Page 12 of A Story of Love

Fast gave a rude laugh at he saw who Barker was cradling in his arms. “Why, look who has come to visit! What a delightful surprise,” he said in a tone indicating the exact opposite was true.

Miss Fontenot pursed her lips and glared, her face the color of a beet.

Fast shook his head; bloody incredible! The woman wasn’t content to savage his tattered reputation in the scandal sheets, her screeching had almost been responsible for the savaging of his cock, as well.

“Where did you find her?” he asked Gregg.

“She’d stacked up enough crates to see in the second-floor window,” Gregg said, and then grinned. “Er, this room’s window, my lord. She’d probably still be out there watching like a hole-and-corner pervert if Mr. Pouncefoot-Jones hadn’t interrupted her ogling.”

“Pervert?” Miss Fontenot struggled to sit up in Barker’s arms.

Fast was truly at a loss for words. The utter and complete gall of this woman!

Her green eyes blazed at him. “My lord, I demand—”

“You are in no position to demand anything,” Fast said icily. “Indeed, you will be fortunate if I don’t summon a constable and have you tossed in gaol.” He opened the door to the bedchamber wider and pointed toward the red velvet chaise longue. “Put her down over there, Barker.”

As annoyed as he was with Miss Nosy Fontenot, he couldn’t help enjoying the sight of the disheveled woman in the middle of the whorish room. She was dressed like a nun and the juxtaposition between all the red and gold and her prim, high-necked gown made his cock—which he’d believed too terrified by its recent brush with mutilation—stir.

Lorelei Fontenot might be the human equivalent of a burr in Fast’s arse, but the woman was a beauty. She was a strapping dark-haired, green-eyed lass who possessed the sort of dangerous curves that could lure a man to his doom.

Too bad she was such a prying, lying, relentless harpy.

She clasped her torn bodice closed with one hand and tugged at her tattered skirt with the other. Both gestures were largely ineffectual as he could see the strap of her chemise and more leg than a woman of her class typically exhibited. A remarkably shapely leg it was, too, sheathed in white cotton, the sort of stocking he’d not seen in…

Hell. Fast couldn’t recall when he’d last seen something so demure. His women of choice—generally older, more experienced females—wore undergarments that reflected their sexual sophistication. Frilly, silky things with lots of lace, much like Meg had hidden beneath her maid’s outfit.

Fast hadn’t realized that plain white cotton could be so damned erotic.

“May I please have something to cover myself,” she demanded through gritted teeth.

“No.”

Her plump lips parted in an unwittingly suggestive way that made him harden. While he was grateful to discover that his equipment still functioned, he was annoyed by the source of the stimulation. But then his cock never had possessed any judgement when it came to amorous matters.

“You can go,” he said to Barker and Gregg, both of whom looked ready to settle down and enjoy the entertainment. “Oh, and see that Mr. Pouncefoot-Jones is amply rewarded for his vigilance after you find out why none of my human guards noticed a newspaperwoman scaling the building.”

“Aye, my lord,” Gregg said, not sounding half as cocky as he had only a moment earlier.

Fast waited until the door closed and then crossed the room and took the woman’s chin in his fingers, tilting her face toward his. “Well, Miss Fontenot, alone at last.” He smirked as her green eyes widened at his cavalier treatment. He tipped her head to the side. “You’ve managed to hurt your pretty face. Tsk, tsk,” he murmured, shaking his head at the scrape and bruise on her lovely cheek. “We’ll need to clean that up.”

She jerked away from his touch and Fast let her go. He dropped into the chair closest to her, amused when her nervous gaze flickered over his shirtsleeves, worn buckskins, and bare calves and feet.

Something about his state of undress must have reminded her of what he’d been doing in this room before her rude interruption. Amusingly, her cheeks flushed a fiery pink as her striking eyes flickered around the room, darting from Fast to the closed door, back to Fast, and then to the bed, and finally back to Fast again.

“I do not like being alone with you, Lord Severn.”

He laughed. “You should have thought about that before you decided to trespass and spy on me.”

“Bringing me here to your lair of depravity is not proper,” she persisted.

“No, darling, it most certainly isn’t.”

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, bristling like an angry cat. “Since you agree with me, you should let me go.”

“Should I? Because I don’t see it that way. At all.”

Her fetching little chin jutted aggressively. “What way do you see it?”