Roen chuckled. “I am climbing down from that pedestal now. I’ll meet with Victorine at a time of my choosing and preferably with little advance notice. It will be better if she doesn’t have time to plan.”
“If you think she is going to arrive with a derringer in her reticule, then I forbid you to go.”
He blinked. “Forbid?”
“Yes.” Lily was unapologetic. She tossed the letter and envelope on the table. “I forbid it.”
“All right,” he said easily. “But I don’t think that. She has something other than a pistol up her sleeve... or in her reticule.”
“Not amusing, Roen.”
“She’s not going to shoot the man she claims is the father of her baby.”
Lily shuddered. She had been largely successful at ignoring the fact of Victorine’s pregnancy.
Roen closed the distance to Lily and took her by the elbows. “I promise it will be fine.” He bent his head and kissed her lightly on the mouth. “Promise.” When he pulled back, Lily was still frowning. “What do I need to do to convince you?”
“Take me with you.”
Roen arched one eyebrow then the other. “Why?”
“Because if you’re lying to me and it is dangerous, you won’t allow me to accompany you.”
“I liked it better when you thought I didn’t lie.”
She ignored that. “Well? I think it’s time we met, Victorine and I.”
He winced. “That’s not something that’s generally done in polite society, introducing one’s wife to one’s former mistress.”
“What gave you the idea that Frost Falls cares two bits for polite society? Our wedding reception was in a saloon. Buzz Winegarten used to court Amanda Springer and now her husband tends bar for him. Our doctor stopped a bank robbery with a soup bone. The sheriff, who may or may not be the bastard child of Thaddeus Frost, was responsible for burning a barn to the ground out at Twin Star, and his deputy is head over heels in love with a China girl who could have killed you if she’d had a mind to.”
Roen said the only thing that occurred to him. “A soup bone?”
“Some other time. What do you say?”
“The library’s open to everyone. I guess that means you can be there, too.”
Pleased with herself, Lily put her arms around Roen’s neck and planted kisses on his mouth, his jaw, his cheeks, and bit him gently on his neck just above his collar. She laughed when he pressed her hard against the door.
“What?” he whispered at her ear. “I like it when you’re full of yourself. You’re a lively handful.”
“Is that your idea of a compliment?”
“Yes.”
“All right, then.” Lily turned her head so he could nuzzle more of her neck. Her breasts swelled above the edge of her corset when he passed a hand over them. Even through the fabric of her gown and shift, she could feel the heat of hispalm. Lily didn’t know when he put his hands on her waist that he intended to lift her, but that’s what he did. She wrapped her legs around him as he carried her to the table and she only lowered her legs once he set her down. He pushed up her skirt and palmed her bare knees above her stockings. He stepped into the space she made for him and he slid his hands under her shift and up her inner thighs.
Lily was a captive of his dark chocolate eyes. She imagined falling into them and liking it so much that she would stay there, joined to him in some fantastical manner, and know nothing but the pleasure of a hedonistic existence.
He touched his forehead to hers. “I don’t want you to wear drawers. In fact, I forbid it.”
“Forbid?” Her breath brushed his lips.
“Yes.”
She drew back and studied his face. “You’re serious.”
“I am.”
