Page 68 of House of Thorns
“My carriage awaits,” he murmured, squeezing her fingers.
Olivia blinked. “Your carriage?”
“I sent a messenger to fetch it whilst we concluded our business with Mr. Pitt,” he explained, drawing her toward his coach-and-four, waiting under a nearby streetlamp.
After handing her inside, he seated himself opposite and then rapped the window.
As they began to move, Olivia smiled. “I should apologize.”
Nicholas tilted his head to the side. “And why is that?”
“But then…” Olivia’s smile deepened. “I find it strangely hard when I truly feel no need to seek forgiveness.”
His brow furrowed in dry amusement. “For?”
“Writing the letter that summoned you.” She never would have met him otherwise. “If I had known you were a man of character, perhaps I would have believed you from the start. But then, with a man of your reputation, what else is a woman to think?”
His blue eyes took on a gleam of amusement. “A man of my reputation,” he murmured. In two swift jerks, he dragged the curtains across the carriage windows and then took a seat by her side.
Olivia lifted her chin. “Kiss me,” she whispered.
The last syllable had barely left her lips before his mouth was on hers—at last. She opened to him at once, thrilling as his tongue danced over hers. She moaned, a wanton, yearning sound. She didn’t care. She had nothing to hide, not anymore.
His hand lifted to cradle her neck as he deepened the kiss, then drew back, sucking her bottom lip as he pulled away.
“Must you return to the shop so quickly?” he asked, peering down at her from mere inches away.
Olivia sighed. Pleasure would have to wait. “I am late already. I’ve enough to keep me busy for three days or more, honestly. There’s still music to print and Father to mind while Mrs. Lambert runs errands of her own.”
He said nothing but brushed the back of his hand over her cheek.
A shiver of want rippled down the back of her neck.
Again, his lips touched hers, lightly, but with an increasing fervor, and it was with a great sense of disappointment that she felt the carriage lurch to a stop.
With one last, light kiss, Nicholas lifted his head. “I shall return to escort you to the Duke’s dinner tomorrow. Shall we say, six o’ clock?”
Olivia nodded.
After handing her down, he dropped a light kiss on her fingertips. “Tomorrow, then.”
“I will be ready,” she promised and then hurried into the shop.
It was a good thing Mrs. Lambert wasn’t yet there. She wouldn’t have failed to notice Olivia’s kiss-swollen lips.
