Page 25
“Yes!”
His gaze settled on her, piercing and intent, assessing, as though it might strip the secrets from her heart and lay them bare between them. Cordelia’s fingers tightened slightly around her glass.
Why did he look at her so?
Or was it the liquor making her imagine what was not truly there?
George’s mouth curved. “A rogue is merely a man who understands pleasure and reveres it. He does not coerce, nor does he stake what is not freely offered. He offers a woman choice instead.” He spoke with the same languid ease as before, yet there was a quiet intensity beneath it now, something watchful in his gaze. “Perhaps that choice is wrapped in seduction and whispered flattery until resistance begins to feel rather less like virtue and considerably more like deprivation.”
Cordelia found herself considering the distinction despite every warning she had ever heard about rogues.
So a rogue made saying yes considerably more appealing than saying no?
She became acutely conscious of the small distance between them. The chessboard no longer seemed nearly sufficient.
Mr. George leaned forward slightly, resting one forearm upon his bent knee.
“This...rogue delights in a woman’s scent, her taste, the particular music of her pleasure. He studies her responses and gives generously of himself, learning what pleases her before turning to his own satisfaction. He listens for those small, revealing sounds she makes when she forgets she is supposed to be proper.” His gaze held hers. “And he asks for nothing she does not freely choose to surrender.”
The low cadence of his voice seemed to move over her skin.
Cordelia swallowed. “What else?” she whispered, so softly he might not have heard.
Her skin felt unusually sensitive, as though even the slightest touch might overwhelm her, and her heart raced with an anticipation she scarcely understood.
“A rogue only seduces ladies already inclined toward rebellion and desire.” His gaze held hers, wicked amusement glinting in those silver-gray depths. “Tell me, when has a blackguard ever troubled himself with generosity, or cared whether a woman left his arms deliciously undone? A blackguard cares nothing for a woman’s wishes. A rogue’s vanity is quite another matter. He takes considerable pride in discovering precisely what she wishes for...particularly when she has not yet dared admit it to herself.”
Heat had crept beneath her borrowed shirt, and she was suddenly conscious of absurd things. The faint rasp in his voice. The long fingers loosely encircling his glass. The firelight glinting against his dark hair. His scent mingling with the brandy and woodsmoke between them. “Your words are astonishingly scandalous.”
His smile was devastatingly pleased.
He did not claim to be a rogue, yet his words stirred feelings within her that she had always imagined only a rogue’s charms could awaken. Or perhaps those of a roguish gentleman?
She pursed her lips. Perhaps it was the brandy. It could only have been the brandy. “What, then, do I smell like to you?”
He became very still, regarding her for a long moment as the amusement slowly faded from his expression and something unreadable took its place. Cordelia’s pulse gave an uncertain flutter.
“Sun-warmed peaches,” he said at last. “Apricot blossoms...and the slightest hint of lavender.”
She blinked.
His regard remained fixed upon her. “And something else I cannot name. Something entirely your own.”
Cordelia wrinkled her nose. “That sounds rather ominous.”
“It is not.” His answer came softly.
Mr. George studied her as though she were an unexpected creature he had never intended to find in his music room. “It is rather lovely.”
His gaze moved over her face before returning to her eyes. “And it lingers after you’ve gone. After our last encounter, I caught the faintest trace of it and found myself wondering why so subtle a fragrance should make my pulse quicken.”
Something inside Cordelia went utterly still before her heart began to race. The quiet intensity of his gaze sent a strange, breathless sensation skittering through her. She could not summon a single coherent thought. It was one thing for a gentleman to admire a lady’s face. Rogues surely did so as easily as they breathed.
But this...
To confess that the scent she left behind lingered with him long after she had gone...
Cordelia had never imagined she could leave such an impression upon anyone. Her fingers tightened around the glass. Had she not spent several nights with her face buried in her pillow, imagining she could still catch the faint trace of his clean, masculine scent?
