A Rake's Midnight Kiss by Anna Campbell

glance at his face, his smug expression clear in the bright moonlight. She bit her lip as fury overwhelmed embarrassment. No man had ever seen her naked. This felt like a violation. “You’re no gentleman, sir!”
    “Come, Miss Barrett, you can do better than that.” His laugh played a chromatic scale up and down her spine. “A woman with your vocabulary can summon an archaic insult or two.”
    “Well, you’re a filthy sneak. Is that better?”
    “Much.”
    Genevieve’s hands tightened on her inadequate covering as she backed toward her dress. Bored with the conversation, Sirius trotted into the shadows. “This is such a joke to you, isn’t it?” she snarled, fighting tears. “I’ll thank you to go now.”
    “Surely the damage is done.”
    Carefully she bent, then straightened, her gown dangling from her shaking hand. “Ha ha. So amusing.”
    Her temper slid off him like the water trickling down her bare back. She shivered. As she stood dripping with the pond behind her, a wicked little breeze flirted around her.
    “This sneak’s reward was a beautiful naked woman.”
    Her cheeks threatened to combust. Self-righteousness was difficult to maintain when one only wore a flimsy towel.She struggled for control, even as the need surged to scratch and kick at him until he was bruised and bloody. “Please leave, Mr. Evans.”
    “Wild horses couldn’t tear me away, Miss Barrett.” He stepped closer. “Given how our acquaintance has advanced this evening, can’t you bring yourself to call me Christopher?”
    “I can bring myself to call you a self-serving rat,” she said coldly. He remained a few feet away, but that seemed too close. She retreated another unsteady pace, the grass scratching her bare feet.
    “Aren’t you cold?”
    “I can’t dress with you here.”
    Moonlight silvered his features into beguiling black and white. “I could promise not to look.”
    “You could demonstrate some honor and go.” She struggled to sound defiant. This was the most mortifying thing that had ever happened to her. And she had nobody to blame for this catastrophe but herself. How could she have been so foolhardy as to chance a swim when she knew Mr. Evans watched her like a buzzard watched a field mouse?
    “Or I could just turn my back.” He suited actions to words.
    For a fraught moment, she stared at him. She couldn’t trust him, but nor could she stand here covered in a strip of linen. She let the sodden towel drop and hurriedly tugged her old muslin dress over her head, fastening it with shaking hands.
    “Can I turn around?”
    “Yes,” she said sullenly, although she was angrier at herself than him. He’d only followed the dictates of his rodent nature. She should have known better than to come here.
    “Do you feel better?” he asked neutrally, although the way his gaze ran over her body made her feel naked again. She resisted the urge to shield herself with her hands.
    “Why did you follow me?” Although the answer was no mystery. He’d flirted with her from the first. Even without her flaunting herself, he’d leap at any chance to get her alone.
    “I thought you met a lover.” The edge in his statement made her frown in consternation.
    “I don’t have a lover,” she said quickly, before remembering that her swains weren’t Mr. Evans’s concern.
    He arched one eyebrow in a fashion that made her shiver. Not with cold. “I could fill the position.”
    This time she didn’t bother to conceal her retreat. “If my father knew you pestered me—”
    “Do you intend to tell him?” he asked, as if her answer was of purely casual interest.
    “Yes.” Although how could she? Anyone would say she’d asked for trouble by being out here. Anyone would be right.
    Something dangerous flashed in Mr. Evans’s eyes. The breath caught in her throat and she chanced another step back, only to slosh into the pond. The shock of cool water around her ankles made her gasp. She stumbled as her bare toes sank