Page 13 of A Rogue's Rules for Seduction
“We’ll have a servant fetch a pitchfork from the stables,” she answered. “Your giant paws can suitably managethat.”
“Thissuits me better.” He used his hands to grab the small roast bird on his plate and brought it to his mouth.
Eyes wide, Willa watched as he sank his teeth into the meat, chewing with gusto. But... she didn’t turn away. Her cheeks grew flushed and she licked her lips.
“Quite right,” Longbridge said with a nod. “Forks and knives are entirely too fussy for capons.” Following Dom’s lead, their host picked up his poultry with his hands and took a bite—though his was far more polite than Dom’s big mouthful.
Soon, everyone at the table was ignoring their cutlery in favor of their hands, picking pieces of meat from their plates and scooping up peas with their fingers. Even Willa abandoned her fork and plucked a tiny drumstick from her capon, biting into it as she shot him a defiant look.
He stared, fascinated, at her teeth and lips as she ate. She stuck a finger into her mouth and licked it clean.
Thank God he had a napkin to drape over his lap because his cock was very interested in the sight of Willa eating with her hands and licking her fingers.
Shaking his head, he tried to turn his attention back to the dishes arrayed across the table.
“What’s that?” he demanded, pointing toward one mystifying platter of food.
“Mousserons à la crème,” Finn explained. “Creamed mushrooms. It looks distressing but tastes delectable. Bit hard to eat with one’s fingers, though.”
A glance toward Willa showed she was busy talking with Cransley, which meant that, with any luck, she wasn’t paying Dom any attention.
“We used to dream of food like this,” Dom answered to Finn, voice low so hopefully Willa couldn’t hear. “Da and me, when vittles were scarce.”
“Must’ve been difficult,” his friend mused thoughtfully.
“Back then, I was always hungry, and shoveled down whatever food we could afford. Me and Da needed our strength to haul cargo on the docks.” Dom shook his head. “No matter how much my stomach growled for more, though, I tucked away choice pieces in a kerchief to give to Celeste. She’d been such a wee thing back then, all eyes and dreams.”
“I’m certain she appreciated it,” Finn said. “And if Kieran knew, you’d have his undying gratitude.”
Dom regarded his baby sister as she sat beside her husband. Aristo rules meant that, typically, a married couple wouldn’t sit together at a dinner party, but as soon as the rules were flouted, they chose to be near each other rather than anyone else.
“She’s grown now, of course,” he murmured. “A gentleman’s wife in elegant clothing and more than enough to eat. But I can’t fully shake the picture of her, tiny and barefoot, sitting on the floor of our run-down rooms, helping Ma with the piecework they did to bring in more coin.”
Celeste laughed at something Kieran said, and it warmed Dom to see her happiness, and the way that her husband looked at her as if she was an actual, living miracle that Kieran had been lucky enough to witness.
At least one of the two Kilburn siblings was happy. And if it could only be one of them, then it was best that it was her.
“I think the heavens have been torn asunder,”Lady Shipton said across from him. She nodded toward the windows, where rain hammered against the glass in a sharp, angry rhythm. “Have you done anything to offend the gods, Mr. Kilburn?”
“I offend a lot of people,” he answered before taking a drink of wine.
“Surely only those without a suitably robust constitution,” she replied, her smile alluring. “It would require quite a lot to scandalize me.”
“A dare?”
“If you wish it to be.”
Lady Shipton was an attractive woman who wore her carnality like a fur stole, lush and lavish. Yet all Dom wanted to do was smash through the walls and run into the storm.
Willa’s distinctive, husky laugh stroked down his back. He’d always loved how she laughed, full and open and deep, as opposed to the harp-like practiced trills that Society ladies were instructed to make, smothering their true selves for the sake of appearing dainty and ornamental.
I’m enjoying myself, Willa’s laugh declared,and I don’t give a damn whether you like it or not.
“Isn’t that right, Mr. Kilburn?”
His attention snapped back to the present, and Lady Shipton’s sparking eyes and low-cut bodice. She looked at him expectantly, as if she’d just said something and expected a reply. “What’s that?”
“I said I wager that you’d be up to any darepresented to you,” the marchioness murmured, “and you’d enjoy flouting expectations as you did it.”
