And yet, finding the tart words she wanted took her some time. She could not seem to speak them. Because there was something about Lord Ashley Rawdon pressed against her, in her bed, that felt so very right. Every bit as right as kissing him had.
He discovered her hand, tangling his fingers through hers. And that was when she located her voice at last. But still, she did not extricate her hand from his grasp. Rather, she gave his long fingers a squeeze. Because this, too, felt right.
“What are you doing here, Lord Ashley?” she asked quietly, lest she alert anyone beyond her chamber to his presence.
One scandal a day was enough, thank you very much.
“Will you not call me Ash from now on?” he returned, raising her hand to his lips for a kiss. “It would please me greatly.”
Oh, how easily he broke through her walls.
He smelled of sunshine and decadent man. Everything delicious. Everything so wonderfully, wickedly him.
“Ash,” she relented at last. “You cannot linger here in my bedchamber, in my bed. It is horribly improper.”
“I was supposed to have learned the rules of proper courtship from you, but you never completed your duty,” he said. “Therefore, you can hardly fault me for my ignorance. I am courting you the only way I know how.”
In bed. That part, she believed. She did not particularly care for the jealousy accompanying such thoughts, however.
“You are courting me?” she repeated. The man was a rake. Utterly mad.
“I am attempting to do so, yes,” he said in his low, delicious baritone.
The one that never failed to send thrills skittering through her.
“Even a rake like you has to know that this is not the proper form of courting.” She pursed her lips, studying him through the darkness. She could see the outline of his handsome face—the strong jaw, the blade of his nose, the proud cheekbones, the sensual mouth. Just enough to make her ache for him.
She remembered, all too well, the sensation of his fingers between her thighs. His mouth on her breasts. Concentrating upon her irritation with him was growing more impossible by the moment. He smelled so good. He felt so good. Next to him felt, oddly, like the only place she ever wanted to be.
“I wanted to be certain you wish to marry me,” he said then, his tone tender.
Hesitant, too. As if he were afraid of her answer.
For the first time, his polished rake’s veneer had slipped.
“You could have asked me tomorrow,” she pointed out.
“I could not bear to go another sleep without knowing.”
There was a rawness to his voice, to his words. A compelling note of honesty.
“And why should you care, either way?” she forced herself to demand, reminding herself she could not be sure of him, that she did not dare. “You have what you wanted: me as your bride. Why should you concern yourself with whether or not I am willing?”
“Because I want you to be happy, Pru.” He gave her fingers a squeeze and rolled to face her, lying on his side and propping his chin in his other hand. “I want to marry you, but only if you want to marry me in return.”
But she did not want to marry him. She wanted her freedom. Her foundling hospital. She did not want to be tied to a handsome rake she could not trust, even if he made her weak and wanting.
“I am afraid my opinion in the matter holds little weight when I have been so thoroughly ruined and my brother is all but forcing me into wedding you.” She could not expunge the bitterness from her voice. “We were unclothed together beneath a shared fur. The evidence against us is most damning.”
“To the devil with the evidence, Pru,” he said, more serious than she had ever heard him. “Regardless of how much I long to have you as my wife, I cannot be content with your unhappiness.”
Would she be unhappy as his wife?
What a foreign notion, becoming this gorgeous, sleek, seductive man’s bride. When she had thought of her future before she had met him, she had imagined only the foundling hospital she wanted to build. Could she still have that future, but with him? And more importantly, could she trust him?
“So tell me, Pru, what would make you happy?” he prodded into the silence that had descended between them.
“My own foundling hospital.” That part of her answer was simple. Easy. The rest? Not so much.
