The Rogue's Conquest by Lily Maxton

Author:Lily Maxton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Entangled, Scandalous, historical romance, historical, romance, Lily Maxton, regency; opposites attract; blackmail; boxer; wallflower; hidden identity; Scotland; arrangement
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC
Published: 2017-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The three siblings passed some time in the drawing room after dinner that night. Georgina practiced the pianoforte, with an exuberance that Eleanor was certain any piano instructor would frown upon. Robert was leaning against the mantel, staring at her worriedly.

“Why are you watching me?” she asked, closing the book in her lap with a soft thud.

“You have been looking at the same page for nearly twenty minutes,” he said.

“Have I?” The more ebullient effects of Smith’s punch had faded, leaving her with nothing but a pounding head and a dry, rancid mouth. The more she knew of men, the less she understood them.

And she was doing her best not to remember a certain kiss…or a certain several kisses…with James MacGregor.

After another few minutes of staring at the same page, it was impossible.

If only she hadn’t been the one to initiate the kiss. That kiss, that soft, tentative press, had been a question…and she’d thought…well, she’d thought his energetic response had been an answer, of sorts.

Until he’d turned as cold and unyielding as the frozen Thames. Until he’d reminded her of their agreement with all the subtlety of a rampaging bull.

“Robert,” she said slowly, and more than a little hopefully. “Is it possible to drink so much that one can’t remember their actions?”

She’d have to face James MacGregor again, and it would be much easier for everyone involved if she could feign ignorance.

There was a silence so profound that Eleanor jerked her head up.

“Is this a hypothetical question?” he asked. He muttered something that sounded like “please” and “God.”

“Of course,” she said quickly.

The tension left his shoulders, but he still peered at her suspiciously. “It’s possible, but you’d have to drink an unsafe amount. Why do you wish to know, Eleanor?”

She shrugged. “Science?”

Robert’s forehead wrinkled. “You’ve been acting strangely. Does this have something to do with MacGregor?”

“No.” She sighed, running her hand along the leather binding of her book. “Perhaps. Do you think he even has a chance with Lady Sarah?” she finally asked.

“I doubt her family would be overjoyed, but I’ve seen stranger things. Manners and good taste can go just as far as breeding, in some cases, if he’s truly serious about it.”

“But that’s the thing…he doesn’t have manners and good taste. He’s only pretending. Is he going to pretend his entire life?”

“Some people do,” Robert answered, a hint of weariness in his voice. “Some people do it all the time. Why does it matter? These are his problems, not yours.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

But in some odd way, it did. And not only because he’d told her about growing up in the Old Town and she’d told him about her father, and she’d kissed him and he’d kissed her back, and she’d assumed all of those things meant something. It mattered because if a man as uncontainable as James MacGregor felt like he needed to change who he was to be accepted, what hope did a socially awkward, science-minded almost spinster have?

…

“Do you know much about the Townsends?” James found himself asking Stephen the next day.

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