I think that’s Miss Victorine now with your breakfast. Are you hungry?”
“Do you expect me to sit here like a bloody fool and eat a meal?”
“You’ll always be a bloody fool, there’s nothing to be done about that, and I don’t care if you starve to death.” Moving to the bottom of the stairway, she took the tray from Miss Victorine’s hand. “But right now you have to maintain a modicum of health or we won’t get our money.
That’s the master bedchamber, remember? You’ve been there collecting my underwear.”
“That’s right. You’re the swine who sent me on a fool’s errand when you could have gone yourself.” She observed his expression. “You did go yourself!”
“I saw you there,” he admitted.
“Did I call you a swine?”
Remembering the drama with which she sneaked into Summerwind Abbey, she didn’t know whether to laugh or shout. “Louse, rather!”
“Yes, but you must forgive me. Being a louse is my nature.
With well-feigned impatience, he asked, “Don’t you recognize a man who’s urgently trying to impress his woman with his good deeds?”
“No, is that what you’re doing?”
“Most definitely.” He did kiss her, but only a swift brush of his lips, a tease that made her want for more. “Although I suspect it has lost its impact since I had to point it out.
Let her go or I’ll shoot you.”
“I’ve never met a woman who’d have the guts to shoot a man,” he sneered. All the women he knew were too kind. Too gentle.
“I have the guts,” the girl said. “Better yet, I want to shoot you.”
That shook him. The words, and the tone, a kind of flat, plain aversion the like of which he’d never met in all of his privileged life. What had he ever done to deserve this girl’s contempt? And why did he even care? “Which part of me will you shoot?” he mocked. “All that’s showing is my head—and you can’t be that good with a gun.”
“I am,” the girl said. “On the count of three, I’ll shoot. One . . .”
“You’d take the chance of hurting Miss Victorine?” he asked.
“I won’t hurt her. Two . . .”
“Amy, please, let him go!” Miss Victorine begged. “He was such a sweet boy.”
“Three.” Amy’s eyes narrowed. Her finger began to squeeze the trigger.
And he released Miss Victorine, spinning her away from him and into a cabinet.
She landed with a thud and fell. The pistol roared.
He dived to the floor.
A shot whistled past the place where his head had been.
“Damn, that was close. Good thing you surrendered, my lord!”
“Don’t swear, dear, it’s not ladylike.
I’m manacled to the bed. When the house is quiet and even the cat is asleep, you could come down the stairs and make love to me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You would never let me—”
“But I would. I’d let you take the lead, explore me as you liked, show me what gives you pleasure. I would kiss you anywhere you instructed—on your lips, on your breasts, on your—”
“My lord, please!”
“—shoulders. Really, Amy, what did you think I was going to say?
Don’t you have any respect for your betters?”
“I do. That’s why I’m going to help her up the stairs and put her to bed with a cup of hot tea. You can just sit here and . . . jangle your manacle!
Jermyn saw Amy strolling toward him, a seductive roll to her hips, discarding her clothing as she walked. She was smiling, teasing him as she stepped out of her petticoats and stood clad in her sheer chemise. Her nipples showed through the cream silk, puckered with desire for him—”
Amy’s disagreeable tone shredded his fantasy. “My lord, you have been staring at the chessboard for a full five minutes. Would you like me to make your move for you?”
He jumped like a lad with his fingers caught in the jam pot. The rickety chair beneath him groaned.
“Now, Amy, you must be patient with His Lordship,” Miss Victorine chided. “He’s spent the day manacled by his ankle and he’s ready to snarl like a lion.”
“More like a small, ill-tempered badger,” Amy muttered.
Jermyn looked across the long length of the table at her. He sat on one end, she sat on the other. She wore the most contrary expression, and her eyes sparkled with irritation. She made it most difficult to indulge in a dream about her.
With great care, Amy opened the cellar door.
With ladylike demeanor, she descended the stairs. And as her reward, she had the satisfaction of catching His Mighty Lordship sitting on the cot, his knee crooked sideways and his ankle pulled toward him, cursing at the manacle.
“I got it out of your own castle,” she said.
Northcliff jumped like a lad caught at a mischief. “My . . . castle?” At once he realized what she meant. “Here on the island, you mean. The old ancestral pile.”
“Yes.” She strolled farther into the room. “I went down into the dungeons, crawled around in among the spider webs and the skeleton of your family’s enemies—”
“Oh, come on.” He straightened his leg. “There aren’t any skeletons.”
“No,” she admitted.
“We had them removed years ago.”
For one instant, she was shocked. So his family had been ruthless murderers! Then she realized he was smirking. The big, pompous jackass was making a jest of her labors. “If I could have found manacles that were in good shape I’d have locked both your legs to the wall.”
“Why stop there? Why not my hands, too?” He moved his leg to make the chain clink loudly. “Think of your satisfaction at the image of my starving, naked body chained to the cold stone—”
“Starving?” She cast a knowledgeable eye at the empty breakfast tray, then allowed her lips to curve into a sarcastic smile.
“You’d love a look at my naked body, though, wouldn’t you?” He fixed his gaze on her, and for one second she thought she saw a lick of golden flame in his light brown eyes. “Isn’t that what this is all about?”
“I beg your pardon.” She took a few steps closer to him—although she remained well out of range of his long arms. What are you talking about?”
“I spurned you, didn’t I?”
What? What What was he going on about?
“You’re a girl from my past, an insignificant debutante I ignored at some cotillion or another. I didn’t dance with you.” He stretched out on the cot, the epitome of idle relaxation. “Or I did, but I didn’t talk to you. Or I forgot to offer you a lemonade, or—”
“I don’t believe you.” She tottered to the rocking chair and sank down. “Are you saying you think this whole kidnapping was done because you, the almighty marquees of Northcliff, treated me like a wallflower?”
“It seems unlikely I treated you as a wallflower. I have better taste than that.” He cast a critical glance up and down her workaday gown, then focused on her face. “You’re not in the common way, you must know that. With the proper gown and your hair swirled up in that style you women favor—” He twirled his fingers about his head—“you would be handsome. Perhaps even lovely.”
She gripped the arms of the chair. Even his compliments sounded like insults! “We’ve never before met, my lord.”
As if she had not spoken, he continued, “but I don’t remember you, so I must have ignored you and hurt your feelings—”
“Damn!” Exploding out of the chair, she paced behind it, gripping the back hard enough to break the wood. His arrogance was amazing. Invulnerable! “Haven’t you heard a single word I’ve said to you? Are you so conceited you can’t conceive of a woman who isn’t interested in you as a suitor?”
“It’s not conceit when it’s the truth.” He sounded quite convinced.
In the top drawer of my bedside table, there’s a small box. It contains everything we need to make our night pleasurable. If you have to, leave everything else behind but bring that box.”
She snorted as if in derision—but it was a weak snort. She walked toward the steps again.
“Amy.”
She turned back to him. “What?”
“Did you notice I didn’t ask for a nightshirt?”
She glanced at his lit in her hand and wondered why he told her that.
Then she knew why.
He had just told her he slept nude.
Every night in the cellar right beneath her bedchamber, his naked body remained at the ready to welcome her. Now that she knew it, she could never escape the image . . . or the temptation.
So while I can spin my fantasy whenever I wish, I’m afraid you wouldn’t do for me.”
Sarcasm dripped from her every word. “You’re good at imagining, so pray imagine my heartbreak.
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