Lips whispered over her cheek from behind her. “Well, well, my governess. What might you be doing in my study?”
Hugh suppressed a tremor.
With his arm tight beneath her breasts, his torso pressed to her back and tied arms, and his nether regions snug within the curve of her derriere, he could feel each swell and dip.
She was slight within his arms but she fitted, moulding to his form.
Needless to say, he’d known at once that someone had entered his study as when the bell cord system for the servants had been installed, he’d had two further cords routed for his study – one to the door and the other to the pull-down leaf of the bureau, in the event that some miscreant found another means of entry.
Hugh set the bureau each night, Cruikshank locked and set the door, and should anyone intrude, one of the cords would pull and through a rather intricate set of pulleys, tug a bell in his bedchamber.
Hauled from a nightmare about Ross, he’d grabbed his knife and breeches before dashing downstairs to the adjoining room and, in utter silence, he’d pushed open the door masked by the stuccoed mouldings.
In time to watch his governess inspect the bookshelves and then head to his desk.
So he’d discarded his knife and lunged, felt her lushness as he’d pressed her to the leather surface, felt other more primitiveurges that were best consigned to the darkness until he had answers.
There had been no real need to bind her wrists with the tie from the curtains – except for his own gratification – but he’d told himself he needed to intimidate the truth from her, to have her scared and shocked and cowed and–
“Release me this instant, you clay-brained cur!”
Hugh tightened his grip.
From over her shoulder, he noted her breasts rise and fall with her swift breaths, the lantern glowing on the silken skin exposed above the scoop of her night-rail.
“How did you get in here?” he growled. “This study is locked.”
“It was open, I tell you. Now release me, you buckfitch!”
“Sweet liar,” he murmured, lips now feathering her cheek. “Cruikshank locks it each night.”And sets the door pull cord. How had she got past that?
“He’s indisposed, Mrs Dawkins told me.” She wriggled and the pleasure nigh gutted him. “So perhaps he forgot. Now release me! This is barbaric!”
Hugh stilled. “Indisposed?”
“Just so. His stomach pained him because Mrs Dawkins added a herb to his after-dinner toddy. For his gout.”
“Cruik hasn’t got gout.”
“He won’t now.”
Hugh stifled a laugh. “So, your reason for being here, Miss Jones? Let me guess… Sleep, for some reason, eluded you and hence you thought to descend to my study in the dead of night in search of a book to read?”
“Precisely.” She sniffed. “That and some paper. There being no library in this house.” Her hands wriggled. “And I do not expect to be so accosted for no more than a bout of insomnia and a thirst for knowledge. Now untie my hands.”
“No.” For he believed not a word. His lips drifted over her skin – soft and fragrant of roses. “Which book?”
He watched her throat swallow.
“A Byrne.”
Hugh smiled against her… “‘Within the endless squall of eve, I wait. A writhing, nigh threshing unrest. ’Till footfall, a caress, breath of my fate. And peace, she draws me to her breast.’ I happen to know the poet Byrne dedicated that to his wife. Do you like it?”
“It’s most…” Her teeth nibbled that sweet lip. “Passionate.”
“The Welsharepassionate, my governess. About many things.”
“So it appears.”
