“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, and gestured at herself.
He could not help himself. His gaze slid all the way down her body and then back up again. He could see very little in truth—the dressing gown was thick, camouflaging her modest curves despite the tie knotted around her slim waist.
But somehow it was almost more erotic—his own dressing gown clinging to her body. The fabric that had touched his bare skin now caressing hers. Would she have a shift on beneath it? Or if she took a step toward him, would he see her long athletic legs slipping naked through the place where the garment parted?
She took a step toward him.
“I don’t mind,” he managed. “Take whatever you need. This is your home. For, ah, as long as you wish it.”
“Thank you,” she said. Her voice sounded a little lower than usual. Everything about her was softer here in the dim room, lit only by the coal burning in the grate. Her typical vibrant energy was muted—no—banked, rather, only waiting to flare back into life.
He wanted to make her burn. He wanted to stoke that flame with the rush of his own breath. With his mouth. His teeth.
She seated herself at his desk chair, tucking her feet up under her, revealing a brief flash of pale calf before she rearranged the edges of the dressing gown. “I only wondered if you’d discovered anything while you were out today. I read every single gossip column I could get my hands on—and visited my man of business to try to explain this Lady Warren affair”—she shuddered, which Spencer did not fancy—“but I’m still not certain where we might track down the individuals we’re after.”
“I did, actually,” he said. Some small bit of blood seemed to be circulating in his brain again. “Noake, I think, seems the most promising for our first attempt. I’ve been invited to a dinner party on Friday evening with some of my allies in the Lords. Noake ought to be there. I’ll dash off a note and tell them we’ll attend together.”
“As the earl and countess,” she said, and winced again.
Yes, his erection had definitely begun to flag. Her visible dismay was helping.
“That’s right.”
“And have you considered how we will return Noake’s necklace? He cannot know it came from me—and I will not have your name mixed up in this either, so do not even propose it.”
He eyed her, and the dressing gown she’d slipped out of his wardrobe. “I believe,” he said, “I have the beginnings of an idea.”
Chapter 9
“Again?”
Winnie bit her lip. Spencer looked slightly aggrieved across from her in the carriage. This was at least the third time she’d made him rehearse their intended program for the evening. “Once more.”
She fingered the floral embroidery she’d worked into her evening gloves. She’d taken herself off to the Halifax family’s favored dressmaker—though she’d paid the woman herself, she could do that much—and had brought home a new pair of stockings and a white dress in a fine cotton crepe, close enough to her size that she could hastily tailor it to her body. She’d stitched shimmery pearlescent roses into its bodice and its little puffed sleeves and then sewn matching roses into her gloves.
She looked acceptable. She thought she did. She didn’t want to embarrass him, posing as his countess. She had tried, these last days, to remember everything her mother had taught her; she’d spent half of one dreary morning buried in an etiquette book she’d found in a corner of the library so orderly she was certain it had never been touched.
Spencer, meanwhile, looked absurdly, blindingly handsome. The man seemed to be exerting some kind of gravitational pull. She could not stop looking at him.
He loomed large across from her in the carriage. His red-gold hair was tamed, his jaw freshly shaven, the strong planes of his face never more apparent. Beneath his midnight-blue coat, his shoulders stretched and flexed as he moved.
She knew fabrics. She could tell at a glance he wore no padding beneath the garment as some fashionable gentlemen did, creating the illusion of musculature.
His musculature was entirely authentic. Palpable. She recalled the feel of him—the brush of her lips against his, the solid strength of his body—
And then realized with a start that he was speaking.
She removed her gaze from his shoulders.
“We should arrive about fifteen minutes early to Lord and Lady Yardsley’s,” Spencer recited patiently. “We’ll stay in sight of the parlor doors so that we can catch a glimpse of Noake when he comes in. We’ll make note of precisely what his overcoat looks like.”
Winnie took up the now-familiar narrative. “I’ll sneak into the cloak room during dinner and put the necklace into his overcoat. With any luck, he’ll discover it when he puts his coat on to leave.”
“And even if he doesn’t,” Spencer said, “he’ll have it with him. Whether he finds it while in his carriage or back at his house or when his valet brushes out his coat, it’ll be back in his possession.”
“It sounds simple, does it not?” She found her lips were dry, and she tried to moisten them. “I hope—I hope—”
“Win.”
