A Season of Ruin Read Online Free PDF Page A

all that? After all, he’d been invited here. Not in so many words, perhaps, but invited nonetheless. That made him the prey, not the predator.
    But somehow he didn’t think Lily would see it that way.
    Admit nothing.
He blinked at her and tried to look innocent. “What makes you think I’m lying in wait for someone?”
    Lily expelled an impatient breath. “Why else would you be in here alone, lurking right by the door, watching it so closely I’d scarcely set a toe across the threshold before you whisked me off my feet and into the room? Then you locked the door behind me.”
    He laughed. “That proves nothing, except I have great presence of mind in seizing an opportunity.”
    Lily pursed her lips. “It wasn’t precisely an
opportunity
you seized. Or did you mean you’d seize anyone who happened to walk through the door?”
    â€œI’d lurk by the door forever for another chance to seize you,” he said, surprised to hear the words leave his mouth. He’d never had any inclination to seize Lily before, yet even now he itched to close his hands around her waist.
    Robyn shook himself. Why all the bloody honesty all of a sudden?
    Admit nothing.
    â€œLet that be a lesson to you,” he added when she remained silent. “Anything can happen when you follow a gentleman into a dark room.”
    â€œFollow? Don’t be absurd. I never followed you. I hadn’t any idea you were in here. I thought this was the ladies’ retiring room.”
    Robyn raised an eyebrow. “You mean to say you’re perceptive enough to notice a gentleman lying in wait by the door, but not perceptive enough to realize this isn’t the ladies’ retiring room?”
    â€œI did realize it! Only it was too late to do anything about it by then.”
    He took a step closer. “Ah, yes. I forgot. You were all atremble by then, in fear for your virtue, certain you were in the arms of a conscienceless seducer.”
    She bit her bottom lip nervously. “Wasn’t I?”
    Robyn’s gaze drifted down to her lips. “Perhaps you were. The kiss was far more devastating than the slap, you know.”
    Damn it.
More confounded honesty.
    â€œYou’re only teasing me—”
    He shook his head. “No. Even more devastating after I knew it was you.”
    Christ.
Admit nothing.
Was that so difficult?
    Admit nothing, especially if it’s true.
    The truth was that before tonight, before he’d kissed her, he’d hardly even noticed Lily. Oh, she was beautiful, just like her sister Delia, with the same thick golden brown hair and those famously blue, blue eyes.
    But Lily . . . well, she was too
neat
. Too proper. She was buttoned, laced, smoothed, and groomed to perfection. There wasn’t a stray curl to finger or a hint of ankle to admire. Any lust he might have felt for her was overwhelmed by an urge to wrinkle her gown or pull every pin from her hair, then shove it back in, upside down and backward.
    He’d met Delia and Lily at a country ball in Surrey when he’d come from Kent to escort Charlotte and Ellie home from a visit with their aunt Mathilda, who lived near Maidstone. On their last night in Surrey, his sisters had teased and cajoled until he’d agreed to attend a country ball and meet their new friends, Delia and Lily Somerset.
    Robyn hadn’t anticipated much pleasure in the evening, but he’d had nothing better to do, so he’d gone and beenstunned to discover either of Charlotte and Ellie’s new friends could rival London’s most celebrated belles. He’d never imagined such lovely young ladies were hidden away in the depths of Surrey, or he would long since have taken up farming. Or fox hunting.
    Or whatever it was gentlemen did in the country.
    The ball had been made up mostly of families from the surrounding neighborhood, but one young matron had brought guests who were on a visit from