Page 39 of The Duke and the Lady in Red
Looking into her blue eyes, he felt his fury dimming—
“I could truly use it,” she said.
—sputtering ... dying out. Gone.
He handed her his glass, reached for another. “While you’re here, I expect you to do as I command.”
“I daresay that you’re in for a time of it then as I have no intention of becoming your slave.” When his glass was full, she tapped hers to it. “To an evening of surprises.” Taking a sip, she nodded in approval. “Very nice.”
Then she wandered to the sitting area by the fire and sat inhischair.
He walked over. “I was sitting there.”
With a gamine smile, she peered up at him. “Yes, I know. I can still feel the warmth from your body. It’s quite lovely.”
She brought her legs up, tucked them beneath her. Any other woman would have scrambled to the other chair. But then she wasn’t any other woman. He’d known it the moment he set eyes on her.
Dropping into the opposite chair, he stretched out his legs, took a sip of his scotch, and studied her. Her braided hair draping over one shoulder, she wore a plain muslin nightdress. Tomorrow he would purchase her something in satin and silk. What was the point? Two seconds after she donned it, he would have it off. It irritated him that he wanted her again with a fierceness that nearly unmanned him.
“So your being a widow,” he began, “it was all part of the ruse?”
“Yes.”
“There is no estate to settle?”
“No.”
“But you had Beckwith jumping through hoops like a well-trained dog.”
“Quite so. However he is becoming suspicious, close to figuring out that I sent him on a wild-goose chase. That I had no husband, had no inheritance, had never been to India. Never so much as set foot out of England, to be honest. Therefore it was time to move on, a bit sooner than I would have liked, but necessary.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about your untouched state?” he asked quietly. “You had ample opportunity in the coach.”
“Not really, not once your mouth landed on mine. All reasonable thought seems to scatter when you touch me. Besides, I didn’t think it would matter.”
“I tore into you like a battering ram trying to breach the walls of a castle.”
“You weren’t quite that uncivilized, and it wasn’t that bad.”
“You cried out.”
“I’d have not expected you to be upset that you hurt me.”
“This game we’ve been playing ... I thought you were more experienced, that you understood—”
“I did understand. Lack of experience does not make one ignorant.”
“But lack of knowledge made me so. Had I known—”
“What would you have done differently?” she demanded with a raised eyebrow.
“I intend to show you when I’m no longer angry with you.”
She gave him a slow, sensual smile, and the last remnants of anger he’d been harboring melted away. Damnation, he was going to show her before dawn.
“Who are you, Rosalind Sharpe?”
“I am the woman who will warm your bed for a week. Then I shall move on.”
