She pushed away from him at once and knelt, searching for the book he had dropped to the carpets. It had fallen on its spine. And, as fortune would have it—mayhap misfortune, in this instance—the engraving upon the opened pages was positively indecent. She gaped at it.
Was the gentleman truly beneath the lady’s raised skirts with his head between her thighs?
“My, what have you been reading, darling?”
The wry question, issued in Blade Winter’s deep, delicious baritone, shook her from her momentary shock. Face heating anew, she retrieved the volume and snapped it closed before rising to her feet.
“I told you, sir, that it is not mine. Nor have I been reading it. I was merely asked to fetch the forgotten volume and return it to its rightful owner,” she said, avoiding his gaze, all too aware of her heated cheeks. And ears. Heavens, even her eyebrows were likely ablaze at this point.
What manner of scandalous treatise had Lady Aylesford required her to retrieve? The viscountess had said the book was a secret matter, and that Felicity should take care not to allow anyone else to see her carrying it about. But she had not said it was…lewd.
Bawdy.
Despicably sinful.
Wrongly intriguing.
Against her will, she wanted to carry the book to her chamber and page through it herself without Mr. Blade Winter’s scrutiny upon her.
“Return it to its rightful owner,” Mr. Winter repeated, his tone mocking. “Of course, my lady.”
He did not believe her.
She ground her jaws. “It is not mine, if that is what you suggest.”
He shrugged. “I suggest nothing. However, you are the only one I see attempting to retrieve the book in question.”
He was not wrong about that. However…
“You are the only one I see attempting to fetch our hostess’s sewing,” she countered. “It is odd indeed for a gentleman such as yourself to retrieve such a thing. Why not a servant?”
“That is what I want to know,” he grumbled.
And she believed him. He may be many things, Mr. Blade Winter, but it did not appear that liar was amongst the many appellations which could be applied to him.
“Lady Emilia requested you fetch her sewing from this salon,” Felicity said, repeating his earlier claim.
“Do I look like the sort of man who goes about searching for sewing, for Christ’s sake?” he asked.
No, he did not. Instead, he looked like the sort of man who could make a lady bend to his whims with a mere grin. He looked like temptation incarnate. The sort of man every lady was sternly warned to avoid by her chaperones prior to her comeout. And every day thereafter.
“Of course not.” She frowned at him, understanding beginning to dawn upon her. “But Lady Emilia sent you here to this salon, yes?”
He nodded.
“And someone else also sent me here to fetch her book,” she said, deliberately keeping Lady Aylesford’s name out of their discussion.
“Do you know what I think, Lady Felicity?”
She blinked at him, flustered, confused, holding the book to her still-racing heart. “What is it that you think, Mr. Winter?”
“I think the book is yours.”
“It is not!” she denied hotly.
“Hmm,” was all he said.
The vexing, infuriatingly handsome man.
