Chapter 16
The sound of sloshing water brought Gabe slowly awake. He blinked the sleep from his eyes, his gaze slowly focusing on the banked fire in the hearth. The anger and hurt that he’d felt last evening came rushing back
Blast.
He rose slowly and stiffly, then stretched. His position on the puce rug last night had not been as comfortable as he had initially believed it to be. It had been, however, necessary.
His spinecrackedandpoppedas he bent over to retrieve his pillow, the sound gaining Mary’s attention.
“Oh!” She smiled at him as she turned from the washstand. “Good morning!”
Damn her and her cheery disposition. “Good morning,” he grumbled, keeping his eyes averted from her mostly nude and freshly washed form.
He tossed the pillow beside hers and lowered himself to the bed after it, pulling the counterpane over his lower half. As much as he hated to feel the warmth on the bedclothes left by Mary’s body, he knew that they must keep up appearances, for Mary was a martinet for appearances. She’d reminded him of his slipping façade several times already during this assignment. And she was right. He ought to be more careful. A man and his mistress would not sleep separately.
Glancing toward the opened window, Gabe noted the early hour. The sun was low on the horizon, its bright, cheerful rays mocking his dour mood. Gabe defiantly closed his eyes.
Mary cleared her throat. “I am pleased that you are awake. I must dress and I require the help of a maid.”
His eyes snapped open, but before Gabe could ponder the sudden tingling sensation racing up and down his chest and Mary’s oddly formal choice of words, she walked toward the bedchamber door and tugged on the thick, corded rope hanging there.
“I thought there weren’t any maids available.” Gabe raised his arms to rest beneath his head, propping himself up so as to better see Mary while they spoke.
“Not yesterday, no, but I should think that there would not be many other guests awake at this hour.”
“Why are you awake so early?” Gabe asked.
Mary moved to the chest of drawers and withdrew a pair of stockings from the top drawer. “I thought to break my fast—if it has been prepared—and then venture out of doors for a bit of fresh air.”
“You’re going to interrogate the gardener, aren’t you?”
Mary raised a cautionary brow at Gabe as she bent to slip on her stocking. “Whether I am or am not going to speak to the gardener is…”
Gabe did not hear the remainder of her sentence, as all thought—and blood—rushed away from his head. The angle of Mary’s low-cut chemise as she bent gave him a full view of her bouncing beauties…those swaying, rounded, orbs of milky pleasure. Gabe knew instinctively that they would look exactly like that as she rode him. They would hang just above his face and he would lift up to suck one into his mouth. He would bite and lick, and she would moan and sigh.Bloody hell. He would—
“Have you heard a word that I’ve said?”
Gabe blinked, his fantasy dissipating like smoke before his eyes. Pray God she didn’t notice his cockstand beneath the thick counterpane. He lifted one knee for the sake of his modesty…and his pride.
“Beg pardon,” he said, his voice thick. “I must have missed that last bit.”
Mary placed her hands on her hips, the movement only accentuating her slender waist and—God help him—her stirringly wide hips and generously rounded bosom.
“I have been detailing my plan to discretely speak with the servants then search the house, while you have done nothing but gaze at me with a vacant expression.”
“My apologies, Mary. Though…” Gabe thought of the men on the evening previous, wolfishly sniffing after Mary’s skirts. “I do not believe you should search the house alone.”
She huffed an exasperated breath and bent to put on her other stocking. “I hardly require a governess to follow me about.”
Gabe forced himself to focus on the conversation rather than be distracted by her luscious breasts and his eagerly aggressive arousal.
He must convince her that whoever the spies might be within this house, none were to be trifled with. “If you are caught, Mary, you must have a means of escape. If we are together, a plausible reason for being in an odd part of the house would be easier to concoct. If you are discovered venturing off alone, you will become suspect immediately.”
She rose, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth as she gently chewed on the soft flesh. “You make a fair argument.”
Gabe’s gaze lowered to her newly swollen and glistening bottom lip as she spoke.
My God, wha’ is wrong with me?Mary is nae fer ye, lad, Gabe told himself. Yer supposed te be convincing Mary tha’ spying is too dangerous, nae lusting after her like a randy lad with his first promise of soft female flesh.
