A Good Debutante's Guide to Ruin_The Debutante Files

“Brilliant. She’s waiting in here.” She stopped at the door, one hand on the latch. “I trust you to be a gentleman, Banbury. When she wishes to stop—”

“I’ve never forced my attentions on a woman. I won’t begin now.”

She smiled widely, as if he had just impressed her. “Just as I thought. You are a true gentleman, Your Grace.”

He stifled a snort. He did not count himself a gentleman, but considering the ilk of gentlemen to run through this house, perhaps in her mind he was.

She cracked the door, motioned for him to enter, and then backed away with a little flutter of her fingers, her smile somewhat secretive and bemused. As though she knew something he didn’t.

When he pushed the door open and took his first view of the female he was to kiss—he at once understood the reason behind Mrs. Bancroft’s smile.

Rosalie pushed up off the bed, rising to her feet as the door opened and a man stepped inside.

And then she lost the ability to stand. Her knees gave out and she sank back down bonelessly on the edge of the bed. Her eyes ached from staring so hard. She couldn’t even blink.

How had he found her?

Her heart slammed in her chest, panicked at what he would do with her now. Would he denounce her? Cast her out?

She struggled to speak but her mouth was suddenly as dry as bone, speech impossible.

He stood for a moment, staring back at her as well, unmoving as he scanned her from her head to her slippered feet.

“You require a kiss, madame?”

The deep timbre of his voice sank through her, pooling like lava in her veins, starting a low simmer in her blood. The significance of his words penetrated. He was here. To kiss her. She angled her head, studying him. He was much as he’d appeared just a short time ago, in the corridor outside his bedchamber. Except now he looked at her as a stranger. He did not know her. The tightness in her chest eased. She resisted the urge to run a hand over her hair. She was safe from recognition. Aurelia had secured the wig carefully. Never was she so grateful for a decision in her life. Aside of the wig and domino, the hazy red glow infusing the room distorted everything.

Careful to speak low, fearful that he might recognize the sound of her voice, she tentatively spoke in hushed tones, “Yes. Mrs. Bancroft sent you?”

Although it seemed evident that Mrs. Bancroft sent him, she wanted to be certain.

A slow smile curved his mouth that made her stomach flip. He’d never smiled quite like that at her before. It was somehow . . . free. Charming. There was nothing guarded about him as he stood before her. “Yes. She did. A fact I will most heartily thank her for later.”

He was flirting with her. Her pulse trembled at her neck at the strange sensation. Dec smiling at her, his eyes bright with invitation. It was a definite first.

His hot gaze skimmed her, bringing back to mind the scandalous gown draping her body like a second skin, clinging to curves she had not known she possessed. A fresh onslaught of embarrassment washed over her to know that Dec was seeing her like this. Her stepbrother and not a stranger that Mrs. Bancroft picked out for her. A stranger would have been preferable. It would have been simpler to forget herself with a stranger.

With Dec? She didn’t know if she could. She’d always felt something for him. He’d been so handsome even years ago. He had radiated . . . something. The maids, even the housekeeper, had been helpless to his appeal, tittering whenever he entered a room. Even her mother had been fond of him. Always smiling and laughing at him. Rosalie remembered because it had made her jealous. She thought her mother liked him more than her own daughter. Not that she blamed Dec. She’d been under his spell like everyone else.

Granted, she had just been a child then. But now . . . face-to-face with him all these years later, nothing had changed. He smiled less, but he was still heart-stopping attractive. He still drew her. The only difference? She was no little girl anymore.

And he was here now. With her. She could act out her every fantasy with him.

And yet she couldn’t.

How could she forget herself like that? He was her stepbrother. She was living under his roof. How could she accept a kiss from him and then face him on the morrow?

“I’m sorry,” she murmured softly, striding forward, her dress sliding languorously along her body as she moved. “I c-can’t do this.”

She gave him as wide a berth as possible, but it didn’t matter. His hand reached out and seized her wrist. “What?” His eyes were dark and fathomless in the muted light of the chamber. His fingers brushed against her wrist, five electric points of contact that sent sparks up her arm. “Am I so displeasing that you’ve changed your mind?”

Her breath escaped in a choked gasp. Was he serious? “No. Of course not. You’re . . .” She waved at his person as if that gesture said it all.

“I’m what?” His mouth curved, seductive and new once again. Totally unlike any smile he had ever given her before. This smile . . .

This smile was devastating. It was clearly the type he reserved for women he liked in a certain way. Women he met here. At Sodom. His previous smiles had all been mocking and cruel, conveying his dislike of her. Well, save for the smiles he had bestowed on her in the garden. And yet that had been fleeting. This smile, the hot look, his over-familiar touch. It was all new and made her feel a little breathless. Like how she felt as a child slicing very high through the air on a swing. Euphoric. Her stomach twisting and dipping.

“You’re perfectly . . . pleasing.” She could have choked on that understatement.

“Perfectly pleasing?” he echoed, still smiling. His gaze roamed over her again, missing nothing, not one inch of her outrageous gown—or rather the body of which the gown hid so very little. She felt naked before him. “I could say the same of you. Or how about simply perfect? That might better apply to you.”

Heat scored her cheeks at the compliment. “No one’s perfect,” she quickly countered, speaking in low, deep tones she hoped did not sound too unnatural.

“True.” His eyes flickered with something akin to surprise. “But there are people perfect for each other. Perfect for kissing? Don’t you agree?”

Her chest squeezed. Oh, he was deadly charming. How did women resist him?

What made her think they did?

What made her think she could?

“You require a kiss. Why are you fleeing?” His thumb started moving in tiny circles against the inside of her wrist, the gentle friction tantalizing and distracting at the same time. He addled her thoughts.

She shook her head. It was truly mortifying. He might not know who she was behind the mask, but she had not forgotten. She recalled with painful clarity who she was. And what he thought of her. She could not forget. She wished she could. She wished she could sink into a kiss from him and forget. Except this morning he had agreed for her to marry another man with no more consideration than one might give in selecting blackberry or blueberry jam. That’s how little he thought of her. That’s how badly he wished to be rid of her.

A dim room and mask were the only things that protected her from discovery. It was risky and dangerous—too dangerous—and utterly beyond what she was willing to do.

She gave a tug on her wrist, but he didn’t let go. Somehow the effort invited him closer. He stepped in until the breadth of his chest almost brushed her body. A mere hair separated them.

“I confess to a little confusion.” His heated gaze slid over her again, skimming the sleek fall of dark hair past her shoulders. He angled his head thoughtfully. “Are you certain you’ve never been kissed? You don’t appear the type of female to lack opportunity.” His stare fixed on her bodice, on the expanse of bare skin between her breasts—and she knew precisely what type of female she appeared.