A Lady Never Lies by Juliana Gray

Author:Juliana Gray
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2012-07-20T04:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

It was entirely your fault.” Alexandra flashed her eyes at him in her haughtiest Lady Morley expression.

He straightened from his examination of the automobile’s right front tire and looked down contritely at her face. “Entirely my fault. I accept full responsibility.”

Her expression softened. “Good, then.”

“I’ve learned my lesson, never fear.”

“Excellent. I quite agree. No more of this rubbish about kissing . . .”

“. . . until the automobile has come to a full stop,” he finished. He glanced back down at his patented pneumatic tire, which settled into the tough meadow grass in a long, flat line.

“That isn’t at all what I meant.”

“I’m afraid the tire’s quite flat, however. I ought to have thought to bring my mending kit.” He glanced back at her and winked. “I suppose I was carried away.”

“You’re impossible.” She lifted her hand to shade her eyes and looked down the track. The cart’s astonished driver had been dispatched at last, after a badly executed Italian explanation, and now continued on his way, already a small, distant figure against the dun-colored dirt.

Shy men make the best lovers. Where had she heard that? Lady Pembroke, probably. Her ladyship spoke with authority on such matters, having an extensive frame of reference. Your inexperienced young matron always falls in love with the arrogant ones, she’d told Alexandra once, over tea in the conservatory, her starched white sleeves buttoned to the wrists and her starched white collar buttoned to the neck. All very well if you’d like to be sorted out and on your way in twenty minutes. But the shy, quiet fellow takes his time, Alexandra. Remember that. He has imagination. And underneath his trousers, he’s invariably a tiger. A sip of tea, a gleam in her eye. Give me the shy fellow, every time.

Alexandra had sipped her own tea and smiled knowingly and gone home to dear Lord Morley and his gout and his monthly heave-ho over her nightgown-clad body. She hadn’t minded. Lord Morley smelled pleasantly of sherry and wool, kissed her breasts with touching enthusiasm, and plainly adored her. He didn’t take long, and never removed his nightshirt, and complimented her afterward on her beauty and vigor. There were times, early on, before gout had made him too irascible, when the sound of his brisk knock on her bedroom door had even excited her. Perhaps it had been the thrill of having such power over a powerful man—Lord Morley had had the ear of the Queen, for a time—or perhaps it was just the notion of the act itself, the intimate friction, the sense of some glittering prize lying just out of reach.

Shy men make the best lovers. She’d never had a lover. She’d never wanted one. Why risk everything, one’s reputation and one’s independence and one’s peace of mind, for a few moments of physical pleasure?

Finn—Mr. Burke—knelt in the grass again, considering his tire. He’d left his smock back in the workshop, and a brown tweed jacket now stretched across the breadth of his shoulders.

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