Page 64 of Miss Dignified
He had not come here intending to importune her, but something about her remoteness, about the haste with which she’d withdrawn, made him reckless.
“Your sisters…”
“Will sleep soundly tonight, two floors away. Tegan is a restless sort, though, and I will not presume on your privacy again while my sisters are underfoot.” They noticed things, those three. Dylan could have been parted from them for twenty-five years, and his sisters would still notice details about him others never would.
“Now or never?” Lydia murmured, rising and slipping her arms around Dylan’s waist. “Do or die?”
“Now, or I am at risk for pitching my sisters back into the traveling coach, and they will take that very much amiss.” Dylan was unable to read Lydia’s mood, but then, his own mood also refused to admit of a neat label. He was eager to become Lydia’s lover in the fullest sense of the word, also worried that the arrival of his sisters would ruin his chances, which made no sense.
Lydia cuddled closer, her hold on him gratifyingly snug.
“Shall I leave you in peace, Lydia?” Dylan stroked her hair, willing to decamp if she asked it of him. “The decision is yours.”
Lydia was utterly passive in his arms, though he could feel her thinking.
“I choose you,” she said, stepping back. “I choose you, and tonight, and now. We will talk later, Dylan, and it will be a difficult discussion, but I choose you.”
That was not quite what an adoring swain wanted to hear as he contemplated an irrevocable step with a woman he cherished.
“Tell me again you have no husband.”
“No husband, no jilted fiancé, no legal reason on earth why I cannot share these intimacies with you.” She kissed him, a sweet little introduction that only hinted at the fire and passion she was capable of, but it was enough. “And I have many reasons to seize the moment and the man when the opportunity comes knocking at my door.”
Dylan scooped her into his arms, laid her on the bed, and in the next instant started unbuttoning his jacket.
Chapter Thirteen
Maybe the fact that Lydia wassisterto Marcus, Earl of Tremont, would not matter to Dylan. He had all but promised it would not signifyone iota.
Dylan had siblings and cousins. He well knew one family member could not answer for the actions of another. He knew Tremont was related to her somehow. He had promised Lydia a sympathetic hearing—not merely a fair hearing—and she simply did not have the fortitude to embark on a discussion of hard truths at this late hour.
A discussion ofmorehard truths. Recounting the visit to the solicitors’ office and admitting that Marcus had sent the flowers had been difficult enough.
And yet, Dylan had guessed most of Lydia’s situation and calmly listened to what she had to say. He was just as calmly pulling his shirt over his head and folding it neatly atop his jacket on the vanity stool.
To think of enjoying this display every night for the rest of her life… Lydia wiggled out of her dressing gown and scrambled beneath the covers.
When Dylan emerged from behind the privacy screen, he wore only his breeches. “I borrowed your toothpowder.”
“And you lost your boots and stockings, sir.”
He peered at his bare feet. “Apparently so. My breeches go next, so if you’re having reservations or doubts, speak now.”
He stood beside the bed, his manly charms quite on display, and the wretch likely knew the impact his naked chest and shoulders had on Lydia’s composure.
“The candles, please.”
“Your wish, my lady.”
He could not know that Lydia had been addressed by that honorific since birth and that his use of it tainted the pleasure of watching him amble around the bedchamber. He blew out all but the candle on the vanity and brought that one to the bedside table.
“I’d like to leave this one burning,” he said. “The decision is yours.”
“I am torn between the modesty afforded by darkness and the pleasure I will take in seeing you drop those breeches.”
Dylan unbuttoned his falls and peeled out of his breeches and underlinen, adding them to the pile on the vanity stool.
“Does this make the decision any easier?” He was gorgeously naked, half aroused, and not at all self-conscious about either circumstance.
