“I don’t want to.”
“Nevertheless, it’s very late, and if your parents awake to find you gone from their household, they’ll be frantic.”
Whether it was true or not, she slowed as she considered his words. Taking the opportunity, he held open the dress for her.
“If you please,” he pressed, “you…distract me far too much, Amelia.” He’d never worked this damned hard to escape sex before. “A discussion this important needs to take place in a more proper setting.”
“No, it doesn’t. I’m getting impatient, Tristan. You’ve been courting me for weeks, now. I think you should take me to bed, and—”
“There’s always time for that later,” he interrupted. His trousers hung over the back of a chair, and he dropped her gown and grabbed for them. “I’m actually very tired tonight.”
“I could scream and wake everyone up,” she said in her honeyed voice.
Tristan narrowed his eyes. Bloody hell. “And then you’ll have to explain why you’re in my bedchamber, and I’m not in yours. They’ll say you’re forward.”
She pouted. “How can I be forward, or anything less than patient, when I’ve waited the entire Season for you to declare yourself?”
Amelia reached for his blanket. Tristan saw the move coming and grabbed her hand, holding her away from him. “If you make me angry,” he said in a firm voice, “I won’t marry you regardless of who gets ruined. My reputation would survive this.”
“But your pocketbook wouldn’t, because no one would want to marry you after the shameful way you’ve treated me.”
“I’ll risk it.” As long as he could bluff her into believing that, he might make it until dawn as a single gentleman.
“Humph.” Stomping her foot, she picked up the dress he’d dropped at her feet. “You know what I think? I think you’re in love with Lady Georgiana, and when you declare yourself to her, she’s only going to laugh at you. And then you’ll have to beg me to marry you. And I will make you beg.”
Turning half-away, he shrugged into his trousers and dropped the blanket. “I told you, we can discuss this over luncheon tomorrow. We’ll both be calmer and more rested.” And more dressed.
“Oh, very well.”
“Where are your shoes?”
She pointed. “Over there, by my cloak.”
He went to get them and light a lamp, while Amelia, annoyed and more than a little unsatisfied after seeing his fine form, yanked her gown up over her shoulders. As the lamplight flickered yellow into the room, she saw the toe of a woman’s stocking hanging out of his bedstand drawer. Tristan was still occupied with gathering the rest of her clothes, so she stepped over and pulled it free. A note came out with it, and she opened it, reading it quickly.
No wonder the viscount was reluctant to give up Georgiana Halley. She’d been sharing his bed. And leaving him stockings as mementos. Glancing at his bare, broad back, she took the second stocking out of its quaint little box and stuffed both of them and the note into her pocket.
So much for Lady Georgiana teaching Dare a lesson. That whore had planned to steal Tristan all along, and she was using the lesson as a ruse to keep her rivals from becoming suspicious. Well, she was in for a surprise now.
“All right, put on your shoes and cloak, and let’s go,” he growled.
For a moment she considered her original plan of rousing the household and forcing Dare into marriage. Her friends might laugh at her for being so desperate, though, after she’d spent weeks telling them how confident she was about his suit.
“I’m not very happy about this,” she muttered for effect, stepping into her shoes.
“Neither am I.” He didn’t help her on with her cloak, but handed it to her from as far away as he could reach. “Do you have a coach?” he asked as he shrugged into his coat.
“I have a hack waiting around the corner.”
“I’ll walk you, then.”
He was only worried that she would try something devious. She had his letter and the stockings, however. Holding one hand over her pocket to be certain nothing fell out, she preceded him down the stairs and out the front door.
“Remember, you are meeting me for luncheon tomorrow,” she said as they neared her hack. “I expect you to call on me at my parents’ home.”
“I will.” Abruptly he took a step closer. “I’m not pleased with this, Amelia. I don’t like tricks. Or traps.”
“I’m only thinking of both of us,” she returned, taking a half step away from him. She hadn’t seen this side of him before. She found it rather arousing. “I want a title, and you want my money. But I do have other offers this Season, Tristan. Consider that tomorrow, too.”
