How she wanted his bare skin on hers.
Even if this was wrong.
And it was wrong, she reminded herself as his wicked hands traveled to her knees, caressing the sensitive dips behind them.
Very wrong indeed, she scolded herself as he gently guided her legs apart.
Horridly wrong. But he had lifted the hems of her gown and petticoat so they rested in her lap in a soft heap, and still, she could not muster one word of denial. Because she did not want to deny him.
He was stiff and proper, gentlemanly and aloof. And yet, when he came to life, he was an inferno. And she wanted to get burned.
“Miss Winter,” he said.
His voice was a caress. Low and liquid.
“Call me Eugie,” she implored, because she could not bear for such formality between them when he was seeing her limbs encased in stockings and garters.
“Eugie,” he repeated, as if trying it out on his tongue.
She liked it. Liked the way it sounded. Liked the intimacy it gave them. Liked everything about this forbidden moment and this equally forbidden man far, far too much.
But then, his hands were moving higher, over her thighs, and she forgot to think entirely. Words were elusive. All she could do was feel. His head dipped. And his mouth, his beautiful mouth, laid a kiss upon her inner thigh. Who would have imagined a kiss upon such a place? Or how glorious it felt?
A soft moan escaped her as hunger built. Tension drawing into a knot in her core.
But in the next moment, all that dissipated when the door to the chamber opened and her sister stepped over the threshold. Lord Hertford was quick in his reaction, but not quick enough that Grace would have no doubt something untoward had been occurring.
“Eugie, what in heaven’s name are you about?” Grace asked, her tone scandalized.
The earl had flipped down her skirts, but now he stood, offering an abbreviated bow to Grace. “Miss Winter. I am afraid the other Miss Winter was suffering from a h—”
“Splinter,” Eugie interrupted before he gave further legs to her initial prevarication. Grace was intelligent. She would not be swayed by the suggestion Lord Hertford had been attempting to ease her headache by rucking up her skirts. “I had a splinter in my heel. A heel splinter.”
Grace’s eyes narrowed. She looked distinctly unimpressed. “You had a splinter.”
Eugie swallowed. “Yes.”
“She did,” added the earl, his expression guilty as sin.
The man was terrible at subterfuge, wasn’t he?
“In your heel,” Grace continued.
“Yes,” Eugie said weakly, knowing her hasty attempt at deception would not prove sufficient either. She could only hope Grace would hold her tongue and would not question—
“Was there a need to raise your hem past your knees?” her fiendish sister asked.
Eugie scowled at her. “Yes. As it happens, they kept falling over my foot. I could not see my heel properly, and Lord Hertford was kind enough to offer his assistance. I am most indebted to him.”
“How…kindof his lordship to offer such attentiveaid,” Grace said, smirking.
Eugie imagined all the ways in which she would get even with her sister later.
For now, she stood, swishing her skirts back into place. Her heart was still pounding steadily. Her body was still aching. And the longing he had incited within her had yet to be doused. If anything, she was all the more desperate to know what she had missed.
If only Grace had not interrupted them when she had.
But then again, perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps if she had not, Eugie would be compromised in truth now, rather than just compromised in theory. One could not be compromised, after all, when one’s ignominy had only been witnessed by one’s sister.
