“If your aim is to impress her ladyship, may I also suggest a trim of your hair?” Denning asked, fetching the razor, soap, and brush.
Jack raised a hand to his hair. Perhaps it was a tad long. “Do you think it necessary?”
“I do think it would aid your cause, my lord.” Denning was polite as ever. Serious.
His sense of fashion was impeccable, however.
Jack tipped his head back, giving the valet better access to his doomed whiskers. “My cause needs all the bloody help it can get, Denning. Do your very best.”
THERE WAS Astranger at the breakfast table.
A green-eyed god with smoothly shaven cheeks and short, dark hair who looked exactly like the man who had stolen her heart five years ago.
Nell stopped on the threshold of the dining room as a wave of remembrance assailed her. All the stern warnings she had been issuing to herself from the moment she had risen at dawn with a body that ached in places which had not been brought to life in years vanished. Her heart gave a pang. Jack looked younger without his beard, and though she would not have supposed it possible, even more handsome.
The gorgeous symmetry of his face was on full display now, complemented by the sensual lips she knew and longed for upon hers.
He rose at her entrance and offered her an elegant bow. “Good morning, my lady.”
She forced herself to dip into an answering curtsy and gather her scattered wits. “Lord Needham.”
He was at her side in a trice, and he smelled as divine as he looked. His gaze was warm as it burned into hers. She could not help but to recall the way he had stared into her eyes last night, when he had been inside her. Their connection had been deeper than the physical. Much to her shame, she had lowered her defenses. But she must gather them up again today.
How?Asked her heart dejectedly.
Jack offered her his arm as gallantly as any swain. “Allow me to guide you to your seat and fill your plate, my dear.”
How indeed?
Aware of their audience, she placed her hand in the crook of his arm. Beneath her hand, his arm was all reassuring strength. She tried to force herself to think of Tom. But her heart was pounding. And all she could think about was the man at her side.
Herhusband.
She could not deny the effect he had upon her. In a haze, she allowed him to seat her. She told herself she needed to harden her heart. To ignore this sudden change in his appearance. He was not the Jack she had fallen in love with that charmed August at the sailing regatta. He was the man who had betrayed her.
But his words from last night returned to her, mocking. Taunting. Tempting.
Look at the man who loves you.
No. She could not afford to believe him. She could not allow herself to fall beneath his spell once more. Yesterday had left her dangerously close to the edge.
He dismissed the servants dancing attendance upon the loaded sideboard, leaving them alone. She watched as he retrieved a plate and began filling it for her.
“How do you presume to know what I want?” she asked him, forcing herself to speak.
“Bacon, a poached egg, and fresh fruit from the orangery, no?” he returned blithely.
He was right, damn him.
Part of her wanted to contradict him, but then she would be the one suffering through a breakfast of food she had no desire to eat. Instead, she fixed herself a cup of tea. “That will do.”
He turned back to her, bearing a plate laden with far too much food. “Do you remember the morning not long after we were wed? We had breakfast in bed, and the raspberries were in season?”
He had placed them on her nipples and then eaten them off.
The reminder made her cheeks hot. She clenched her thighs together to stave off a wave of longing. “I do not recall it.”
Jack settled the plate before her, leaning close, his lips grazing her ear. “Liar.”
