her.

“Forbidden? Why?”

A small smile quirked her lush mouth.

“His Grace has banned all Andrews from his property.”

“But you aren’t an Andrews.” Premonition had Chester tightening his buttocks on the inhospitable seat. “Are you?”

She turned that clear azure-eyed gaze upon him and peered straight into his soul.

“I’m Walter Andrews’s illegitimate daughter.”

Eden swallowed a giggle at the utterly flummoxed expression on the sharply hewn angles of Lord Sterling’s beautifully sculpted face.

Even Mr. Wiggles cocked his head and twitched his ears.

Perhaps she ought to have couched that tidbit about her bastardry with a warning. But she’d wanted to test Lord Sterling’s response. She’d better hope he remained the gentleman, too, since she’d unwisely agreed to take him, an utter stranger, to Perygrim, and they’d no chaperone.

Bosh. What balderdash. Three and twenty-year-old spinsters didn’t require chaperones.

Lord Sterling stared at her, those eyes, gray one minute and green the next, his firm lips pressed together just the merest bit, further testament to his consternation.

She’d really flabbergasted him, poor man.

Her stomach flip-flopped peculiarly. Just like it had in the pub when his lordship had turned those gray-green, black-lashed eyes on her with such intensity. She was hard pressed not to squirm on the seat. At least she was prepared for her response to him now.

Then why did dragonfly wings flutter in her pulse, even as his masculinity snared her reluctant attention?

Really, it was most unfair that he should have such beautiful eyes. Soft and gray, like a baby bunny’s silky fur one minute, and jeweled green the next. How was a woman, especially a country sparrow unaccustomed to lords, supposed to resist their intoxicating draw?

That awkward moment when she’d plowed into him in the Fox and Falcon, he’d so disconcerted her, she’d dropped her egg basket. Or maybe it had been the disturbingly wide spans of his solid chest beneath her cheek that knocked her breath from her momentarily and caused her to lose her grip on the handle.

A pleasant, clean, masculine smell with a hint of horse and leather surrounded him. She’d battled the oddest urge to nestle closer and sniff.

He’d blamed her clumsiness on haste.

She far preferred that misconception to his knowing the immediate and overwhelming attraction engulfing her. That instant magnetism, the awareness of him as a virile man in a way no other man had ever affected her, utterly terrified her.

Hot, intoxicating temptation radiated from him.

Until now, she’d never understood nor experienced sexual desire, but what other explanation could there be for these errant flickers or the heat sidling about in her veins?

Resolution thrummed through her, and she pulled her spine straight whilst erecting a barrier of self-protection.

She would not end up like Mama.

Well, of course she wouldn’t.

First and foremost, Mama had never found Walter Andrews the least appealing, and secondly, to all intents and purposes, Lord Sterling was the enemy.

Not Eden’s enemy exactly; she scarce knew the man.