Page 27 of The Lady’s Deception

“Miss Gorse? Are you all right?”

Oh, God above. She was well and truly punished now for looking into that book. “Quite all right, thank you, Mr. Burke.”

Through the door, she heard him take a step closer. “Are you certain? You sounded as if you were in some pain.”

The latch shifted slightly. He’d laid his hand upon it. Oh, dear. Screwing up her courage, she rose and went to the door to reassure him. With every step, Eileen gripped harder, holding on for dear life, and the tiny daggers at the ends of her paws sank through the nightdress and into her skin.

Forcing a smile onto her face, she opened the door. “Perfectly certain, thank you,” she managed as her chin jerked a notch higher, tugged by the weight of the kitten. “I’ll wish you good night.”

He’d been on his way to bed but not in it, by the looks of things. He still wore the dark red wool coat. Beneath his loosened cravat, she could just glimpse the notch at the base on his throat, disguised as a shadow in the folds of his linen.

He quickly looked her up and down, took in her state of dishabille, and fixed his iron and ebony gaze somewhere on the far wall. “Are you—are you hiding something behind your back, Miss Gorse?”

If she shook her head in denial, as she so desperately longed to do, the kitten would grip even harder. Resigned, she turned slowly and rather stiffly away from the door but made no move to close it.

She knew the moment he saw Eileen and understood her predicament.

Gruffly, he cleared his throat. Almost the sound he had made at dinner. Not quite a laugh. “Ah. The subject of the zoology lesson, I take it?”

“Yes.”

He stepped closer, and the warmth of his hands seeped through the cambric of her nightgown as he proceeded to disentangle the kitten, claw by claw. “Perhaps ‘animal husbandry’ would be a more fitting description of today’s lesson. Did you rescue this creature?”

“Bell,” she whispered. “She is fearless, you know.”

“My sister, or the kitten?” When he had worked the last claw free, Rosamund turned slowly to face him. The kitten was curled in his cupped hand. “I suppose she and Daphne are determined to keep it. Does Molly know?” His expression was stern. “Because I certainly will not be the one to tell her.”

“She knows. Which is not to say she approves…”

He held out the ball of fluff, clearly expecting her to take it. But to do so, she would have to step closer. Touch him. Slide the back of her hand into the curve of his palm. The muscles of her arm ached with longing as she curled her fingers into her nightgown.

At last he gave up waiting and twisted just enough to tip Eileen onto the bed behind him. When he faced Rosamund again, his eyes still respectfully averted, he bowed his head as if to say goodnight. The movement must have brought the fallen book into his line of sight, for instead of rising to go out, he bent further to pick it up. “What’s this?” Turning the spine toward the candlelight, he read the title aloud. “Something of my sister’s, I suppose.” He glanced up at her, and his hair fell forward, shadowing his eyes. “Were you reading it?”

“I—yes,” she confessed after a moment, and her hesitation seemed to pique his curiosity. Heat flushed up her neck and into her face. “It’s quite, um…fascinating, really.”

She hadn’t meant to repeat his word. The word he’d used to describe his interest in the law. The word that more accurately described her interest in him.

When he leaned forward to hand the book to her, she reached for it at the same moment and nearly knocked it from his grasp. “Oh, dear. Forgive me. I didn’t—”

Only the width of the book separated them now. With a trembling hand she once more reached out…and up…and…oh. That stubborn, misbehaving lock of black hair was silky soft, tickling through her fingertips as she swept it off his brow.

Never in her life had she been so bold. So reckless.

Not even when she had escaped Kilready Castle.

Surprise flared in his dark eyes, and as her hand fell away, his rose. Lightly, he caught her wayward wrist. The frantic tattoo of her pulse would tell him everything she couldn’t. Oh, how she longed for the courage to speak. Though what to say? An apology would be a paltry thing at this juncture—and a lie, to boot.

“I—” She swallowed but did not break her gaze. “I’m not sorry.”

“No?” His thumb swept a lazy arc across her palm, the same practiced touch that had made the spinet give up its music. “Is there something else you wanted, Miss Gorse?”

She had so little experience with men. But some experience, at least, with her own desires. Desires on which she’d begun to think she would never have an opportunity to act. Why, if Erica’s book was to be believed, even flowers indulged now and then in a… “A—a kiss?”

Before he could respond to that daring request, before either of them could come to their senses, she stretched up on her toes and brushed her lips against his.

As she drew back she watched a mischievous smile play around his mouth. Slowly, he shook his head. “No.” With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the forgotten book onto the desk. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it slide across the polished surface, coming to a stop near the far edge. Then his newly-free hand settled at her waist, and all her attention was taken up by the delicious heat of his touch as it seeped through her nightgown and into her skin. “A kiss.”

She let her eyelids fall as he lowered his mouth to hers, more than willing to lose herself in the senses that remained. Her fingertips curled against the soft wool of his coat when he brought her hand to his chest. The woodsy scent of his cologne was an invitation to wander into shadowy, forbidden places. But best of all was the sound of his breath, that delightful catch of anticipation just before their lips met.