But he had risen from her side, left quietly while she slept, and had already broken his fast and departed. Perhaps, she consoled herself, he had left a note. After all, he had directed Hill to find her here and draw her a bath.
“Did the marquess leave a missive behind for me?” she dared to ask, half afraid to hear the answer.
“No, my lady, his lordship did not.” Hill held up her dressing gown. “May I escort you to your bath now?”
Disappointment pricked her, mingling with hurt. Of course he had not. He had simply taken her maidenhead, availed himself of her body, and gone about his day as if nothing life altering had occurred. As if he had not spent the night bringing her the sort of pleasure she had not dreamed existed until now. As if he had not held her and kissed her, as if he had not been inside her, his touch so sure and powerful she could almost feel it upon her still. As if he had not left his mark upon her, a small bruise from his mouth she could see upon the curve of her left shoulder.
Why had she been foolish enough to believe one night would be enough to thaw the ice he wore around his heart? He had warned her what he wanted from her, had he not?
And it was not her heart. Not her at all. The solace he found in losing himself in her body—that was what he wanted from her. That was all he was willing to give.
Swallowing against a sudden surge of tears, she nodded at her lady’s maid. She must look a disaster this morning, lying abed as if she were a harlot, her curls tangled and twisted about her, wearing love bites and nothing else.
“Yes, Hill,” she managed. “I am ready for my bath.”
It would seem she would have to wage war with her husband if she wanted to break through his defenses. And she would have ample time to plot whilst she scrubbed all traces of him from her skin.
Chapter Seven
Morgan strode tohis study upon his return to Linley House, nettled by his inconvenient attraction to his wife, which seemed to grow more boundless by the hour. He had fled that morning to be removed from her and the temptation she presented. But meeting his ne’er do well cousin, the Duke of Montrose, had not provided sufficient distraction. Neither had a bout of sparring with him. Monty possessed one hell of a punch, and Morgan’s jaw was still ringing with the pain of the blow he had suffered.
However, neither that nor the subsequent round of indolence they indulged in at the Duke’s Bastard seemed to do a damned thing to keep Morgan from thinking about his marchioness. He had been sporting a most inconvenient state of hardness for the entirety of the day, and though he had been doing his best to distract himself, he had discovered not even the dissolute companionship of Monty was enough to make him stop recalling how delicious it had felt to sink home inside Leonora for the first time.
Not even the painful fact he could ill afford to develop tender emotions toward her seemed to matter one whit to his body. The sounds she made, the responsiveness of her lush body, the shameless way she had followed his lead…
“Damnation,” he muttered to himself, slamming his study door with more force then necessary.
What was it about her?
In his old life, before he had purchased his commission and gone to war on the Continent, no woman had ever interested him the way Leonora did. This infatuation he had developed for his wife was ludicrous. Monty had urged him to take a mistress, and it was likely the only bit of advice he should have ever taken from his rakehell cousin. If he had, maybe he would not be so overwrought at this moment. So overwrought, in fact, he almost failed to see the blur of movement racing across the carpet and tucking itself beneath his desk. Almost, but not quite.
His frown and his black mood both growing, he stalked around the corner of his desk and peered beneath. Two bulging, warm brown eyes blinked at him. He caught sight of a pink tongue. Clipped ears.
By God, there was a bloody dog in his study. Beneath his desk. And a skittish one at that.
How in the name of Hades had a dog managed to find its way here?
The answer hit him in the same fashion the mere thought of his wife did, as a wallop straight to the chest. A visceral reaction he could neither like nor relinquish. There could be only one person who would dare to secret a mutt within his territory.
A mutt who, by the smell of things, had already desecrated said territory with a most impolite deposit. He had only been gone for mere hours, damn it all.
Growling, he turned and stalked from the room.
He located his butler first. “Huell,” he all but roared. “Have you any inkling of how a creature has managed to find its way into my study?”
Huell paled, the only indication he possessed a pulse. “There was an unfortunate incident in the kitchens. A small family of mice was recently discovered but eradicated instantaneously. It is possible one of the miscreants managed to escape.”
“Not a mouse,” he corrected, feeling grim. “A canine, Huell. A bloody dog with two ears and a tail and a slavering mouth and a foul stench. It is in my study.”
Huell blinked, his color leaching even further. “Forgive me, my lord. I do not know how such an event could have occurred. Shall I have it removed?”
Yes, Morgan wanted to snap.
But then, for a brief moment, those huge brown eyes returned to him, and he could not seem to form the word. Instead, he demanded something else of his butler. “Where might I find the Marchioness of Searle?”
“As you indicated your intention of dining at your club this evening, her ladyship is taking her dinner at the moment.”
“Excellent.” He stalked in the direction of the dining room.
