Her knee jabbed his thigh. Her elbow grazed his ribs.
“Careful,” he bit out as her hand pressed—oh dear?—
He made a short, choking sound and by the time she realized how the two of them must appear, it was already too late.
“What the devil,” a furious voice demanded, “is going on in here?”
Melanie recognized that voice immediately.
And when she twisted around, a cold dread crept over her skin. Surely, it couldn’t be who she thought it was…
“Oh no...” she whispered, her breath dying in her throat as her gaze darted around the library.
There were faces—too many faces—staring back at them.
Her brother and his wife, who weren’t even supposed to be in London, stood in the doorway, their expressions a mixture of shock, anger, and disappointment. Their host and hostess loomed behind them, along with at least two other couples she didn’t recognize.
She was vaguely aware of the duke’s hand moving, his touch firm yet careful, as he adjusted her bodice with a swift, almost practiced efficiency. Heat surged through her, not just from his proximity but from the humiliating awareness of their tangled position on the floor.
With a sharp twist of his body, he rose to one knee, his arm curling around her to help her up as well. The intimate press of his chest as he steadied her was enough to make her pulse race, though mortification quickly smothered any other sensation.
Awkwardly, she pushed away, smoothing her skirts as she stood. Her gaze darted to him—his disheveled cravat, the way his hair had fallen slightly out of place—and then, with mountinghorror, to the wide-eyed spectators who were still gaping at them.
Perhaps, she thought miserably, not talking for the rest of her life wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all…
AN IRATE BROTHER
Malum closed his eyes for one second and exhaled a long-suffering sigh.
This. This sort of thing was precisely why he had avoided having anything to do with thetonfor most of his adult life.
Well, one of the reasons.
Not that it really mattered now.
In the thirty seconds—which felt more like a lifetime—that it took Lady Melanie to climb off him, Malum had catalogued the pertinent details of his predicament.
He had been discovered lying on the floor in front of a romantic fire, with an unmarried lady.
Alone—just the two of them.
Behind closed doors.
By her brother, no less, who was a trusted and valuable associate.
Then there was Lady Melanie’s gown which, through no fault of his own, was torn at the hem and the bodice in such a way that it utterly failed to preserve her modesty.
And lastly, if he didn’t manage to steer his mind away from the all-too-vivid memory of her body pressed against his—andthe entirely natural reaction that followed—the situation might slip from embarrassing to outright catastrophic.
Straightening his jacket with deliberate precision, Malum met Standish’s irate glare head-on, not allowing his expression to betray even a hint of unease.
“I wasn’t aware you’d returned to London,” he said, his tone as casual as if they were exchanging pleasantries over brandy rather than standing knee-deep in a mess guaranteed to make tomorrow’s gossip columns explode.
The Earl of Standish shared the same fair coloring as his siblings, though his eyes were sharper, colder—a trait Malum chalked up to their history. After all, Standish had once stood in theDomus, begging for help after inheriting his title under suspicious circumstances. Malum had obliged, in his own backhanded way. Not exactly the foundation for a warm alliance.
Still, none of that seemed to matter in this moment—not the lingering allegations of murder, not Standish’s questionable rise to the title, and certainly not their shared history. Not in light of these circumstances.
“Malum.” Standish’s voice was low, but the fury behind it was unmistakable. “I repeat: What the devil is going on in here?”
