“I like being here. I like the residence. I like the servants. I even like you, as impossible as that may sound.”
Averting his gaze, he reached for a strawberry. “I’ve given you no reason to like me.”
“I suppose that’s true enough.” Only it wasn’t. He’d rescued her from Geoffrey, protected her, always seemed intent on ensuring she had what she needed, even if he did it in a high-handed manner. Even that high-handed manner was becoming endearing to her.
“What do you do when you’re not here?” she asked.
“Purchase you jewelry.”
She rolled her eyes. “I assume you go to your club. What do you do there?”
“Boring things. Look over ledgers, calculate the money coming in, the money going out, make adjustments so always more is coming in than going out. Decide the liquor to be bought, the games to be added, the ones to be taken away. Determine which lords need to be spoken to about their debt.”
“Did you speak to Geoffrey? I know he owed you.”
He nodded. “That’s the reason I was in attendance that night. He wanted to demonstrate his plan to ensure that he paid off his debt. I was there to only observe, but when you walked through the door ... you fairly took my breath.”
She sat up. “You barely gave me the time of day.”
“Never let anyone know how badly you want something. It gives them an advantage.”
She tried not to give more credence to his words than they deserved. He meant that he wanted to bed her, not that he wanted her for herself. “You didn’t tell me how you came to have the scar on your thigh.”
“It doesn’t make for a very entertaining story.”
“I’m not interested in entertainment. I long to know about you.”
He picked up the nearly empty tray and carried it over to a table. When he returned to the bed, he stretched out on his back, shoved one arm beneath his head, and stared at the canopy. Rolling onto her side, she studied his profile.
“It happened after my brothers had made their way back to London. Sebastian had reclaimed the title, returned to Pembrook with his new bride, and asked me to look after the London residence. One night I saw a silhouette lurking about, so I went to confront the intruder. He fired a bullet into me before I realized he had a pistol.”
It took her a moment to understand that he thought he was finished telling the story. “So then what happened?”
He turned his head to the side and looked at her. “You asked how I came to have the scar. That’s how I got it.”
“But how did you get away? Why was he there?”
“Our uncle hired him and his two mates to do away with us. They came out of the shadows. I beat them to a bloody mess until they were unconscious.”
“While you were wounded you managed to overcome all three of them.”
“I was angry. They tried to murder Sebastian. If he dies, Tristan becomes duke. He’s killed? I become duke. I don’t want to become duke.”
“I think you would make a marvelous duke.”
He scoffed. “I have no patience with Society and it has none with me. But you on the other hand—” He rolled onto his side, slipped his hand inside the silk, and cupped her breast. “I have quite a bit of patience for you.”
“I don’t know about that. Things went rather quickly earlier.”
“They will again, I suspect,” he murmured just before he leaned in and kissed her.
He tasted of strawberries this time, and she couldn’t determine if she preferred the fruit over the heady taste of his liquor. The spirits seem to suit him more; the other seemed far too innocent for one such as he.
Without breaking off the kiss, he deftly unknotted her sash and spread her robe wide so he could have easier access to everything he wanted, and it appeared he wanted everything. She had to admit that he was a considerate lover. With an understanding now of how things were between a man and a woman, she was well aware that he could have taken his own pleasure without giving any to her. While she thought it would increase her enjoyment to be able to engage him fully—holding him, climbing over him, rolling about with him—she couldn’t fault him for giving her what he could.
She didn’t want her hands clamped together this time so she refrained from reaching out to touch him, but it was difficult, so difficult not to touch, not to feel the warmth of his flesh, the softness of his hair.
He lurched from the bed, and she bit back the cry of protest. Of course, he needed to rid himself of his trousers. While he was about that, she worked her way out of her robe completely and tossed it onto the floor.
