Page 24 of The Rogue and the Viscountess

Candlelight flickered from within a first-story window, wavering and then still, as if someone had entered the room and put down a candlestick. Prunella paused and watched. After a moment, a head with tousled brown hair passed in view, then turned about.

That was his room, then. Second to the south. Just beside her own. If she’d only waited…but the anticipation was part of the fun, was it not?

Prunella crept in the side door beneath a small porch and stole up the side stair, hoping she wouldn’t run across any servants, a maid coming up to her room, or a valet, if Pete had one, coming down from his. There was no traffic in Rowan Hill this time of night. The runner of carpet in the hallway swallowed her footsteps as she tiptoed toward the room she hoped was Pete’s. Softly, without knocking, she pressed on the handle and pushed open the door.

His dinner coat lay over a chair positioned at the foot of the bed. It was a large, grand bed, hung with drapes of heavily embroidered butternut silk, not built with the usual four posters but with a canopy that jutted out above like the roof over a monarch’s throne. It was a bed for an emperor, for a king.

Prunella stared for a full moment, entranced by the luxury. The candlestick flickered on a side table that doubled as a writing desk. The room was masculine in its décor but warm in its tone. Much like the man.

It was also empty. She swept her gaze over the space several times, but it would be impossible to miss a man his size lurking about. He wasn’t here.

That was a sign, then. She was being foolish. Disappointment knotted her stomach as she softly closed the door and tiptoed to her own chamber. He wasn’t waiting for her to come to him, as she’d somehow imagined. He had held her in his arms—well, over his shoulder—when he plucked her from her carriage, he had sat pressed to her side as he brought her to his house, he had kissed her in the garden, and all through dinner he had sent her the most interesting looks, some she would swear were admiring.

But he wasn’t trying to arrange an evening rendezvous.

Her room was luxurious and hollow, and as she paced the carpet, too unsettled to sit, Prunella wondered if she just might hide here until whatever danger Pete supposed she was in had passed. She could have meals brought up and her chamberpot emptied, her own silk-papered, damask-lined prison. She couldn’t bear to face Pete if she was besotted and he was not. There was nothing more ridiculous than a woman who hung her heart on an unsuitable man, and good heavens, no one was discussing whether hearts were involved.

She simply would pretend she’d never felt that flare of interest in him, nor thought she saw an answering burn in his gaze. She’d submit to being his guest for a day or three, enjoying this lovely house, and then she’d return to Lydia and the reckoning and the widow’s life in London she already knew was going to be stale, and quiet, and—

There was someone outside.

Prunella ran to the side window and pushed up the sash. Below, a wild-looking whitebeam stood at the side of the house. Amidst the autumn berries and thick leaves, the branches bending under his weight, stood Pete.

As she gaped at him, he held a finger to his lips in the universal request for silence.

She couldn’t. “What in blazes are you doing?” she hissed. My word, she was cursing. Prunella never used colorful language.

“Climbing, I hope.”

She gripped the windowsill as a branch swayed and he clutched the side of the building to steady himself. He was too far away for her to pull him up, and at any rate, she wasn’t strong enough to hold a regular full-size man, much less a larger-than-life-size one like Pete Wilkins.

“You couldn’t come to my door?”

“I was afraid the maid would see and gossip to my grandmother.”

“So the alternative is to get your neck broken? Oh, good heavens. Please don’t fall.” She dug her fingernails into the stone sill as the branch swayed in a different direction. The whitebeam was sturdy, a mature tree, but Prunella couldn’t imagine how he hadn’t crashed to the ground yet. Sheer determination alone.

“If you’ll stand back, I can make it to your window.”

“I don’t see that you can.” Prunella hung over the sill, trying to determine how he intended to climb the rest of the wall. He stepped onto the pediment capping the ground-floor window, then hauled himself up by the string course, the projecting band of stone that ran about the entire building, delineating the first story from the ground floor.

Good heavens, the man was strong. His foot found purchase in the rough rubble stone dressing the side of the house, and in the next instant, he was standing on the string course, balancing on the lip of stone. Prunella hastily stepped backward as he levered himself over the windowsill and landed on his feet like an enormous cat.

Then stood to face her. In her room.

He wore his waistcoat but had rolled up the cuffs of his white shirt. His neckcloth was gone. His thighs bulged in the thin breeches. A leaf nestled in his hair.

Prunella’s entire body had been doused with brandy and then lit on fire, like a plum pudding.

“You’re fortunate that wasn’t a hawthorn.” She ran a hand through his hair and plucked out the leaf, glossy green on top, silvery white on the underside.

The next instant, she was in his arms. He closed the distance, or she stepped toward him, or both things happened at once, and the result was, she was kissing him again. And it was glorious. Better than the memory she’d spun through her mind all evening.

His mouth was hot and sweet and his tongue sweeping into her mouth made her knees weaken. He caught and held her, firm hands at her waist, fanning the bellows blowing heat up through her center. Pete Wilkins holding her, kissing her, his body huge and strong and so firm against hers, was the most sensual experience Prunella had ever had in her life.

“Tell me if I should go,” he murmured against her lips.

The sound that emerged from her was an inarticulate moan as he did something with his tongue that made her knees weaken further, and made a treacherous rivulet of longing open between her legs. She’d taken an interest in bedsport with Edwin—there had been a kind of pleasure in it, and in the pleasure he took in her—but this was different. This felt…dangerous.