The French bulldog that had been destroying the solitude of his home ever since she had arrived shivering and wrapped in a blanket, held in the elder Miss Fox’s arms as if she were a baby. It had taken remarkably little time to prove that she was not, in fact, an innocent babe, but instead the spawn of Beelzebub.
“Cease that at once,” he snapped.
Dandy didn’t even pause in her ministrations. Instead, he felt the sharp prick of teeth on his earlobe as the dog took a nibble.
“Damnation.” He lifted the squirming dog from his chest. “Bad Dandy.”
Lion settled her on the floor and sat up, wincing at a twinge in his back as he rubbed his ear. He had been reading in the library, too unsettled to sleep, some port at hand, and his eyes had grown heavy. Instead of venturing to his bedchamber, he had lain on the Grecian couch with the intention of closing his eyes for a few moments.
Given the darkness beyond the windows, it looked as if he had slept for far longer than he’d intended.
Dandy leapt onto the cushion and rose on her hind legs to lick his ear again.
“Curse it, mongrel,” he growled, rising to his feet to glower down at the boisterous dog. “Why aren’t you in the stables where you belong?”
He had his answer when a familiar voice called quietly from beyond the library.
“Dandy? Where are you, my naughty little darling?”
Lovely. Now he was going to have to face Miss Fox.Alone.In the shadows of the night.
“Dandy?” she called again.
The dog’s pointed ears went up, and she angled her face toward the partially ajar door, listening. Then she jumped from the couch and raced across the carpets.
Lion had but a moment to compose himself, running a hand through his hair in an effort to tame the wayward waves that were a constant source of irritation to him, before Miss Fox appeared in the doorway.
Wearing nothing but a nightgown.
His mouth went dry and desire unfurled within him, like a summer rose suddenly blooming. Her hair was unbound, falling down her back as it had been when he had spied her sitting before the fire earlier. Once again, her toes were bare beneath the hem of her gown. As she moved, the fabric clung to her decadent feminine form in all the best places, making him uncomfortably aware that she was not wearing a corset. Her breasts were round and full and tempting, her waist and hips deliciously curved.
“There you are,” she said, bending down to pat Dandy on the head, clearly unaware of his presence in the shadows. “It wouldn’t do for the dreadful duke to realize you’ve been running about.”
The dreadful duke?
Grimly, Lion cleared his throat.
Miss Fox jumped and straightened, emitting a high-pitched squeal. “Marchingham. I didn’t know you were there.”
He moved toward her. “That much is woefully apparent.”
As was the fact that her nipples were now hard. Rude, pointed tips jutting toward him. A temptation he should not be noticing. This was Miss Adelia Fox, scandalous hoyden and menace to his sanity and his sisters’ reputations. The proof was before him. No lady would leave her bedchamber in the midst of the night in such a shocking state of dishabille, particularly when she was staying in someone else’s home.
She was a problem.Trouble.Just like her ear-eating dog.
“I hope you weren’t eavesdropping on my private conversation with Dandy,” she said with the airs of a queen.
Miss Adelia Louise Fox was the most outlandish woman he had ever met.
“Did you just smile?” she asked, suspicion in her voice.
Was he smiling? Good God, he actuallywas. How utterly horrifying.
Lion stopped before her, which was a mistake because the proximity made her scent rush over him, violets and orris root and soft, warm woman. For a mindless moment, he found himself wondering if her perfume would linger in his bedclothes and upon his pillow. But then he realized how ludicrous such a thought was, and he promptly banished it.
“I cannot help my natural reaction to preposterous behavior, Miss Fox,” he told her.
She eyed him curiously as the little dog sat upon her feet, facing him as well with dark-brown eyes. “You aren’t angry?”
