She frowned at the page. "Really now. A posterior can't be famous. It's anatomy. Muscle groups and gluteal positioning. A matter of structure and gravity."
She turned the page with scholarly skepticism.
Caution: Never, under any circumstance, take his chair.
"Oh please," she muttered. "That sounds a bit extreme! Even for a man who believes in monogrammed towels and corporal flattery."
She settled in like a cat replete with warm milk and opened her journal to jot a few notes on exaggerated masculine lore.
While she was about to write a claim about overcompensation in Regency patriarchy, a shadow fell across her lap.
She looked up.
And up.
The man looming above her was tall enough to cast shade with his presence alone. Not metaphorical shade—actual shade. Wanton had to tilt her head to properly glare up at him, and even then, she suspected she was being out-glared by at least three inches of disdain.
His robe hung with scandalous laziness at the waist, revealing a chest dusted with just enough hair to imply sin without shouting it. Steam clung to him like a lover, curling alonghis damp collarbones and trailing down the tantalizing V that absolutely did not belong in a spa brochure.
And the hair.
Oh, hell's boudoir, the hair.
Dark-brown and slightly damp. One insolent curl had dared to fall across his forehead like a rogue banner in a campaign for Moral Superiority.
And those eyes. Ice-blue and hooded, like they’d seen war, voted against merriment, and routinely canceled Christmas. When they swept over her, it felt less like a glance and more like a cold-blooded cross-examination.
His mouth was unsmiling and aggressively symmetrical. A mouth that said, I disapprove of your existence, but would probably still kiss like a scandal waiting to happen.
Wanton had read about men like this.
Lords forged in battle, tempered by scandal, utterly impossible to flirt with unless one had a death wish and a backup corset.
He said nothing.
Which was frankly rude.
So she said, breezily, “Excuse me?”
“What are you doing here?” His voice could have etched stone.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The spa is not a place for a country girl. Not even a pretty one.”
Her mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again, this time around a gasp and a flicker of indignation.
“I am not a country girl,” she said, wounded pride straightening her spine.
“No?” His gaze drifted lower with professional suspicion. “Then why did you arrive in a goat cart with only a chicken for protection?”
Her jaw dropped. “How—how do you know that?”
“You have hay in your skirts. Feathers in your hair. And rosemary tucked on your ear.”
Wanton sniffed and pocketed the herb. “Botanical emergency. And for your information, I am not here to be interrogated by a man who moisturizes with moral superiority. I am a female explorer.”
“And does this explorer have a name?”
