One Night with a Rake (Regency Rakes) by Connie Mason, Mia Marlowe Read Free Book Online Page B

apple in her pocket.
    But the library was not empty. Nathaniel Colton had spread out one of her father’s detailed maps of the city on one of the large tables. He was leaning over it, tracing the winding streets with his finger.
    He must not have heard her, for he didn’t look up. Instead he frowned down at the map. The years since she’d seen him last had scraped all excess boyishness from his face, leaving him lean and hard.
    He’d always been a bit of a peacock, even when he was betrothed to her sister, dressing in tasteful, elegant lines. The cut of his jacket emphasized the breadth of his shoulders, and if she were close enough, Georgette was certain she’d see her reflection in his tall, gleaming Hessians.
    Not that I wish to be that close to Nathaniel Colton.
    “Come in if you wish, Lady Georgette,” he said without a glance toward her.
    She blinked in surprise. “How did you know it was me?”
    “Your scent. Even if two ladies are wearing the same perfume, every woman creates her own distinctive fragrance. Something to do with the oils in her skin, I’m told.” He slanted his gaze at her. “You wear that violet water well. I find some perfumes a bit overpowering, but yours is just sweet enough to catch a man’s nose.”
    A little tingle crept down her neck, wiggled along her spine, and stayed to torment the small of her back.
    He could smell her. There was something a tad indecent about that. It seemed far too intimate a thing for a man to tell a woman in a library.
    “I have no wish to catch anything about you,” she said with a sniff. “Least of all your nose.”
    “Then perhaps you should confine your toilette to carbolic soap.”
    The man had no sense of boundaries whatsoever. “My toilette is none of your concern, and you will keep your nose to yourself.”
    “You forbid me to smell your perfume?” He laughed. “I’d have to be a bit of a wizard to do that. A man may avert his gaze or stop his ears, but short of holding my nose whenever you’re around, which would undoubtedly occasion much comment, I can’t help but smell you.”
    A frisson of irritation replaced the tantalizing tingle at the small of her back.
    “Why are you still here?” she demanded.
    He smiled at her as though her tone was welcoming. She’d made sure it wasn’t, but Nathaniel seemed impervious to her snubs.
    “Your father invited me to stay at Yorkingham House as his guest for a bit. Since my family is still in the country till the Season officially starts, I suppose he thought the Colton town house seems a bit large for one person to rattle around in.”
    “That’s an exaggeration, isn’t it? Even if your family isn’t in residence, there are no doubt any number of servants who keep the place,” she said as she advanced to the far side of the table and squinted down at the map. “So it couldn’t be said that you were properly alone.”
    “Or perhaps I’d be improperly not alone.” He arched a brow at her.
    She glowered at him. What was her father thinking to invite Nathaniel Colton to stay with them? Didn’t he know what Nate had become? She’d overheard whispers about his many light dalliances. And amorous abilities most men wished they possessed.
    She swept those thoughts away with a stiff mental broom. Nate’s reputed bed skills were the last thing she should contemplate.
    “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “A man like you is never alone.”
    “A man like me? Are you inferring that I’d have feminine company?”
    “Wouldn’t you?”
    “I seem to have feminine company now, don’t I?”
    He actually had the effrontery to wink at her.
    “You won’t have it long,” she said with a huff. “Good day, milord.” She started toward the door. Sir Walter Scott and Zanzibar would have to wait.
    “No, stay, Georgette. I apologize. I shouldn’t tease you,” he said. “But you make it so deucedly easy, you know.”
    She shot him a glare that made him raise his hands in mock