She skimmed a bawdy story called‘The Society of Vice’, which was not at all scandalous, and certainly not true. Eliza knew of old bagwomen in Covent Garden who could spin a racier yarn.
Ifthiswas all it took to arouse a toff, she felt sorry for them.
Eliza tried to picture Mark in such a heated state, but doubted he had a lusty bone in his body. Perhaps he was of the tender, monogamous type. No back-alley ruts or salt-barrel tups for him. He’d want a bed, or, at the very least, a sofa. Likely, he’d be gentle and quick about his business, not wishing to inconvenience a lady.
Eliza warmed, thinking improper thoughts about a most proper man.
Living in the streets, she was unaccustomed to idleness or even privacy. She had no bed to lounge in, no bath to sit and soak. She was too consumed with survival to dream about men—or what they did with their magazines and mistresses.
But Eliza was a woman. She sometimes had a woman’s needs. With a full belly, a good night’s sleep, clean clothes, and a roof over her head, her womanly mind found time to wander.
She was so distracted with thoughts of Sir Mark van Bergen that Eliza lost track of time. She did not hear the hall clock chime, nor did she hear carriage wheels slowing at the kerb.
She stared at the open page on her lap, dreaming of sultans and harems, Sir Mark andher.Eliza lifted her fingers to caress her flushed cheek.
Footsteps in the corridor begged her back from her fantasies. Masculine voices, the scent of expensive cologne…
Eliza glanced up from the magazine, blinking as daydream blurred with reality.
Mark stood in the doorway.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
He’d thought of her all day. Through meetings and luncheon, he wondered what she was doing, how she was feeling. It felt strange to have someone—a woman—waiting for him at home. Almost as if they shared a secret, his pickpocket houseguest and him.
Truth be told, he worried. She was like a whirlwind tearing through his well-ordered life. She stole and ran from thugs. Climbed into strange carriages and pricked his conscience. She fought, she cried, she called upon him at work. She shared his table and slept beneath his roof.
Leaving Eliza alone was as sensible as dragging in a feral cat and setting it loose about his drawing room. She would be bored, curious, restless. She’d claw at his curtains and shred his carpets.
She was no house cat. Mark was almost afraid of what he’d come home to.
As his landau turned onto Green Street, he found himself sitting forward. His coachman hardly stopped the horses before Mark dashed out of the carriage onto the pavement. Pearson, his butler, stood at the threshold, sweeping the front door open to greet him.
“Welcome home, Sir Mark.”
Mark dragged off his hat and handed over his umbrella. The man looked cross, but not stressed or scandalized. The house was quiet. Everything seemed in order.
Leaving his butler to sulk in the foyer, Mark went in search of Eliza. Perhaps she was asleep or sunning herself in the back garden or raiding his dining room, stealthily robbing him blind.
As he passed the drawing room, he almost missed her seated on his Chesterfield sofa with her head bowed.
He stopped.
Her hair was pinned in that fashionable knot again, tendrils trailing her neck, tickling her cheek. She wore a tea gown of the softest pink chiffon, trimmed in cream lace. No corset, no stays. He knew what ladies wore beneath their ‘teagies’—not much.
He stepped into the room. She was so engrossed with the magazine in her lap that she did not hear him enter. She smiled to herself, sighing. Practically purring.
Shewasa house cat, a blue-eyed kitten wrapped in a pretty pink bow.
Idly, she reached to stroke her cheek. No doubt to brush one of those wayward tendrils that tempted his fingers, as well.
He wanted to go to her, to greet her. To touch her. To tell her how glad he was to see her, and how much he’d missed her throughout the day. It was a fantasy, surely, but Mark wantedherto say those things, too.
From the look of her, however, she’d hardly noticed he’d been gone.
“Eliza,” he said.
She turned at his voice, shocked to see him standing there. “Mark—er—Sir Mark.”
