He believed her. She wouldn’t mention their past encounter, or last. She was a woman of her word, a new and strangely appealing trait. But the close proximity of their estates, and the connection with Lord Bromley—the reason he’d left the disgusting equestrian wallpaper and polished checkered floorsof Grandfellow in the middle of the night to tromp through the woods and peer into every bedchamber window on the third floor of the neighboring house until he’d found Lady Daniella reading snugly in her bed—complicated what could have been irregular rendezvous as Lord Bromley would no doubt realize his daughter’s absences and the new Duke of Grandfellow’s happened to coincide. Nor would a routine visit excuse work, seeing as Percy had no siblings, or aunts, or mothers, or women relatives of any kind to use as a front.
He sighed. This had all been so much easier when no one had known who he was or where he rested his head at night.
“What am I to do with you?” he said.
Her voice sounded sleepy when she replied, “I’m up for another apology if you are.”
He laughed again, his side hurting from the frequency of use. She understood there’d be no honorable actions on his part and yet she wanted round two. “Insatiable.” He was pleased and still painfully aroused. “We risked much doing it once,” he said, reminding himself. Any number of household maids could’ve come at the sound of their raised voices. “It would be unwise to tempt fate a second time.”
She huffed. “Tomorrow, then?”
And again, he laughed. Too much more and he’d hurt himself. “We shouldn’t.”
“We cannot stop!”
No, they couldn’t. He’d risk pistols at dawn, hanging, and the altar to taste those silky folds again. Just the thought of what sound she’d make if he pressed the end of his knife’s handle into her... he needed to leave before logic became the enemy.
She sat up and worried her lip with her teeth, her earlier light and passion gone. “I-If you’re disgusted with how I responded to your knife—”
“Don’t finish that sentence, or I’ll put you over my knee.” He softened his growling tone with a quick peck to her lips. “I liked it, all of it. Theyoupart especially.”
Her sigh of relief irked. Someone somewhere had said something they shouldn’t have to make her so ashamed.
He leaned forward to kiss her jaw and promised, “Next time, I’ll use three blades, one for each pleasure point.”
Her eyes went wide, but her lips parted on a catch of breath. “There’s more than one?”
“Many more.”
She wetted those lips, and Percy had the urge to begin her instruction on pleasure immediately, starting with how that pretty little mouth could surround his cock and make a grown man worship and curse at the same time.
“Definitely more than a duke,” she whispered.
Running his thumb across her lip, he let his defenses slip brick by brick, not seeing the harm now when she had just as much to lose. “I was an officer in the army. Lieutenant Cole of Her Majesty’s Third Hussars.” He grinned. “Among other stations and titles when it suited me.”
Her eyes widened. “An officer?” That beautiful mind whirled behind those eyes before they narrowed. “But you’re an officer no longer, not in the official capacity.”
Percy blew out a stream of air through his teeth, his reaction alarmingly lacking panic. Who was he kidding? His defenses had crumbled away to nothing years ago in a dark courtyard with nothing but a brush of innocent lips and a will of iron that could pierce his coal-coated heart.
“I’m not an officer in any capacity anymore.” He acknowledged her cleverness and loyalty to the promise she’d made him in that same courtyard with a foolish bit of honesty. “But I followed my orders religiously and credibly. I do still, but for a more honorable master.”
“So that night at the Leishires’ ball—”
“Was its own mission to protect a peer of the realm and his wife.”
He waited for an incessant stream of questions. The woman had a knack for interrogation that would make the Home Office question their policy on recruiting ladies of theton. But if he—Percy, the agent who knew everyone’s response before they were granted opportunity to speak—thought he could predict the mind of Lady Daniella, he was a fool.
“Thank you.” She stood and smoothed down her nightgown before padding to the washbasin and wiping away the evidence of her climax with a strip of flannel.
He watched her, caught between remaining silent to enjoy the erotic view of her lifting her leg while her hand disappeared beneath her torn dress, or asking stupidly, “You’re thanking me?”
“Yes, for telling me the truth.”
So polite, so straightforward. Then why was he so irritated? “I could still be lying. I could have woven a web of tales you’ve no hope of untangling to prove I’m right or wrong.”
She didn’t so much as look up from her task of washing her thighs. “You were honest, I know. You have a tell.”
The hell he did!
