Four days…I only need to manage for four days, then we will part, and I will never have to think about him again.Perhaps if they ever encountered each other again in Crandell or the streets of London, they would exchange a polite bow…a curtsey, and nothing more.
Yet that promise to her silly, stubborn heart felt empty, for as she fell into a restless slumber, he stole into her sleep, haunting her dreams with impossible wants and desperate hunger.
…
I am already falling in love with you.
Daniel had no idea what to do with that soft confession, and as he lay in the dark staring at the ceiling, a smile tugged at his mouth as Georgianna thumped her pillow once more, her frustrated curse reaching through the walls.
Just deserved, Miss Heyford, for I am bloody well similarly tormented and unable to sleep.
However, she needed her rest. He was aware that she had woken before the rest of the household this morning and went to the kitchens. She would perhaps faint if she realized he had placed her in the countess’s chamber and that the connecting door led to his rooms. Daniel had to fight the ruthless need that urged him to get up off the bed, open that door, take her into his arms, and kiss her until she allowed him deep into her body. His cock throbbed in greedy want, and he resisted the urge to fist his erection and squeeze to alleviate some of the ache.
He groaned, gritting his teeth as he gripped the sheets. How could one woman twist him into such knots? Hissing, he pushed from the bed to stand by his windows. It was early yet, barely minutes to midnight; he could venture out for a night on the town and find a number of willing women to slake the lust crawling through him. Daniel dropped his forehead with athunkon the cool windows, never a man to willfully delude himself.
The only woman he wanted lay beyond that door and—
“That vexatious, dissolute blackguard has cursed me!”
Daniel stilled, then he chuckled, padding over to the door. “What have I done, Miss Heyford, to deserve such censure?”
Her gasp reached through the connecting door. Turning his back, he folded his arms and leaned against it, closing his eyes. She said nothing for a beat, then he heard her footsteps as she drew closer.
“Are you behind this door?” she whispered in outrage.
“No,” he said drily. “I am underneath your bed.”
Another long beat of silence.
“You are not,” she said irritably.
His brow winged upward, and his mouth twitched. “Did you by chance check, Miss Heyford?”
“It was entirely possible,” she said. “One can never tell how far a rake would go.”
He laughed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Did you by chance bring any orange wine with you?”
“Of course not.”
He did not perceive the whisper of her feet which would inform him she had returned to her bed. No…Georgianna was still standing right at the door.
“Are you still there, my lord?”
He smiled. “Aye.”
“This is rather silly, is it not, that we are conversing so?”
“I could always open the door.”
The low sound she made was desperate, and he laughed when he heard the distinct turn of the key he had left in the door.
“The wretch,” she murmured.
The fond humor in her tone had his heart stuttering.
“A wretch, am I?” he asked, wondering at the compelling sensations winding through his body.
I am already falling in love with you.That aching whisper dug into him.Dismissing Miss Georgianna Heyford from his thoughts was more complicated than he’d thought possible. “You cannot sleep, hmm?”
