Chapter Nine
This was notthe first occasion upon which Ash had opened his eyes to find an irate gentleman hovering over him, wearing a murderous scowl. It was, however, the first time the homicidal gentleman in question was thebrotherof the lady in dishabille at his side instead of the husband.
He blinked, hoping he was having a nightmare.
Then blinked again.
Damnation, Mr. Devereaux Winter was still hovering over him, looking as if he wanted to sink a blade between his ribs. Or plant him a facer. Perhaps both. Simultaneously.
“Is something in your eye, Rawdon?” growled his host.
Ash ceased blinking. The lady in his arms stirred, making sweet little murmurings of wakefulness, which otherwise would have had his cock standing at attention. Given the circumstances, he would be bloody fortunate if his cock had not shriveled up and retracted inside his body, terrified it was about to be hacked off by the brute staring him down.
“Nothing is in my eye, Mr. Winter,” he forced himself to say, amazed at how smoothly the words emerged, quite as if he had not a care.
Quite as if he were not wearing nothing more than his smalls whilst Devereaux’s innocent, unwed sister was curled up in his embrace, clad in only a transparent chemise. He could still recall every aching detail of just how translucent the curst garment was with perfect clarity.
“If you do not take your paws off my sister in the next ten seconds, therewillbe something in your eye,” promised his host, his voice undeniably menacing. “My bloody fist.”
Fucking hell.
He eyed Devereaux’s enormous hands, which were already clenched into fists.
Pru was still half asleep, settled deliciously into his body. But she stirred more at the barely suppressed violence in her brother’s tone. He hated to wake her completely and put an end to the unexpected intimacy they had shared here in the false ruins—so very unlike any intimacy he had ever experienced before with a woman in that it had involved nothing more than an embrace and conversation. But he was going to have to, or her brother was going to murder him.
And Ash did not blame the irate fellow one whit. For if Pru were his sister, and he discovered her unclothed and asleep in the arms of a rakehell such as himself, he would assume the worst.
“This is not what it seems, Devereaux,” he said. And then he gave Pru a gentle nudge. “Pru, sweet, wake.”
“Pru?” Repeated his host, outraged. “Sweet?”
The last term of endearment emerged as a bellow, which served to wake Pru better than Ash’s halfhearted attempts had. She jolted upright with a squeal, her head knocking into Ash’s chin as she did so, with enough force that his eyes watered with the pain.
He supposed it served him right.
“Serves you right,” grunted Devereaux. “I hope you bit your damned tongue right off.”
Ash rubbed his chin ruefully. There would be no sympathy from his host. Nor any quarter, it would seem.
“Fortunately, it is still intact,” he managed to inform Pru’s outraged brother. “Again, Mr. Winter, I regret the tableau you have happened upon—”
“I did not happen upon it,” seethed Winter, interrupting him. “One of my servants did.”
Pru gasped then, finally awake enough to grasp what was unfolding around them. “Nothing untoward occurred, Dev. Lord Ashley was a perfect gentleman.”
Winter’s brows shot upward. “Ah, I see. Then my eyes are deceiving me, and those are not your garments strewn about the hearth, along with Lord Ashley’s? And you are not sitting indecently near to him and sharing a fur blanket?”
Pru winced. Ashley grimaced.
“That is all true, Mr. Winter,” he said needlessly, attempting to mollify the bear, if he could. “However, there is a reason for the state in which you have found us. Miss Winter fell and injured herself in the snow. I brought her back here so she could warm herself lest she catch a lung infection. However, by the time we reached the ruins, both our garments were soaked. I laid them by the fire to dry.”
Naturally, he neglected to mention the portion of the story involving Pru fleeing from his proposal. No need to completely humiliate himself, after all.
“He is telling you the truth, Dev,” Pru added. “Lord Ashley was kind enough to come to my rescue.”
“He also ruined you,” Mr. Winter announced, more somber than an executioner.
Blast.
