Page 31 of Once a Scoundrel

Chapter Seven

Faith stood in her father’s study and stared at the rug. She didn’t look up. She didn’t have to. She knew exactly what expression would be on everyone’s face...the anger on Papa’s as he sat behind his desk, the patient concern on Mama’s as she stood close to his side, and on Stephen’s—the scoundrel!—would be smug satisfaction that he’d gotten exactly what he wanted.

While onherface everyone could surely read the humiliation over being caught with him, as well as the guilt churning inside her stomach that she’d enjoyed being in his arms. Far more than she should have. While rakes could be reformed and eventually brought into society’s good graces, she wasn’t certain that Stephen could be.

For all of his cajoling to marry him and the promises of his sweet kisses, how could she be certain that he’d really changed? If he broke her heart a second time, how would she survive?

“So you went to check on the dog,” Papa said more calmly than Faith would have given him credit for.

She nodded. There was no point in trying to squirm her way out of this mess. Or avoid the storm to come.

He turned to Stephen. “And you met her there?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“Why?” That single word held a world of accusation, and Faith winced.

Without a bone of trepidation in his body, Stephen answered, “So I could ask Lady Faith to marry me,”

She bit back a frustrated groan. Didn’t the rascal realize that he was only making things worse?

But of course he did. One glance at him proved it. He stood perfectly straight, wearing that same military bearing as her father. He didn’t even have the decency to cower in front of Papa, as any other man would have done at being caught kissing his daughter.

“A gentleman asks a lady’s father when he wants to wed her,” Papa admonished angrily.

Standing silently at his side, her mother placed her hand on his shoulder. Most likely Mama was there only to keep Papa from frightening the other party guests by killing Stephen on the front lawn.

Papa’s gaze never left him. “The general raised you well enough to respect that.”

“Yes, sir.”

Faith saw the curl of Stephen’s lips and caught her breath with dread, knowing what was coming—

“But mymotherraised me to respect the wishes of the lady to whom I propose.”

Mama’s lips twitched, and she turned her face away before Papa could see the smile threatening there. Her mother had always been a wise woman when it came to dealing with her father.

But Stephen’s charms didn’t work on Papa, who narrowed his eyes to slits and demanded in a tone so low, so intense that it sent a chill slithering down Faith’s spine, “And exactly how is pawing my daughter in a horse stall being respectful?”

Oh God.Her shoulders sagged with mortification. If she hadn’t been so humiliated, she would have found the ordeal her father was putting Stephen through amusing. And nothing short of what the scoundrel deserved.

“It wasn’t,” Stephen admitted ruefully, and Faith nearly rolled her eyes, certain he didn’t feel an ounce of remorse. “But in my defense, I had just asked Lady Faith to marry me, and she was in the middle of accepting.”

She gaped at him. Oh, that devil! She most certainly wasnot—

“Faith,” Papa said, incredibly calm and even more threatening because of it, his gaze sliding across the room to her, “do you agree with Dunwich’s version of events?”

“No,” Faith answered softly.

“No?” Papa rose to his feet, every inch of him the imposing duke who left men across England shaking in their boots. Faith suspected that the only thing standing between Stephen and a good pulping by Papa would be her careful answer to his question.

She drew a deep breath, needing more courage than she’d ever needed in her life. “I was not accepting his proposal,” she corrected softly, raising her eyes to meet her father’s. “I will not marry him.”

It was Papa’s turn then to inhale deeply, and she suspected that breath kept him from exploding. That, and her mother’s hand which suddenly returned to his shoulder. “You are a duke’s daughter, and you were found alone at midnight in the arms of a man.”

A snake, more like it. Stephen had so carefully packed for the picnic. Had he planned on being discovered, too? After all, he’d admitted to her tonight that too much of a rake lingered inside him to be caught with a woman.

“I know,” she admitted, “and I regret it.” Although, if she were honest, what she regretted was getting caught, not kissing him. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to look at Stephen, even though she felt the weight of his gaze on her. “But it was only a kiss, and no one else saw. No one else need ever find out.”