“I thought you to be seducing your way through the alphabet.”
“Gads, what do you take me for?”
“A scoundrel who ties up his governess.”
Mr Cadwalader’s lip quirked. “Lady Tremlach is…malleable. Sir Edmund Twyford’s wife will be more difficult.”
Amelia smothered her scowl. He was an experienced intelligence officer and used whatever means he must, but the thought of him tangling with Tremlach caused a certain queasiness. “I’m surprised you haven’t seduced Tremlach already. You attended her soiree.”
“Prying governess. But I don’t use seduction as a matter of course.”
Amelia raised a disbelieving brow.
He gave a languid shrug. “And anyhow, my tastes at the moment seem to veer towards…”
Not sure she wished to know, Amelia drew ba–
The curtain tie looped around her nape and a somehow freed hand dragged her until she fell body-long into Mr Cadwalader’s lap.
A growl in her ear. “…roses and gunpowder.”
And with that, lips descended on hers – to ravish, to possess.
If there’d been some warning, Amelia might have resisted, but there was no resisting such passion, such abrupt ardour. He was all fervent male and there was nothing to be done but shove hands to his hair and…
Possess in equal measure.
His palms roamed down her back, to her rump, wrenched her yet closer.
Lips moved to her ear, urgent and–
“If you untie my feet…” he growled.
Amelia jerked back. “You did that just so I’d untie your feet?”
“What? No! I did that because I wanted to.”
Breathing deep, Amelia clambered from his lap and smoothed her skirts. “There will be no further improprieties.”
“Why not?”
“It distracts from work.”
“So, you find me distracting?” A cocksure grin was accompanied by freed arms being folded.
Amelia glared: madder than a hornet that he’d unfastened the cunning knot of complexity she’d formed around his wrists, vexed he’d nattered on to keep her from realising what he’d been doing and mighty peeved – in her view still – that he’d kissed her purely to have his ankles untied.
So with a swish of skirts, she gathered up her carpetbag.
“Where are you going?”
Amelia marched across the shadowed warehouse and opened the door.
“Miss Jones! Come ba–”
And slammed it shut, the weak sunlight causing her to squint.
She pulled her shoulders back and set forth, then noticed her carpetbag was unfastened and so lowered it to the ground. But the deuced thing would not close.
