…
What demon had made her suggest to Rayne she was eloping? And her groom—Edmund Alistair Clarke, Viscount Belhaven, whom she’d never met and who was probably ninety if he was a day.
Miss Watson’s love had been the first name that popped into her head when Rayne rightly—though arrogantly—assumed she had made a fool of herself by chasing after him.
Again.
Seemed reasonable enough at the time. Not that her frozen mind had been working.
And, though she’d mentioned Lord Belhaven to hide her hurt and to take Rayne down a peg—or ten—had Rayne been humbled?
No. Of course not.
The man had no shame. So long as he wasn’t her aim, he didn’t appear to object at all to her flight.
Again, so much for Farring’s theory that he cared.
And yet, he had the audacity to steal glances at her unbound breasts as if he found thinly covered nipples the most fascinating things in the world.
Libertine.
How would he like such perusal?
She dropped her gaze to his feet and slowly took her fill. From the trousers that clung to his calves to the thighs which had sheltered her in their muscled warmth through the night.
There, she paused.
Ogling—she intended to prove—was a two-way sport.
Instead, the obvious protuberance beneath his falls ignited a slow burn in her belly, a fire that set the room and her heart askew.
Perspiration broke on her brow. Her already peaked nipples ached as they had yesterday, when she’d stared at his thighs…only worse.
Because now she knew how those thighs felt when wrapped around her waist.
No denying she wanted something from him—even if he didn’t deserve her in the least. Exactly what she wanted remained unclear.
Still, lust whispered terrible suggestions into her ear. Suggestions in the form of perfectly reasonable questions like—why shouldn’t she take him up on his offer to escort her to her nonexistent groom?
She’d havedaysto unravel the reason he affected her like no one else.
Days to closely observe this undercurrent that again and again proved strong enough to upturn her careful plans.
Days to work out what this hot, restless feeling portended.
She took a deep breath.
“Very well,” she spoke to his thighs. Or, rather, the tented apex between them.
“Julia! Look atme.”
She did. He’d flushed the color of a scorching sunset—devastating, in contrast with his sky-blue eyes and midnight hair.
“I will allow you to escort me to my Alistair.”
Even Miss Watson had probably never taken the liberty of calling the man by any one of his Christian names. Which made her just a little ashamed.
Rayne’s mouth moved fishlike as he struggled to find words. “Did—did you bring clothes?”
