Desire.
Rampant after the fight.
Distraction was indeed now required.
“Where did you learn this?”
“My mother. She used to suffer from megrims and this helped her. Turn towards the desk a little, Mr Cadwalader.”
“I told you to call me Hugh,” he groused.
But a murmur was the lone response he received.
The fire crackled and he became aware that her hands were slowing, the kneading softer, though the fire within himself raged unabated. Amelia fascinated him and he wanted to know all of her – what had formed her, how she’d come to work for the Foreign Office, what her favoured food was and which side of the bed she liked.
“Is your mother still alive?”
“No.”
“Siblings?”
“No.”
“Was your mother involved in our line of work?”
“No.”
Gads. This was like pulling teeth with sugar tongs. “Tell me of your father?”
“He…” Her hesitation spun into a lengthy pause, then…
Silence.
And Hugh realised that whoever her parents were, she was reticent to speak of them.
“I hope you know you can tell me anything, Amelia. Or nothing, if you so wish.” He twisted on the sofa and she was so near, he could smell her rosewater and the faintest hint of gunpowder still in her hair. “But anything you share with me would never pass these four walls, or indeed my lips, without your permission. I just… I just want to know all of you, ’tis all.”
She plucked at her robe and chewed at a lip.
“My…my father was the late fourth Duke of Swanford,” she blurted.
That did take the wind from his sails. High-born indeed. “But why are you–”
“My mother… My mother was known amongst theTonas…” She paused as though seeking courage. “The… The Butterfly Courtesan.”
Ah.
That would explain her reticence.
Hugh vaguely remembered the Butterfly Courtesan from many, many years ago at some demi-rep affair. An absolute beauty with dark-blond hair and jade eyes, blood-red lips and a short, curvaceous stature.
Of course, he’d been a mere cub and she’d have been in her thirties by then, but her raw sensuality had lit a room.
And Amelia…was her daughter.
He could see the likeness now. Though her amber eyes must have come from her father.
She swivelled from him, muttering.
