“My lord, what shall be done with the canine?” Huell called after him.
“See that it is fed and walked,” he called over his shoulder. “And send a maid round to see to the mess the little devil has made upon the carpet.”
Morgan did not stop until he discovered his quarry at last, finishing her dinner alone with a sole footman standing sentinel. She should have seemed a pitiful figure, dining by herself, but she was ever the regal, icy picture of beauty. She was a splinter lodged deep into his chest, and he could not seem to remove her, though she continued to make him bleed.
She had never been meant to be his torture, damn it, and that he allowed her to assume the role now, albeit against his will, infuriated him almost as much as being dragged halfway through Spain by a ragtag band of guerrilla soldiers had.
“You are dismissed,” he told the footman without bothering to glance in the fellow’s direction.
Being a wise man, the servant fled.
Leonora’s gaze settled upon Morgan, her expression placid and unconcerned. She was dressed to perfection, her glorious hair in a chignon with ringlets framing her angelic face. Her gown was a deep, claret red, offsetting her porcelain skin and her bright eyes and sultry lips. She personified the fusion of the palely beautiful wallflower he had first met with the lush, unbridled wanton who had set his body aflame last night. A perfect fallen angel.Hisfallen angel, and he would torment her more than she could ever imagine before he was finished.
But for now, he was struck anew by the force of her loveliness. If he had been a painter, he would have been driven to capture her on canvas, thus, this moment, innocence and seduction all at once. The odd, unwanted thought she ought to be wearing the Searle rubies at her throat and ears hit him then, leaving him momentarily bereft. He envisioned her wearing nothing but the glittering gems, and his mouth went dry.
“Lady Searle.” He addressed her formally, because she was staring at him expectantly, and everything inside him was a confusing riot. He could not look upon her now without recalling the exquisite taste of her upon his tongue, without recalling how she had gripped him, without hearing the sudden throatiness in her voice when she had saidmy cunny is yours.
Sweet Lord.He could not think of one single thing to say beyond her name. Why had he sought her out anyway? Why did he stand before her now? His mind had been robbed of everything but a sudden, gripping appreciation for this woman.
“Lord Searle.” She lifted her fork to her lips, and damn him if he was not envious of the silver tines of that utensil. “Have you dined?”
“Yes.” Rather, he had imbibed. The Duke’s Bastard possessed a legendary chef, but he and Monty had been too intent upon the priceless whisky cache to bother themselves withvelouté.
“Then why, may I ask, are you here?” she queried calmly.
So calmly, he was certain he had misheard her. He stood there for a full minute at least, gazing upon her as if seeing her for the first time. And then he realized she, the half-sister of the man who had nearly gotten him killed, the woman who was to be his implement of revenge, his wife of one sennight, was asking him why he was standing in his own goddamned dining room.
He swallowed, recalling his rage, a far more fitting armor than lust. Recalling, quite belatedly, his reason for being here. The bloody dog. He would show her. Surely Huell could not have removed the creature already.
He sketched an elegant, ironic bow and held out his hand. “Come with me, my lady.”
She chewed slowly before raising a snowy napkin to her lips and gently dabbing. “I beg your pardon, my lord. As you can see, I am currently otherwise engaged.”
“The chicken fricassee can go to hell for all I care.”
Appearing singularly unconcerned, she took another bite of her dinner. For some entirely inexplicable reason, watching Leonora eat made him harder than a fire poker. There he stood, watching her lips, mollified by a glimpse of her pretty pink tongue glancing over the seam of her mouth. Imagining taking that mouth and ravaging it with his own.
This would not do.
She had planted an interloper in his territory, and now he could not even think of anything but kissing her. Taking her in his arms, swiping away the china and cutlery, and settling her rump upon the table linens. Making her his feast. Licking her to submission as he should have last night. As he would have had he not been so lost in his need of her that he had been driven to a near desperate state.
No, by God, this would not do at all.
“I am rather enjoying the chicken fricassee, Searle,” his wife said with a bright smile, bringing another bite of the dish to her lips.
“There is a mongrel in my study, my lady,” he gritted. “And unless my nose is mistaken, I believe it has befouled the carpet.”
She took her blessed time chewing before swallowing slowly, then taking a sip of her wine as he looked on, impotent and furious. One more delicate dab of the linen square to the corner of her lips. And then she licked them.
His cock twitched.
“Julius Caesar,” she said calmly.
He stared at her, confounded, and said the first thing that came to mind. “Hamlet.”
His lovely wife’s brows knitted into the perfect frown. “Hamlet is a dreadful name for your new dog, Searle.”
What the devil?
