“England has brutes, so I’ve heard. Yet here you are. Spying for America then?”
“Perry.”
He’d softened that one word into a wheedling tone that made her shiver.
She pressed harder. “Yes, I think that’s what you did. You met friends from the embassy for drinks or lunch and passed on the tidbits of what you learned. Charley often operated that way. And then shortly before our countries went back to war, you did that one job for my mother.”
“You have it all figured out,” he said.
He was trying for his usual bland sarcasm, but she heard it—that note of distraction, a lack of air, a deep pain that called to some still deeper part of her womanhood.
“You did this one job and it almost got you killed.” She set her hand over his pulsing heart.
Her palm pressedlike a hot iron, the long fingers trailing lightning into his soul, streaks of white heat beating into him, centering in his groin, inflaming him. She was here. In his room. Could be in his bed in one quick move.
Muscles straining with effort, he pulled her hand away. “Let me escort you back downstairs. Jenny will have dinner ready.” He infused his voice with the type of ennui he’d heard at the hundreds of dinner parties he’d attended as the interesting American artist. His few years of formal education and the pedigree he’d embellished had made the novelty guest acceptable. “You must be famished.” He should get her downstairs, fed, and back safely to her chambers. The smugglers might return tonight for their booty. When they found two kegs missing they’d be pounding on his door for answers.
“Oh, I am famished all right. Where is the painting of me you were working on?”
Bollocks. “So you saw that.”
“I did.” She inched closer. “I will pose for you, should you wish to work from a live model.”
Perry the woman, grown into Aphrodite. His arms itched to pull her against him.
He took a step back. At this rate, she’d edge him out of the window.
The tiny brain between his legs shouted,Why not take her?She wanted him, and by all the wild Indians in Kentucky, he wanted her. He’d stepped back once from a woman he’d wanted and she’d fallen into another man’s arms. His brother’s arms.
The memory jumbled his brain. Seducing a virgin was not his way. He’d been honorable with Constance, the wealthy Philadelphia girl who’d abandoned him for his older brother, and he’d looked back many times thanking his stars. Losing Constance had wounded his pride—and been a great blessing. He would never have progressed so far in his painting, or had such adventures, or metthismagnificent woman.
Who he also could not have.
In spite of the dimness, her eyes shone brightly. He should light the surviving lamp.
“You were not the model for that painting.”
She twitched. “Was I not?” A deep sigh escaped her. “Why the lies, Fox? Why always the lies? Why push me away?”
He broke from her, found his tinder box, busied himself with lighting the lamp.
Then cursed himself—in the light, she glowed more than ever, beautiful, and with a strength that surprised him.
“You want me, Fox, and I want you.”
Without touching, without removing one article of clothing, she was seducing him; artless, gawky, Lady Perpetua. He almost laughed.
He was but a man, dammit, and she a lovely woman.
The daughter of Lord Shaldon, his employer and benefactor. A virgin.
“Look at me, Lady Perpetua. I paint pictures for my living.”
“And spy.”
He sighed. “That is not a means of support. I paint pictures for my living. Where I go, I rent cheap rooms. I don’t host parties. I don’t belong to Brooks’s or White’s. I don’t own a horse.”
She opened her mouth.
