Bishop merely raised a dark eyebrow and gave a barely perceptible nod. What game was he playing at? She could easily imagine Mr. Parker being stunned into inaction upon first entering the room and seeing his wife there, much as she’d been at the sight of Bishop, so she suspected she and her nemesis had not missed much of the couple’s conversation.
“Did you not bring your female detective?”Mrs. Parker asked.
“When did you know about me?” Daisy asked quietly, because if Mrs. Parker knew, in all likelihood, so did Bishop.
“That’s different. She is here in a professional capacity.”
“Not until tonight. Not for certain, anyway. Although I’d begun to suspect the morning following the night you first delivered a tray to my bedchamber.”
“That’s why you had me start carting them up.”
“You should be grateful. I made it easier for you to spy on me and gather the information you were there to obtain.”
Nothing about being in his presence made anything any easier. Especially because it somehow seemed that with each word spoken, they’d gravitated a little nearer. The top of her head reached his shoulder. It would take only the tip up of her chin, the tip down of his for their mouths to meet.
“Besides,”Mrs. Parker continued,“Bishop said it’s no longer a house of ill repute but rather a place for wayward women to take refuge and learn new skills. The proprietress merely arranged for it to look like a brothel again so you wouldn’t get suspicious before entering this room.”
“That hardly makes it any better, Louisa.”
Daisy didn’t want to acknowledge her disappointment that it was no longer a bordello, that she wouldn’t have the experience of knowing precisely what abawdy house looked like. This room in its shades of blue was warm, comforting, and inviting.
“This is not the sort of place for a proper lady to visit nor are these the sort of women she should even know about,”Mr. Parker insisted.
“Yet my husband is determined to know one very intimately. Why, Martin?”
“Because it’s better to have my transgressions discussed in public than yours. Men are more easily forgiven. Women are not.”
“What do you perceive as my transgressions?”
“I know precisely what they are. As you pointed out, I have a detective on the matter.”
“We play cards.”
“Louisa, she’s seen you...”
His voice trailed off, and Daisy decided he’d either mumbled or couldn’t bring himself to voice out loud that his wife had been seen sitting on another man’s lap or kissing him. On the lap of the man whose scent surrounded Daisy, whose heat radiated out to touch her. Whose nearness made it difficult to think, to concentrate on the words being exchanged on the other side of the wall.
“Playacting,” Mrs. Parker said quite clearly.“We’ve never—”
Everything went quiet and Daisy strained hard to hear. Then her gaze fell on the bell-shaped end of the stethoscope. It was no longer pressed to the wall but dangled between Bishop’s fingers. She lifted her eyes to his.
“It was getting a little too personal,” he murmured.
Because Mrs. Parker was going to reveal the truth of him. The rapscallion, the scoundrel, the rake. Theman married women steered clear of for fear they might fall under his spell. The man unmarried girls were warned would lead them to ruination. She considered the cards she gathered up on the mornings after one of his ladies visited. “You don’t actually bed them, do you? Any of them.”
“If you don’t step away, I’m going to do something that we’ll probably both regret.” His eyes began to smolder, his breaths coming more quickly. Those lips of his that by their very design offered promises of passion had parted slightly. She knew what he wanted, knew it called for a hasty retreat on her part.
She stepped forward.
He lowered his head and slashed his mouth across hers, tugging free the ends of the tubing joining them. The stethoscope clattered to the floor. His large hand cradled the back of her head, angling it so he could deepen the kiss. His tongue tangled with hers, and yet at the same time seemed to explore every nook and cranny as though each held a treasure. This was nothing at all like the kiss she’d seen him give to Mrs. Parker. It had been chaste, tame, a cat stretching in the sun. This one was fire and brimstone, desperation and hunger. A panther on the hunt. As though they’d both gone without sustenance for far too long, and now at last were free to enjoy the feast that had been prepared in welcome.
She curled her arms around his neck, scraping her fingers along his scalp, threading them through the thick strands, while he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly, her breasts smashed against his chest, the rest of her body pressed against his firmand sturdy length. She didn’t know how she remained standing when her legs had grown so weak. If not for his hold on her, she suspected she might have collapsed to the floor.
His mouth left hers to trail heated kisses along her throat, beneath her jaw, to her ear. “I’ve wanted to do that since the first moment I laid eyes on you.”
The man Society believed had no restraint when it came to women appeared to possess an abundance of it. “Why didn’t you?”
“You were a member of my staff. But you’re not in my household at this minute.”
