“Saint’s teeth, I told you not to read the book.” He gripped the ladder so tightly, he feared it would snap in two. “If you don’t get down here this moment, I’ll have no choice but to come after you and bring you down myself.”
“Don’t be silly. The two of us will never fit on this ladder, and your head would be nearly up my skirts.”
Yes, precisely.
And he wouldn’t hate it, either.
“Down, or I go up,” he countered grimly. “You have until the count of five. One, two, three—”
“You are not going to climb this ladder, Ridgely,” she interrupted.
“Four,” he continued grimly. Because he bloody wellwas. She couldn’t read that damned book. And not just because the notion of Lady Virtue consuming the indecorous smut within its pages made him hard. “Five.”
Gripping the ladder in both hands, he settled his right foot on the lowest rung and commenced his ascent.
A gasp sounded from above. “Stay where you are!”
Another rung, and the hem of her gown brushed the top of his head.
Don’t look up, you scoundrel, he warned himself.Donotlook up.
He swallowed against a rush of forbidden desire. “I don’t take orders from babes.”
“You’ll send us both crashing to the floor.”
The ordinarily unruffled Lady Virtue sounded a bit worried. Not without reason. Trevor advanced another rung and the ladder shifted precariously. Ah, the irony. Years of facing dangerous villains yet surviving, and mere weeks of having her as his ward would prove his untimely end.
To his inner sinner’s disappointment, his head didn’t land up her petticoats. Instead, he gripped the ladder on either side of her knees, a frothy confection of jaconet muslin and scalloped flounce keeping him from the previous, glorious view of luscious ankles and pink kid slippers on dainty feet.
“We haven’t crashed yet, have we?” Trevor asked triumphantly, even as he felt the ladder shift a bit more. “Now give me the blasted book.”
She partially turned on the ladder, twisting about so that she faced him. The movement didn’t do anything to enhance their stability.
He jerked his gaze upward, past the tempting curve of her breasts, lovingly delineated beneath the clinging, pale fabric. Up the creamy hint of her throat visible above her gown’s demure neckline. All the way to her face. And, as always when he looked upon her, the full effect of her beauty hit him like a blow to the bread-basket.
Lady Virtue was despicably lovely. Lustrous mahogany hair, warm brown eyes sparkling with intelligence and fringed with long lashes. A dainty nose, aristocratic cheekbones, a defiant tilt to her chin, and a mouth that was full, lush, and just begging to be kissed. But it was the way she carried herself that made her irresistible—proud, stubborn, and utterly saucy.
If she’d been a widow or an unhappy wife or any other female with whom a dalliance was possible, he’d have bedded her in an instant. But she was his ward, and she was also the bane of his existence, so he had to make a daily effort to restrain his inconvenient lust.
Whenever her lips were moving, he found it aided him greatly in this task.
Such as now.
“If you don’t go back down the ladder, I’ll have no choice but to kick you,” the minx declared, holding the book in her hand aloft and beyond his reach.
He moved up another rung, bringing his face in line with her waist. Which meant that if she followed through with her threat, one of those delicate pink slippers would land directly in the fall of his trousers. It would undoubtedly go a long way toward quelling his unwanted desire, but he wasn’t in the mood to be made a eunuch today.
“If you kick me, there will be consequences,” he growled. “Such as no books.”
Lady Virtue perpetually had a book in hand everywhere she went. Sometimes two. He found them everywhere, scattered about like little crumbs showing him where she’d been. His carriage, his drawing room, the breakfast table, the library divan, the garden.
There was no greater punishment than denying her reading fodder.
Her gaze narrowed. “That would be cruel of you.”
He raised a brow. “Have I ever claimed to be a kind man?”
They both knew he hadn’t. Because he wasn’t. He was bad. Unlikable. Irredeemable. A rogue, through and through.
