“Does he know staring is rude?” Great-Aunt Wynchester demanded from behind her cupped hand. “I thought you said he was a duke of good breeding.”
“Withoccasionalgood behavior,” Chloe murmured back. “Didn’t we agree we both have a soft spot for rascals?”
Lawrence stiffened. His reputation was the opposite of rascally. He was the pinnacle of good behavior. If this was an insinuation that she’d fallen for that damnable Earl of Southerby—
“Faircliffe looks like he’d rather eat you than tea cakes,” Great-Aunt Wynchester grumbled.
Truer than she knew. Chloe was a succulent summer fruit and he wanted to devour every morsel of her. Lawrence could not wait to get Chloe alone so he could kiss her.
Er,talk. So they could talk. In a calm, well-behaved fashion.
He was saved from making a fool of himself by the timely arrival of a footman bearing the tea tray.
“Ohhh…” Great-Aunt Wynchester clutched her stomach and let out a moan worthy of a green-gilled sailor. “It’s too soon for more lemon cakes. I may have overindulged at the ball.”
“Then these are for me.” Chloe helped herself to a cake.
Lawrence did the same. “Did you sleep well last night?”
It was an innocent question. Or at least it wasmeantto be an innocent question. But when Chloe’s dark eyes met his, he felt their heat sear every inch of his skin.
“No,” she answered without breaking their gaze. “Did you?”
“No,” he croaked.
Free from the specter of marriage to Miss York, Lawrence had spent a restless night thinking only of Chloe. Endless carnal dreams of their naked limbs wrapped around each other, her little gasps of pleasure as he drove into her again and again. He’d awoken with his cock hard and swollen. Relieving the pressure with his hand only allowed him to slip into another torrid dream.
The sudden hope that she’d had similar thoughts of him was enough to make his groin tighten all over again.
“I didn’t sleep well, either.” Great-Aunt Wynchester poked at her knees. “These old joints say it’s going to rain.”
“It’s London, Aunt,” Chloe murmured. “It rains every day.”
Great-Aunt Wynchester narrowed her eyes. “You weren’t this cheeky when you were a little girl.”
Lawrence leaned forward with interest. “What was she like as a child?”
“Oh, the tales I could tell!” Great-Aunt Wynchester cackled.
Chloe sent her a look. “Do not tell them.”
“Once,” Great-Aunt Wynchester began, ignoring her niece, “she got lost deep in the forest and would have died of hunger had she and her brother not stumbled across a house made of gingerbread.”
“That never happened,” Chloe scolded her. “That’s the plot of ‘Hänsel und Gretel,’ which was translated for us a few months ago in the reading circle.”
“Another time,” Great-Aunt Wynchester continued as if Chloe had not spoken, “she consumed a poisoned apple anddiddie. Only the kiss of a dashing but ill-bred undertaker could bring her back to life. I pretended to be dead, too. A woman of my age doesn’t receive many kisses. And then there was the time we were trapped in a Gothic castle—”
“Please do not claim Death abducted me on horseback, like Lenore. Or that I enjoyed a rollicking career as a prostitute like Fanny Hill.” Chloe shook her finger. “I should never have shown you that lending library.”
“And then there was that pieman,” Great-Aunt Wynchester said dreamily. “No matter what you’d saved your halfpenny for, in the worst days of winter you never could resist a hot, fresh pie.”
Chloe’s expression softened. “I always shared with you.”
Her aunt’s eyes shone with love. “I never tasted a meal half so good since.”
“Even a night spent gorging on lemon cakes?” Chloe teased.
Great-Aunt Wynchester let out a groan and clutched at her stomach. “Don’t remind me. It’s aggravating my gout.”
