When it was over, she was breathless as she reached up to remove her wet millinery, glancing around the pleasant interior of the cottage. The entry hall was small but neat, the scent of fresh paint in the air. To her left, a staircase presumably led to bedchambers. To her right, a door was open to a small parlorwhere a fire crackled in the grate, accompanied by a settee and some chairs.
“It hardly looks like a den of vice,” she observed.
“That is upstairs,” he commented lightly, taking off his hat and hers and hanging them on a hook by the door.
“I also don’t see an orgy.”
“Is that disappointment I detect in your honeyed voice, minx?” he teased.
She couldn’t stop her smile at his antics. This lightness was a new side of him, and she liked bantering with him far better than sparring with him.
“Of course not, rake,” she countered as she tugged off her gloves. “I fear I am yet too much a novice for such depravity.”
He shrugged out of his coat and hung it on a hook alongside their hats, then removed his gloves and took hers as well, laying both pairs neatly atop his coat. “What makes you thinkIam not too much of a novice for such depravity as well?”
“Your reputation.” Rumors about him were plentiful. She’d heard many.
“Exaggerated, I’m sure. Let me help you with your coat.” He stopped before her and began undoing the buttons of her coat. “You’ll catch an ague if you stay in this sodden fabric.”
She held still for his ministrations, feeling odd to be tended by him so intimately and yet enjoying it all the same. “I am fully capable of undoing buttons myself, you know.”
“Yes, but judging from the state of your bedchamber, if I allow you to do so, you’ll simply toss it onto the floor.” His gaze flicked to hers as he continued his task. “Besides, I like tending to you. You’re like a little lost lamb who needs to find her way.”
She pursed her lips. “I don’t think I prefer to be likened to a lamb.”
“You’remylamb.” He finished and drew the sleeves down her arms, which wasn’t the simplest of tasks given their fitted and wet state. “At least until the house party’s end.”
She didn’t want to think about the house party’s end.
Didn’t want it to end at all.
But she rather did like being his.
At last, he had the coat removed and moved to hang it on the last empty hook. She admired his fine form as he did so, noting the way his tweed trousers lovingly silhouetted his firm derriere. There was something about the moment that felt so wonderfully domestic, as if they were husband and wife taking care of each other. But that was not to be.
Before long, she would be another man’s wife.
Aubrey turned back to her, his gaze searching. “Why so Friday-faced suddenly?”
She didn’t want to confide her foolish yearnings to him, so she shook her head. “I was only wondering why you have brought me here, aside from sheltering from the rain.”
“Come with me, and I’ll show you.” He offered her his arm.
She accepted it, and he led her down the hall.
He was a bloody idiot,but Aubrey couldn’t recall when he had last been so eager as he led Rhiannon down the hall to the kitchen of the cottage. He had spent the afternoon arranging a surprise for her, telling himself that he was doing so only to bed her again, this time somewhere that he wouldn’t need to fret over how loud she was when she came. That he was a heartless, despicable cad who was intent upon ravishing his good chum’s sister and he would go to any lengths to get what he wanted—namely her, beneath or atop him.
But in truth, spoiling her pleased him. She had been like a girl with her excitement over his proposed bicycle ride. He could lie to himself no longer, however, as they crossed the threshold of the kitchen to where a sumptuous picnic had been laid out for their delectation. He had plotted this jaunt with her not to seduce, but to win her smile.
She had him wrapped around her damned pinkie finger.
“A picnic dinner for the two of us,” he said, leading her to the table.
“You did this?” she asked, taking in the room with an astonished look on her lovely face.
“With the help of some servants,” he admitted. “I thought it would be nice to enjoy a meal together, and since we cannot do so in the dining room, I reckoned this cottage would suit the purpose well enough.”
“Oh, Aubrey.” She turned to him, looking at him as if he were a knight errant who had just returned from grand exploits in her name. “This was so thoughtful of you.”
