Never Kiss a Rake by Anne Stuart Page A

was dark, shuttered, the furniture shrouded in linen covers. Odd. The master of the house usually had much more spacious quarters.
    And better taste in curtains, she thought, looking at them in disgust. The color was particularly displeasing—garish, jarring. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could sleep in here. It would give her nightmares. She crossed the room and pulled the heavy drapes aside, flooding the room with the sunlight of a rare clear day, then turned to look at the room.
    It was clearly meant to be a guest room, or perhaps space for an extraneous relative. There were at least six larger bedrooms on the second floor, currently uninhabited, though Bryony had seen to their cleaning. Why was he up here? To get away from his wife?
    For that matter, why was Lady Kilmartyn’s cousin up here? That made no sense at all.
    If it were up to her she would strip the curtains, the wall hangings, everything of this noxious color and put something more soothing in its place. But that was the least of her worries. She wasn’t here to make life more pleasant for Kilmartyn, she was here to discover whether he was innocent or guilty of collusion in her father’s disgrace and death. There was a small gilt desk in one corner, and she headed for it. In the top drawer there was nothing but a stack of invitations and cards, carelessly discarded, and she doubted she’d find anything of interest there. She sat down anyway, going through them, looking for something out of place, a name, an event that might spark something. But everything was deadly dull—it was no wonder he’d simply tossed them in the desk. Collins would see to clearing out such things in the future.
    Indeed, she had no reason to feel guilty for spying. After all, she would be leaving this house and its inhabitants in a much better state than the chaos she’d walked into. Assuming she didn’t leave this house with its master in prison.
    She pulled open the next drawer, to find cufflinks and studs, a gold watch carelessly discarded, a silver brush that had come apart, and a peculiar pin, made of the kind of curling lettering she associated with medieval monks. There were letters—I, R, and B. His last name was Bruton—perhaps this had belonged to someone in his family. The silver looked new, though, and heavy. What was he doing with such a thing?
    She closed the drawer, leaving everything intact, and turned, reluctantly, toward the unmade bed.
    There should be no reason why she could picture the Earl of Kilmartyn lying in that bed, sheets twined around him, the ugly covers pushed to the floor, wearing nothing but his golden skin. She put her hands to her lips, remembering how his mouth felt beneath hers, and she shivered.
    She could remember his chest, smooth, the light dusting of hair in the middle, the heat of his skin. So different from the farm workers. She’d seen them in the fields on blisteringly hot days, and she’d watched in fascination, the way muscles played beneath skin, at backs and arms and strong legs clad only in rough breeches. It had been a purely intellectual interest, she’d told herself. Nothing worse than looking at some of the magnificent paintings and statues in the British Museum, and there she’d seen a great deal more. That strange arrangement of little parts between their legs that no lady should ever observe fascinated her. She knew the mechanics of sexual congress—one couldn’t live in the countryside and be unaware of it—but she still couldn’t quite figure out how something so small could manage the trick.
    Not that she was about to be deflowered by one of the Elgin Marbles, she thought absently. She wasn’t going to be touched, deflowered by anyone. So why was she looking at Kilmartyn’s bed and thinking about men’s parts and deflowering?
    She knew why, and her skin grew warm.
    She had no idea why no one had made up the master’s bedroom yet—she would have to speak to the girls about it. She rose and began to