Free The Infamous Rogue by Alexandra Benedict Page A

you?”
Her heart thumped with treacherous hunger. He was so close to her, she could feel the heat emitting from his torso. A deep desire to slip her hand under the man’s tight coat and feed off his warm muscles gripped her.
“No, we have a truce…don’t we?”
“I intend to honor our truce.” The heat in his eyes was blistering. “I would never disgrace my father’s name.”
She had suspected as much. Regardless of his motives for being at the picnic, he would keep his word and guard her secret; he had vowed.
Sophia stretched the cords of her reticule and searched for the fan again. She snapped open the bone fingers and briskly swiped at the damnable heat. It did little to cool her, though. Under the brigand’s scorching stare, the fluttering silk was scarce more than a drop of water on a parched and starving tongue.
“Then what are you doing, lurking in the woods?” she demanded, hoarse.
The thick fringe of his dark lashes lowered as he perused her form in an intimate manner. “I thought you wanted us to be friends? In memory of our fathers’ friendship?”
The seductive look in his eyes sent her thoughts spinning. Her entire body pulsed with a wretched need, and she struggled to tamp the burning desire into the very bowel of her soul. “Can we be friends?”
“I don’t see why not.”
She snorted softly. She would rather have the bounder as her enemy. Friendship was too warm, too intimate.
Quiet stretched between them. If James moved a finger, hers jerked, too. If he shifted a leg, hers quivered, too.
“You’re late,” she said, eager to break the tense silence.
“I had to see to Sophia’s needs. She doesn’t like to sleep alone. I had to move her into William’s room.”
Sophia stroked the back of her neck, the muscles taut. He tended to that bloody snake with more tenderness and respect than he had ever tended to her.
“I was beginning to think you might not come at all,” she said stiffly.
“Do I disappoint you?”
“Of course not. I don’t care what you do or where you go. I was only making conversation.”
“Ah, the trademark of a proper lady: mindless chatter.”
She bristled.
“I have to keep my commitments,” he said in an indifferent manner. “Otherwise my behavior would reflect poorly upon my sister.”
Sophia snapped her brows together. “How did she marry a duke?”
The man’s features darkened. “A devious quirk of fate. Our father should have whipped her as a child. She would have had more sense as a woman, then.”
Sophia ignored the grousing remark. The man adored his sister. She wondered instead, “You don’t approve of her marrying?”
“I approve of her marrying…I don’t approve of her husband.”
The muscles in her belly tightened. She quickly scrambled away from the shoreline and started to slip on her stockings.
“Is something the matter, Sophia?”
“Nothing a’tall,” she said brusquely. “I think it’s time I return to the picnic.”
She wobbled, pulling on the silk legging.
He lifted to his feet, eyed her closely. “Do you need help?”
“Not from you.”
“I’ve upset you.”
She wrestled with the other stocking. “The devil you have.”
“I’ll take you back to the picnic.”
“No!”
“You might get lost.”
“I won’t get lost,” she insisted.
“I wouldn’t be a proper gentleman if I let you wander the woods by yourself.”
She dropped the stocking and glared at him. A surge of heat ballooned in her breast, making her heart throb. The ruthless devil! He stood there with cold propriety, espoused the manner of a proper gentleman…a man who approved of marriage.
She struggled to quell the burning shame in her belly. Was that why he had rejected her seven years ago? She had always suspected that he didn’t approve of her. She was the daughter of a pirate and a whore. She was good enough to be his mistress, but not good enough to be his wife.
She fisted her palms, her hands shaking. One silk legging hugged her leg and she took a