She was here not just to provide the intelligence she had sourced in New York, but to help guide the League’s investigations in England accordingly. She would not allow herself to become distracted from that all-important duty. Because if there was one thing she wanted in her life upon the Lord’s great earth, it was to prove to everyone that a woman could perform a job just as well as any man could.
Hazel had been doing so for ten years, and she intended to continue doing so for the next fifty, God willing.
She consulted the pocket watch she carried with her. Five minutes until her first true meeting with Arden. This time, she would be early. And this time, she would be well-armed, prepared for whatever nonsense and trickery he had in mind. She had kept her distance yesterday following her ignominious collapse, regrouping herself.
Briefly, she wondered whether his concern for her the day before had been feigned. Then, her overactive mind—restored, now that she’d had a restful night’s sleep—began churning. And she wondered just how devious he was, how malicious his intent. Had his masculine interest in her been contrived? She had dealt with overtures often enough over the years to know when a man was attracted to her, and judging from his gaze, his intensity, and his mannerisms, Arden was very drawn to her.
Unless his interest had been merely a further attempt at her manipulation on his part? She wondered, not for the first time, how she had wound up on the divan. One moment, she had been walking at his side in the marbled mausoleum that served as an entry hall to Lark House, and the next, she had awakened laid out on a piece of furniture, a distraught-looking Arden hovering over her.
The notion of him carrying her in his arms made her uncomfortably aware, all over again, that she was a female and he was decidedly a male. It made her stomach tighten and tingle, made an insistent ache pulse between her thighs. But that sensation would have to go, because she could not abide being late, and she was scheduled to meet with Arden in his study in their first official capacity as partners in precisely—she checked her pocket watch again—two minutes.
“Damn it,” she muttered.
Had she truly ruminated over the Duke of Arden for a full three minutes? Her vulnerability for the man—produced, no doubt, by a natural reaction to his handsome face and nothing more—had to be mown down like a field overrun by weeds. Mow it down, she would.
Beginning now.
With a final nod at her reflection in the glass and a straightening of her jacket, she set off in the direction of Arden’s study.
Sweet God.
Lucien could do nothing but stare, transfixed, at Miss Montgomery as she strode across the expanse of his study wearing the most bewildering—and mouthwatering—costume he had ever seen upon a woman.
Her legs were encased in billowing trousers rather than skirts, coupled with a fitted bodice that, had he been viewing it alone, would have looked indistinguishable from the upper portion of any gown. It was fashioned of blue silk, with lace at the top that almost resembled a cravat in its frothy waterfall over her décolletage. Atop the bodice, she wore a cutaway jacket, which flapped in the breeze as she approached his desk with her unique sense of determination.
He stood, belatedly, offering her a formal bow. His tongue felt as if it were stuck to the roof of his mouth. Any hope he possessed that a subsequent look at her outlandish attire would render him horrified died a quick, merciless death when he straightened to his full height and settled his gaze upon her once more.
She was astounding.
Mesmerizing.
Damnation, her hips. Full and round, just as he had imagined they would be. Her legs, so long. Legs a man could well imagine wrapped around his waist. He wondered if her bodice was attached to her trousers. The whole effort appeared seamless, but surely it could not be so. And that thought inevitably led to him disrobing her in his mind. Surely she wore no corset beneath that bodice. He wondered if her nipples were hard once more, hiding beneath the safety of her jacket.
Christ, this was going to be torture. The Home Office had not just foisted a partner upon him. No, indeed. They had forced him to accept a determined, intelligent, fiercely independent, rebellious, beautiful female, whose body was a courtesan’s dream, as his partner. And an American one, at that.
She bowed right back at him, startling him from his unacceptable ruminations concerning a woman he could not afford to want. Hers was not a full gentleman’s bow, but rather a cursory, abbreviated thing. Halfway between a curtsy and a bow. Odd, to be sure. He hoped to God she never made such an awkward gesture should she find herself at a social gathering during her short stay in London.
Her incredibly short stay, he reminded himself bitterly. The woman before him—eccentric, endearing, and enticing though she may be—was his nemesis. He could not forget that bitter truth.
“Good morning, Arden,” she said.
Ah, an overture on her part. She had not referred to him asMr.Arden. He would have smiled had not the situation been so dire. It would seem all that was required to pierce Miss Montgomery’s armor was cherry tartlets and a good night’s sleep. He could manage that. Far less guilt-inducing than drowning her in port, after all.
“Good morning, Miss Montgomery,” he returned, forcing himself to keep all hints of emotion and all traces of his reaction to her from his voice.
Doing so required every last speck of his self-restraint. Because those bloody trousers. And her legs. Lord in heaven, the woman’s legs. He had known she was taller than most ladies, but the way those trousers clung to her curves and emphasized howlongher legs were…
His cock was hard.
He had to sit.
Almost in unison, he and Miss Montgomery sank loudly and gracelessly into their respective seats. He stifled a groan. It was as if the dratted female had him so bollixed up, he had somehow begun taking on her alarming lack of polish and grace. What more havoc could the woman wreak upon him? What was next? Would he too be attacking his dinner as if it were about to flee his plate?
She stared at him, her back straight as a ramrod, unblinking. “Have you had the opportunity to review my notes?”
Bloody hell.Again with the journal. He had skimmed it once more following his hasty retreat from the salon the day before, but in truth, his blood had been pulsing in his veins, and desire had simmered through him with such insistence, he had been forced to take matters into his own hands in his chamber.
Shameful. Disgraceful even, but true. He had gripped his own cock to the thought of Miss Montgomery taking him into her mouth. He was not proud of himself. Not at all. What was wrong with him?
