Page 51
An outraged gasp tried to pass her lips, but she meshed them together.
Too far.
That was too far.
Mercy refused to allow her mind to wander that treacherous path. Ronan Brockman murmuring the word fertility in that rumbling purr might very well be the most evocative thing she’d ever heard.
It was time to leave before things heated up any further. Before Mercy said or did something imprudent that she’d later regret.
“I shall bid you good evening, my lord.” She angled toward the door. Hopefully, her bath awaited her, but she wasn’t saying a word about it to him. Tomorrow perhaps she would thank him properly for his consideration in ordering a bath for her. Tonight, mentioning a bath would only lead to thoughts of being naked.
No, indeed.
Mercy wasn’t going to do something so profoundly ill-advised and provocative in front of him.
“Running away?” Ronan softly taunted.
Mercy froze for half a second, one hand on the latch, before tearing from the chamber as if hell’s hoary hounds nipped her heels.
Yes. I am running away.
His rich laugh teased her ears until she closed her chamber door.
After turning the key in the lock, Mercy leaned against the panel, hands braced on either side of her hips. Chest rising and falling with adrenaline sweeping through her, she bit the inside corner of her mouth.
How could she go from loathing him one minute to melting from his touch the next?
She wasn’t a promiscuous miss. She was a moral woman.
What just happened in the nursery must never transpire again.
Muffled footfalls echoed in the corridor, and she held her breath as they stopped directly outside her chamber door.
“Good night, Mercy. Sweet dreams.”
Allowing her eyelids to flutter closed, she whispered, “Lord, what am I going to do?”
She will receive the best of care, as do all of the girls who make Haven House and Academy
for the Enrichment of Young Women their home. Rest assured, the child will be loved,
educated, and raised to be a poised, confident, and accomplished young woman,
capable of making her own way in the world. I pride myself on my unwavering
discretion and surreptitiousness. Not a single one of my charges’ true
identities has ever become known. Your privacy is assured.
~ Mrs. Hester Shepherd in a letter to Mercy Feathers’s benefactor
Bond Street, London
A fortnight later
Why, by all of the divine powers, had Ronan agreed to this outing?
Barely refraining from rolling his eyes and turning on his heel, he nodded a greeting to a pair of ladies wearing godawful bonnets and held the door open for them as they entered Le Belle Haute Couture before him. Whispering and looking over their shoulders to where he stood, they swept inside the decidedly frilly feminine establishment.
