He cast his gaze about the room, desperate to change the course of his thoughts. “How did you learn that trick?” He gestured at the chair, with its back wedged under the doorknob.
She swallowed a bite of the pastry. He wished he’d brought a bottle of wine up with him. Just to help her wash it down. “Some of the men visiting their daughters or sisters at the Academy were not as gentlemanly as one would wish.” She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “The teachers may not have all been best of friends, but we made sure to share useful information. Especially where our safety was concerned.”
Nick was suddenly glad he hadn’t brought up a bottle. Or drunk more than he had. He was not inept, as Zach suggested, and he had never forced his attentions on a woman. They’d all been happy. Welcoming. Eager, even.
He joined Harry by the fire and spotted her brush on the mantel, just as Harry gathered up the last of the custard and licked it off the fork, her pink tongue briefly visible.
Nick stifled a groan. He grabbed the brush and pushed her shoulders so she stood with her back to him. Much safer.
She giggled.
No, that wasn’t Harry’s giggle. Actually, he didn’t know what her giggle sounded like. And the sound had been muffled.
Harry looked at him over her shoulder, eyebrows raised in silent query, and the sound came again.
From the room next door.
They both shrugged. The price of staying at an inn often included thin walls and loud neighbors.
She set the plate and fork on the mantel and lowered her chin as Nick got to work brushing her wild, wet hair. The hint of lemon-scented soap wafted up, mixing with leather from her clothes that had traveled in the saddlebags all day.
He was not inept when it came to women. Curse Zach for even suggesting such nonsense. Nick had had more than his share of women over the years who offered themselves up to him. From society ladies like Lady Slavin in London, to serving wenches at seaside towns, to the upstairs maid when he was sixteen, and all the others in between.
Wait a moment.
They’d all offered themselves to him.
He hadn’t pursued any of them.
There wasn’t a single woman he could think of who he’d had to pursue, persuade, or court. No one he’d wanted to expend the time or effort to entice into his bed or charm his way into theirs. He’d certainly given and received pleasure, been careful not to sire any by-blows, and left them without a backward glance, eager to get back to his ship. But they’d all come to him. Smiling, flirting, subtle or bold, all of them had … thrown themselves at him.
He had never seduced a woman. Not a one.
When he wasn’t distracted by women, he spent most of his time on his ship. Went sailing. As unpredictable and changeable as the sea could be, there was beauty and strength in the waves. A challenge. Puzzles to solve in the currents and wind patterns. Besting a storm, outsmarting enemies. Distant countries to explore, cultures and cuisine to sample.
After his mother’s funeral, reeling with the still-fresh knowledge that in at least one respect he was a bastard, he’d spun the globe in Adam’s study, closed his eyes, and taken more than a year off from Oxford to sail to Singhapura because that’s where his finger landed on the globe.
Zach was right. Nick’s mistress was the sea.
Nick groaned. The sound blended in with a groan from the next room. A male groan. To go along with another feminine giggle.
So why was he brushing Harriet’s hair? Again? He brought the towel up to squeeze more water out of her tresses and stroked the brush through. When a small section was smooth, he pushed it over her shoulder, stirring the faint scent of lemon soap. The ends were already drying.
Harriet was the first woman he could recall who had ever expressed genuine interest in his ship. The first woman he wanted to take to bed who did not crook her finger at him first.
Sure, she’d kissed him—once on the cheek, once on the mouth, and almost kissed him at the other inn this afternoon.
But she was betrothed.
Wasn’t she?
She hadn’t mentioned what’s-his-name in quite a while.
Perhaps he could persuade her to discover the delights of the marriage bed beforehand.
Did he have the right to do that? Assuming she had not already tasted the delights of intimacy. Her intended was a farmer, after all. A man of the earth and, one would suppose, earthly delights.
Zach had claimed her reaction to being touched was that of a virgin. Nick had a reputation among the ton as being a rake, but Zach was the one who had been in so many beds he was lucky not to have syphilis.
