Page 132 of Outrageous

“But you’re right,” James said, shifting. “I wouldn’t want to be a footman.”

“Me neither.”

James grinned down at him. “I reckon you’d be the smallest footman I’ve ever seen.”

“Very droll.”

“Where’d you get such small livery, anyhow? And it looks a bit, er, odd,” he added.

“I found it in one of the attics at Cross Hall.”

James leaned down and sniffed. “Ah, thought I smelled camphor.”

Andrew lifted up a velvet sleeve peppered with bare spots. “It has the look of the Baroque era about it.”

“Oh? And when would that be?”

“Late sixteen hundreds.”

“Ah, quite an old place, then? How are the stables?”

Andrew shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re, er, stables.”

James clucked his tongue. “Now you see, that’s the sort of answer that would get you in trouble with your new mistress.”

“If I still have a position after this. And if the two of them do what we hope they are going to do.” Andrew allowed all his worry to show as he looked up at James. “Were we mad to put them together like this??”

James’s mouth pulled up into that crooked smile Andrew found so comforting. “You mean like two ferrets in a sack?”

Andrew gave another moan.

“What time is it?” James asked.

Andrew pulled out the serviceable pocket watch he’d had to purchase after his uncle took his father’s watch. “We’ve still got another hour,” he said, returning the watch to its pocket and looking up.

“An hour,” James said, his gaze speculative.

“An hour,” Andrew agreed, and he turned in the uncomfortable seat, and they watched the countryside pass by in silence.

Chapter 27

It was Godric who drew back from their marathon kiss first. Of course he was also the one in pain—two kinds of pain, now. “Darling?”

“Mmmm?” She kissed his chin, his cheeks, his nose.

He shifted his hips and whimpered. “Pull the curtains shut,” he said in a hoarse voice.

She froze.

“Do it, Eva,” he repeated, using that voice—the one that had always commanded instant obedience from his men. Naturally Eva hesitated just long enough to make him worry it wasn’t nearly as effective on women. At least on one woman.

“I’ll make you glad you did,” he promised.

Honey, it seemed, really was more effective than vinegar, and she quickly reached for the partially opened side drapes and pulled them shut.

“Close that gap in the front ones, too, sweetheart.”

He felt her slender body jolt, but she complied.