Page 299 of From Rakes to Riches

She’d not relented to his proposition because he’d wanted her.

But because she’d desired to take what he offered.

He was no sort of man to be allowed within miles of her heart, but her body?

Hisbody?

Now there was a hard, rugged terrain she yearned to explore.

Mercy had to duck her head lest Morley read the wicked turn of her thoughts. She could feel her excitement burning hot in her cheeks, the tips of her ears, and...lower. Deep within.

Tonight.

She fought a spurt of panic. She still didn’t know when. Or where. Or how. Or... when.

Would he dare come to Cresthaven? Would he send a message for a clandestine rendezvous somewhere?

What if he didn’t?

She gasped in a breath. What if he changed his mind and didn’t contact her at all?

What if she waited for him like a breathless ninny and he went off to some other strumpet, laughing at the thought of her pathetic virginal eagerness?

He was a degenerate, after all. A professional swindler.

She couldn’t have imagined the intensity of his need, could she? Surely, she’d have seen through any sort of artifice on his part.

Unless he was a better deceiver than she was an observer.

Perish that thought.

The sound of Raphael’s name, a foul word on Morley’s tongue, brought her surging toward the surface from the murky depths of her ponderings.

“Who? What?”

Morley’s brows, a shade darker than his hair, pulled low over his deep-set eyes. “Have you been listening to me?”

“Yes?” Mercy’s eyes moved this way and that as she searched her empty memory for evidence against her lie. What had he just said?

He frowned with his entire face. “Is that a question?”

“No?”

“Mercy.”

“You were...disparaging the leader of the Fauves, yes?”

He rolled his eyes and lifted his hands in a gesture of resignation. “I said, I do not like that you were alone with Raphael Sauvageau.”

At that, she straightened in her seat, her spine suddenly crafted from a steel rod.

“Alone?” she parroted, her voice two octaves higher than usual. “Where did you ever hear such a thing? Utter lies. There were people everywhere. We werenotalone.”

Except for when he’d kissed her.

Had someone spied their moment in the alcove?

“In the police carriage, Mercy, do try to keep up.”

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