She was right, damn it. He never stayed home of an evening. And yet he hadn’t even visited The Devil’s Staircase in weeks.

He’d meant to go to the gaming hell tonight and instead he was having conversations about courtship and musicales with a music instructor. And kissing an innocent young lady who was in his employ.

Badly done, West. You really are an insufferable jackass.

Chapter Sixteen

“That kiss never happened,” Viola told her reflection in the glass the next morning.

It couldn’t have, she shouldn’t have, and therefore, she hadn’t.

One could simply refuse to believe one’s own memory.

Didn’t it, though? Her reflection begged to differ. Her lips were still red and tender from his kisses. She brushed her thumb over her lower lip, as he had done, and a flush crept over her cheekbones and a dreamy light filled her eyes.

She picked up her hairbrush and began vigorously brushing out her hair, yanking the bristles through the tangled curls until tears sprang to her eyes.

Better to pretend that the kiss hadn’t happened . . . kisses plural . . . so many of them. She could remember each one. She’d learned more with each kiss. How he tasted, how large his hands were, how his fingers around her wrist had felt like an iron band and she’d liked that feeling of being small and delicate. She was petite but she’d always felt that her petite size belied her sturdy, steadfast personality. Yet he’d made her feel so powerful, so filled with passionate desire.

It had happened.

She’d gone to his room to make him a list of new duchess candidates, and to keep him out of trouble, and they’d ended up kissing. And why, pray tell, was that shocking? What had she expected to happen? She’d walked right into it, willingly, and she’d only gotten what she deserved.

And she wanted more.

No, no! She didn’t want more kissing. Not when it meant nothing to Westbury. It had all just been a lark. He’d won the wager. She’d succumbed too easily.

She’d asked him for another kiss, confirming his inflated opinion of himself. How very embarrassing. He wasn’t anything like the duke she’d invented in her mind. That gallant and attentive gentleman would never have kissed her and then turned it into a victory for rogues.

Hold on to this indignation and anger. Nurse it. Feed the flames. It was easier to be angry at him than to face the other forbidden emotions crowding her mind and heart.

He was arrogant and heartless and she could have nothing more to do with him than the dictates of their professional relationship prescribed. No more calling him West and going to his rooms at night.

And absolutely, positively never again would she kiss that man!