HOURS LATER,HARRIET ANDALEXANDER WISHED THE MEN WELL,crossed back over the unsound plank, and climbed back into the carriage. Harriet flipped through her notebook, which had hardly been sufficient for all she’d wanted to write down. Offhandedly, she let out a breathless: “I can’t wait to show this all to Mr. Dawkins.”
Alexander frowned. Unavoidable though it was, he didn’t relish Mr. Dawkins benefiting fromhissurprise. Something rotten twisted in his gut at the thought of Harriet gleefully spending hours with a man going over all the words for a prostitute or a prick that she’d just learned.
Moreover, here she was thinking of blasted Mr. Dawkins while he was mooning over her and calling her “love.” Howhadthat slipped out? And then there was the kiss she’d given him on the cheek—was it meant to be as pleasurable as it felt? To tease him all day long? Or was it intended to convey an almost sisterly affection for him? Had she been thinking of her dictionary and Mr. Dawkins when she’d done it? And why was he thinking so hard about a kiss on his cheek anyway? He’d had kisses in far more intimate places that he’d never thought of again.
He was stewing in his thoughts when Harriet looked up at him with her gorgeous sea-glass eyes, which were worryingly damp. Lord, he hoped she wasn’t going to cry.
“Thank you ever so much for today. It really was the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.” She seemed so sincerely grateful that Alexander’s heart pinched. But then she bit her lip, and any sensibility Alexander had abandoned him.
“Really?” he asked, crossing the carriage to crowd her bench. “Nicer even than this?” And with that he hauled her onto his lap and pulled her into a kiss. Even without his hardness pressing into her, there was no possible way to interpret this as anything other than selfish desire on his part. This wasn’t a lesson for her in how to find or give pleasure; this was simply for the sake of having her. Impatient, he reached his hand down to lift her skirts; it had been hours since he’d seen her legs, after all.
“It’s midday!” she shrieked, pulling back.
“Yes, well, I’m feeling ever so carriage sick. And only my wife knows the cure,” he teased, pulling the curtains closed. Then he reached behind her and flicked open a button on the back of her gown, and followed with his mouth, brushing her hair back and placing kisses along her neck. His other hand reached to the front of her dress, tugging down the bodice to expose her breasts.
Fucking hell.
He dearly hoped the carriage never arrived home.
Harriet woke up in her bed with Alexander snoring softly next to her. Late afternoon sun spilled through the curtains; she couldn’t remember a time she’d slept in the middle of the day. Napping was Philippa’s answer to almost any problem larger than a broken teacup, but Harriet wasn’t ever able to fall asleep. In fact, now that Harriet thought about it, Philippa might have napped over a broken teacup too. “A nap won’t clean up the shards, but at leastI’llfeel better,” she could imagine her saying. She laughed lightly to herself.
“What’s so amusing?” Alexander grumbled next to her. His low, sleepy voice sent shivers of arousal through her that she tried to ignore. She was already in bed naked in the middle of the day; surely that was enough wantonness for one day, Lord help her.
Alexander flipped over onto his back and rested a bare arm—a superbly muscled bare arm—over his eyes, his other hand rubbing up and down his sternum idly.
Harriet watched the movement, rather dazed, as she answered. “I was thinking of my sister. She loves napping. She told me once her goal in life was to be horizontal as often as possible.”
Alexander choked out a laugh that turned into a cough and Harriet swatted at his arm. “She didn’t mean like that!” Harriet protested. Alexander lifted his arm and quirked an eyebrow at her.
“All right, maybe she did,” Harriet allowed, sitting back against the pillows. “But she really was always napping. She could fall asleep at the dining table. She swore she could sleep while riding a horse, although we never had the chance to test it after … after Mama died. Papa sold all the horses.”
Harriet hadn’t meant to bring up her mother, and she tried to trail off at the end of her sentence so as not to encourage more conversation. Alexander snaked his hand under the covers and found hers, giving it a light squeeze. Somehow, Harriet felt the squeeze in her heart instead.
“You miss her?”
“I miss all of my sisters.”
“I meant your mother.”
Harriet smiled weakly, trying her best not to cry. “I don’t remember much about her. I was only six when she died. I remember she smelled good, and she had big hands. Or maybe we just thought they were big because we were so young. But we always teased her about them. Papa was happier then; he wasn’t mean. He was never sweet like she was, and he wouldn’t play with us. But he was … he was better.”
Alexander smoothed his thumb over her hand, which was so kind it made Harriet want to cry even more, which was not at all what he’d signed up for when he’d brought her to bed after their excursion.
“Sorry,” she said, dashing a tear from her cheek.
Alexander sat up against the headboard then, the covers slipping deliciously down his broad chest. Really, the man was obscene in his beauty. Harriet appraised him unabashedly, which made his lips quirk into a smile. He didn’t know what to do with a crying woman, she supposed. Not at all the thing to do in Lord Alexander’s bed.
He spread his legs wide and gestured between them, and Harriet glanced around, unsure of what came next. Surely her crying didn’t make him … aroused? Did he mean for her to …
“Come here,” he said, lifting her as if it was nothing, and settling her so her back was against him—against that stupidly broad chest.
He pulled the covers back up over the two of them, tucking them under Harriet’s armpits, which made her smile. The man had no compunction about nudity—he probably could have strolled quite unaffected through Parliament with no shirt on; Harriet wasn’t quite there yet.
Leaning against him felt heavenly, almost as good as what they’d done in bed before falling asleep. In fact, it may have been better. Harriet felt warm and content and—though she wouldn’t have liked to admit her enjoyment of the feeling—protected. She was in grave danger of instructing the man to hang the rules—she’d give him her virginity any time he inquired after it. Alexander brushed his hand lightly through her hair, a surprisingly comforting gesture. Was the man truly good at everything?
“What about you?” Harriet ventured softly, her hand tracing absently along his thigh. They didn’t normally talk about his family. She knew he had a brother, but only because of the rumors about him, not because he’d mentioned his sibling. “What is your family like?”
Harriet felt Alexander still behind her at the question, and she fought to keep her composure casual, as if he were an easily spooked horse and not a rich, handsome duke’s son.
