Free A Rake's Midnight Kiss by Anna Campbell Page A

trust the way Mr. Evans infiltrated their life, both had said she was unreasonable. Her aunt had gone so far as to accuse her of jealousy now that Mr. Evans monopolized the vicar’s attentions. How ironic to hear that when Genevieve worked so hard to break free of her father.
    “Your elephant grows apace, Miss Barrett.” Mr. Evans abandoned his card game and crossed the room to stand beside her, regarding her woeful embroidery with a quizzical expression. Sirius trotted after him to sit at his master’s feet. She liked Sirius. Genevieve wished the dog’s master was nearly as easy to stomach.
    “You know very well it’s a peony garden, Mr. Evans,” she said frostily. After this morning, she’d prefer he kept a greater distance, physically and otherwise.
    Her chill tone attracted her aunt’s notice, but no rebuke. Perhaps Aunt Lucy finally saw that her matchmaking was futile.
    Mr. Evans remained unabashed. Of course. “That explains the pink. I thought perhaps the elephant was embarrassed.”
    “You have no manners, sir,” she bit out, and bent over her embroidery frame, but not before she caught the unholy amusement in his eyes. He was a strikingly good-looking man, but when laughter lit his face, he was irresistible. Even she, who mistrusted everything about him, felt her heart beat faster.
    “Sincerest regrets, dear lady.”
    She knew he wasn’t sorry, so she didn’t grace his apology with acknowledgement. Furiously she stitched at thecentral flower which, now she checked, did rather resemble a pregnant elephant. A blushing pregnant elephant, curse Mr. Evans.
    Despite lack of encouragement, Mr. Evans showed no signs of leaving. He sat without invitation—he was smart enough to know no invitation would be forthcoming. “Clearly my eyesight fails.”
    He was dressed plainly, but even a country mouse like her noted his superb tailoring. He always made Genevieve feel a frump. Last night, she’d caught herself gussying up her yellow muslin with her mother’s silver brooch. She pinned it to her bosom before realizing what she did. With an unladylike imprecation, she’d flung the brooch onto her dressing table.
    “Clearly.” She refused to give him the satisfaction of shifting away. Unfortunately, that meant remaining too near his long, lean leg, encased in fawn breeches, extended inches from hers. His boots were so shiny, she could see her face in them. How on earth was he turned out so beautifully without a valet?
    Absently, Mr. Evans fondled Sirius’s head with one elegant hand. Yet again, she wondered at the contrast between the man’s sartorial perfection and the scruffy dog. Before she reminded herself that curiosity only inflated Mr. Evans’s pretensions, she spoke. “Your pet doesn’t befit your dignity, Mr. Evans.”
    She caught his quick frown and for a moment, he wasn’t the impossibly polished man she feared, but someone considerably more intriguing. Then the expression vanished and he was once again someone whose motives she suspected to her last atom. “On the contrary, Miss Barrett. He’s far too good for a rapscallion like me.”
    That she could believe. “I picture you more with a greyhound or a pug.”
    His low laugh vibrated along her veins like a distant storm. She didn’t want to be aware of him as a male, but it became increasingly difficult to pretend that some deeply feminine and hitherto unrecognized element in her liked Mr. Evans very much indeed.
    “A…
pug
? A hit. A palpable hit, madam. You seek revenge for the elephant, I see.”
    “A dog with a pedigree, at least.”
    At the mention of pedigree, a haunted expression darkened his eyes. She couldn’t imagine why. He reeked of good breeding. “Pedigrees are overrated.”
    She frowned. Something stirred below this prickly, half-flirtatious conversation. Why did he clam up at the mention of pedigree? “How did you become Sirius’s master?”
    He smiled more naturally, confirming her instincts that discussions of