Page 28 of The Dangerous Lord

“Home? No, she didn’t go home. She merely went into Pickering for a while.”

He ignored the sudden increase of his pulse. Of course, the woman hadn’t run off. Not Felicity. She never behaved like other women.

Last night, for example. He’d kissed her to make a point, fully expecting her to react in outrage, horror, even disgust, given her ideas about “philandering.” Instead she’d blinked and gaped at him, looking for all the devil like she’d never been properly kissed.

So what the bloody hell was he supposed to do when a lively, gorgeous creature gazed at him, her lips parted in invitation and her breath a medley of soft, urgent gasps? Ignore it? God himself couldn’t have stopped him from kissing her just then. His second kiss had definitely not been to make a point. Unless the point was that he wanted her. Fiercely. Intensely.

And she’d wanted him, too, no matter what she protested later. She’d met his kiss with utter compliance—her curving body fluid in his arms ... her mouth sweet-scented and yielding ... her pert breasts crushed against his chest⁠—

Damn it, memories like these had kept him up half the night. He might have won their skirmish and tarnished her reputation, but thanks to that kiss, the rest of his evening had been one long parade of remembered images and sensations—of verdant eyes shadowed by night, lips pliant beneath his, a waist he could span with his hands, the rustle of satin as she’d let him fold her in his arms.

And her tart comment afterward hadn’t left him either—Apparently his lordship doesn’t understand the word ‘no.’ Impudent witch. She’d been just as impudent in his dreams after he’d finally fallen asleep. Oh, God, yes—impudent and eager, lying in his bed with her masses of coffee-hued hair tumbled out over the sheets and her body stripped of satin and lace. First she’d taunted him with that bold mouth of hers. Then she’d put it to better use against his lips, his chest ... all over his randy body.

He groaned. It had seemed so real he’d awakened hard as the house’s stone pillars. The woman was a walking invitation to seduction, damn her, and now all he wanted was a chance to bare her body for his eyes and lips and hands.

The hands he now clenched into fists. God, how he desired her. He wanted her begging for his kisses. He wanted her lying beneath him and writhing in pleasure. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d wanted a woman so much. Not even his triumph at giving her a taste of her own medicine could banish that.

“I’m worried about Miss Taylor,” Sara continued, sipping her tea as if the topic of conversation were only of passing interest. “She should have returned by now. She said she was merely going into town to post a letter, but she went by horseback some time ago, and if she stays out much longer, she may find herself caught in the rain.”

An image of Felicity soaked to the skin, wet muslin clinging to every curve, leapt into his mind before he squelched it. And why was she posting a letter? Who could she be writing? Thoughtfully he cracked his egg and tore off the top half of the shell. Ah, yes, her brothers. Naturally, she was notifying them that she’d arrived safely yesterday.

When he said nothing, Sara added, “I do hope she didn’t doze off in the saddle. She told me she didn’t sleep well last night.”

He cast Sara a searching glance. Undoubtedly she blamed him for Felicity’s inability to sleep. Sara’s reproving reformer expression was firmly in place, the one that had driven her pirate husband to mend his ways.

Well, his own ways needed no mending. Pretending not to understand her implication, he dug out the egg’s center with a spoon. “It’s hard to sleep well in a strange house, no matter how comfortable the arrangements.”

“I don’t think it was the house that kept her from sleeping.”

“Oh?” He ate some egg. “Then perhaps Miss Taylor was simply too excited after the ball to sleep. Such a reaction is common in young women.”

“Particularly when they’ve been insulted.”

He feigned an expression of innocent bewilderment. “‘Insulted’? Who in their right mind would insult Miss Taylor?”

“You know very well who.” Sara stabbed her sausage so viciously with her fork that it made him uneasy. “She was quite distraught over your treatment of her.”

Guilt trickled into his consciousness. Damn her. He had no reason to feel guilt. He’d done nothing to Felicity she hadn’t deserved. “She wasn’t mistreated, I assure you.” When Sara opened her mouth to retort, he held up one hand. “This is a personal matter that even your license to meddle doesn’t cover, so stay out of it.”

“If you could have seen the way⁠—”

“Sara—” he warned.

“You made her cry!” Sara said bluntly. “A stalwart little thing like Miss Taylor. When we found her, she’d been weeping, though she strove very hard to cover the fact.”

He was intrigued despite himself. He couldn’t imagine Felicity crying over anything, and the thought of his kisses driving her to such an extreme was too ludicrous to comprehend. Setting down his spoon, he leaned back and knit his hands over his belly. “Go on. You’re clearly determined to talk about this. Out with it. And who is ‘we’?”

“Lady Brumley and I. We went in search of Miss Taylor because her disappearance from the ballroom concerned us.”

“Concerned you, perhaps. I doubt Lady Brumley felt anything more than a burning urge to root out more gossip.”

The faintest tinge of color touched Sara’s cheeks. “That may be true. All the same, we found Miss Taylor sitting at the writing table in her room, her cheeks damp and her face red from copious tears.”

He squelched more guilt. Felicity’s crying couldn’t have been genuine. She must have heard Sara and Lady Brumley coming up the hall and produced crocodile tears to influence them. “The woman is easily wounded indeed if she dissolves into tears merely because a man kisses her.”

Outrage shone in Sara’s face. She held his gaze, then made a sharp, deliberate slice through her sausage. His thighs tightened defensively.

“It wasn’t just that,” she snapped, “as you well know. I heard what you said, the shameful way you implied that she’d encouraged your advances.”