Page 86 of The Lyon Whisperer
Hand on her door lever, she glanced over her shoulder at him. “I suppose we should talk in your room, as entering mine will allow you no access to yours.”
In the moonlit corridor, his dark eyes gleamed.
She tried to read their meaning, but his thoughts were inscrutable to her.
“Very well, madame wife.” He strode to his chamber door and opened it wide. He made a sweeping gesture. “After you.”
She entered, grateful for the darkness. He could not possibly make out the tell-tale pulsing at the base of her throat, nor the smile tugging at her mouth no matter how hard she tried to quell the urge.
He crossed his antechamber ahead of her, opening the door to his bedchamber and again gestured for her to precede him.
Her breaths turned choppy. She moved to the foot of his four-post bed, wrapping her hand around one of the thick, smooth polished posts.
She turned to see him standing with his back to the closed antechamber door. He stared at her for a long moment.
“I wish to discuss what happened tonight.”
“I know you do not care for the notion of a gaggle of puppies, sir, but you must admit they have been no trouble to you at all since—”
“I am not referring to your complete disregard of my directive regarding the pups.” He shoved off the door and sauntered toward her. A lion, toying with his prey.
As he neared her, the area between her legs grew damp and heavy.
She cursed her traitorous body. The man had been a perfect prig tonight. She should be thinking about that, not about how he helped her with her puppies, and certainly not about being made love to by him.
“I see. You refer to the ball?” She hoped he took the breathless quality of her voice as anything other than what it was—her fierce attraction for the man.
Never taking his eyes from her, he eased a hip onto the foot of the mattress. “Have a seat, my dear.”
She eyed the tall mattress and sniffed. She could heave herself up onto it if she wanted to make a spectacle of herself.
Her predicament was not lost on him. He straightened, wrapped his strong, warm hands around her waist and lifted her onto the mattress with seeming no effort whatsoever.
Instead of returning to his respective post, he remained standing before her, his muscular thighs firm against her legs through the layers of fabric separating their skin.
The tantalizing scent of his aftershave wafted in and out of reach.
Heat flared within her, settling low in her abdomen. Everything in her wanted to reach for him, to twine her arms around his neck to pull her body close to his.
She stayed utterly still, barely daring to breathe.
“I wish to apologize for my heavy handedness.”
It took her a full two seconds to respond to the unexpected apology. “Oh.”
“Although I maintain my stipulations you not dance twice in a row with any man, ever, unless it happens to be me, and refrain from any further discourse with Tully, faulting you to the extent I did was unfair.”
She lowered her head to gaze at her hands bound very tightly in her lap. “I tried ever so hard to be a model of womanly virtue tonight. I refrained from any sort of political conversation while dancing—”
She thought she heard his incredulous snort, but continued unabated. “—and even made nice with several ladies of thetonwhose husbands I believe might aid your cause. I did not particularly care to dance with Lord Tully once, much less twice. In fact I did not even know his name when he led me onto the dance floor.”
He crooked a warm finger under her chin and urged her face upward, then scooped his fingers around nape. “How did you come to dance with him if you had not met?”
“He approached Mr. Defoe and me in the supper room to inform him of the meeting taking place with you and your regiment in the card room.”
“Ah.”
“He claimed the two of you were old friends and offered to see me back to your aunt and my friends. After Mr. Defoe departed, he suggested we dance. I did not see how I could refuse.”
