“This is wonderful,” she said. She was on tiptoe, her mouth as close as she could get to his ear. Her gloved fingers lay lightly on his upper arm. He could see her in glimpses: the worn leather of her half-boots, the ties that knotted the front of her pelisse. The heavy coil of golden hair at the nape of her neck.
“Wonderful how?”
“Your sisters need never find out about me at all. With any luck, we can have this situation sorted out before they return.”
He looked over her head at Fairhope, who was alternately stealing looks in their direction and pretending professional disinterest. “This does not change the matter of your reputation. I trust my staff—they will treat you as kindly as they treat the twins, whose reputations are distinctly checkered—but there will be whispers nonetheless. You will have to play the part of the countess or else be branded some sort of fallen woman.”
Winnie drew back a little and looked him in the eye. Her pointed chin was set. Her pale green eyes were not cool now—no, they fairly blazed with decision.
“Fallen it is,” she said.
And then she kissed him.
His arms came around her automatically as she threw herself at his chest. Her fingers were in his hair, her mouth pressed lightly to his, and he was surrounded by her, by lemons and honey.
He barely had time to register the sensations—warm taut sweet—before she was gone.
He gaped at her as she turned on her heel and made for his butler, peeling off her battered kidskin gloves. Before his eyes, her walk transformed into one he had not seen before—a slow, feline prowl. Her hips swayed. One lock of her hair had worked loose from its pins, caressing the back of her elegant neck.
“Good afternoon,” she said to Fairhope. Even her voice sounded different, a sensual hum at the back of her words. “My name is Mrs. Coplestone-Scott. His lordship has generously agreed to host me here while I resolve a few lingering entanglements from my—ah—late husband’s estate.”
Fairhope’s face evinced no expression whatsoever. He bowed. “Welcome to Lord Warren’s household, Mrs. Coplestone-Scott.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, low and throaty. “I look forward to his lordship’s hospitality.”
Jesus Christ, she made the innocuous sentence sound like the promise of sexual favors. Spencer found himself suddenly and inappropriately aroused.
“I’ll review my correspondence in the library,” he choked out. “That’ll be all, Fairhope.”
And then he grabbed Winnie by her ungloved fingers and dragged her down the hall.
Chapter 5
“What the devil were you thinking?”
Inside the library, Winnie tipped back her head to meet the earl’s gaze. He looked outraged and a bit disheveled—he’d gone pink about the ears again.
She really ought to stop looking at the man’sears,for heaven’s sake. It was peculiar. Though in truth a fascination with his ears was probably safer than an obsession with his mouth—which had been startlingly warm and soft as she’d pressed herself against him.
She swallowed, then gave a shrug that was more careless than she felt. “Now your staff will believe I am a lusty widow. If your sisters hear of it, you can tell them you very kindly assisted me with my legal troubles and fought off my advances all the while.”
“Damn it, I thought we’d agreed—”
“I took the initiative.”
When she’d heard that his sisters were not in residence, the idea had sprung fully formed in her mind. It had been irresistible.
She’d heard him speak of his sisters, the hellion twins, a dozen times on their journey from Llanreithan, more often even than he had spoken of his beloved late father. It was clear that he adored them—Margo more sensitive and wild, Matilda loving and stubborn—and that he wanted them to think well of him.
There was no need for him to take on the consequences of Winnie’s lies. It would reverberate through his life for years to come if his sisters thought him so reckless as to marry and then annul the marriage within the span of weeks. They would want details, explanations—things Spencer could not give without deceiving them repeatedly.
She knew what it was like to live with a lie always on her lips. She did not want that for him, and she did not understand why he was so set on doing so. The thought of him wanting to protect her—she, Winnie, who did not deserve his sacrifice—made tension rise between her shoulder blades.
She did not know how to accept such a thing. She could not.
Spencer ran his fingers through his hair, disarranging the thick red-gold weight. “Where on Earth did you get the name Coplestone-Scott?”
“I made it up on the spot,” she said primly.
