The more she thought about it, the more annoyed she became. Really, someone should explain to the blasted man that was no way to behave in a chaste marriage.
And she was just that someone.
And the sooner, the better.
As innow.
She hopped off the bed, her feet landing on soft Persian wool. With only the banked fire in the hearth illuminating the room, she marveled anew at its splendor. In her capacities as spy and investigator, she’d navigated homes of fortune, but she’d never been entitled to them, and as the Marchioness of Clare, that was precisely who she was: a woman entitled to the best of everything life had on offer. For now, at least.
The softness of the bed. The slide of silken sheets. The plush wool beneath her feet. The fire in the hearth, providing constant warmth to the room, and which didn’t have to be stoked by her to stay aflame. To lead such an existence was the heart of luxury that aristocrats took for granted every day of their pampered lives.
Silently, she crept across the short corridor separating her bedroom from his. With each small step, her nerve threatened to give way. He hadn’t invited her. In fact, he’d done the opposite. But…
If he wanted the opposite, then why had he pulled her into that room and kissed her to the point of utter abandon? Truly, she’d never been kissed so thoroughly, soskillfully.
Oh, how she wanted to be kissed so again. The center of her went liquid at the very thought.
That was what she needed to tell him. Well, not the last bit, but that he mustn’t kiss her so again.
Or she couldn’t be held accountable for consequences, which very likely involved her doing everything in her power to seduce him. After all, it had been he who had spoken the wordsin name only. Her mouth had remained shut.
She gave the door a testing push. She half expected it to be locked. Instead, it eased open on smooth hinges.
Like her bedroom, his was lit by the low fire in the hearth, casting slow-moving shadows about the walls, and a window overlooking the back garden. Before it stood an armchair and a side table piled high with various books. Beside the pile, she saw it. The signet ring, its gold absorbing mellow firelight. So, this was where he kept it, a knowledge she would hold on to until the night that would be her last in this house, which was arriving soon.
She gave her head a clearing shake. Tonight, she had other business to attend.
Her heart racing in her throat, she located the bed and began moving in its direction. Yet as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw its coverlet was yet undisturbed. The bed lay empty of him.
She exhaled a huff of frustration.Of course.The man was likely in his beloved study, reading about corn laws or some such. She wasn’t too keen on creeping through the mansion in the nightdress provided by Eva Galante, being fairly certain the outline of her nipples could be detected through diaphanous muslin. She would just have to dig out her well-worn overcoat from the bottom of the wardrobe. Her lady’s maid, Smith, had gone wide-eyed and flummoxed when she’d insisted on keeping it.
She had just turned to vacate the room when she heard it. A splash, muted, but distinct.
Following the sound, she detected a faint orange strip of light at the bottom of a closed door. Without thought, she tiptoed closer, closer, so close she could reach out and grab the handle. A nudge, and the door was opening. Again, her heart was in her throat.
He was near. She could feel it.
If a quick glance didn’t confirm it, her sense of smell would have attested to the fact that she’d entered his dressing room, surrounded as she was by his delicious, masculine scent. She located another strip of orange peeking from the bottom of another door. Like a magnet, she was pulled toward it, her heart deepening its rhythm into a heavy throbbing of anticipation. Her body moved as if independent of intention.
At the door, she stopped, her breath suspended. Another splash sounded. She counted down from ten and lightly pushed at solid oak. The hinges obliged her by opening in complete silence. She poked her head around the corner. She had but a fraction of a second to contain her gasp of surprise.
Across a black-and-white checkered floor, reclined the Marquess of Clare, engaging in a leisurely soak in a plunge tub surely constructed for five fully grown adults. Only in bath houses on the Continent had she beheld such a tub. He faced away from her, his arms propped up to either side of him, holding him aloft. She could only view him in profile—the strong line of his jaw, the relaxed curve of his mouth, fringe of thick eyelashes resting on high cheekbones. Beads of sweat dripped down the side of his face, running down the rivulets of his neck, curling the tips of dark hair at his nape, sheening his arms and back.
A demigod in repose.
This sight of him wasn’t helping her mad, agitated, wretched lust. She should quietly retreat and return to her room and leave the man in peace. By staying, well, she was being a bit of a voyeur, wasn’t she?
Yet she found herself widening the crack in the door and slipping through, her bare feet padding softly across tile slick with steam.
Of a sudden, shoulder muscles that had been relaxed bunched in tension. She froze in place, painfully aware of how wrong it was for her to be here. His head whipped around, his gray gaze immediately finding her. She detected not the relaxation she expected to find in those depths, but rather the turmoil of a storm.
Like as not, he saw the same turmoil reflected back at him from her eyes.
She swallowed. She must ignore the knowledge that their turmoil sprang from the same source.Wretchedness. Agitation. Madness.Such feelings weren’t to be allowed their head.
“A midnight soak?” Her voice emerged reedy and high and irritatingly unlike itself.
He shrugged a shoulder, bunched muscles rippling just beneath his skin. “Such is the prerogative of a lord.”
