He leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, arms crossed, and watched her as she read a book that would send a blush to a more demure woman’s cheeks.
For a moment, he simply let himself look.
Then he cleared his throat.
Chapter Ten
“Your Grace!” Augusta snapped the book shut, her cheeks growing hot.
She was not a woman easily discomposed. But now, alone, in a library after midnight, caught reading the sort of book that would have had Reverend Leighton administering cold baths and extra prayers… She felt mortification seize her so violently, that for a moment she could do nothing at all but stare at the flickering shadows cast by the lamp.
“Miss… Norton,” Hudson said, in a voice that was all smoke and velvet, “I do hope you’re not planning to burn down the library. The embers look positively mutinous.”
Augusta jumped up, nearly upsetting the low table in her haste. “Your Grace…” She ducked her head, clutching the book to her chest as though it were a shield. “I-I didn’t expect?—”
“It’s your right,” he cut in, with a shrug that looked easy but wasn’t. “It’s a public room. Or as public as any room can be, at this hour.” He strode in, shutting the door behind him with a finality that made her breath catch.
She tried to hide the title as she returned it to the side table, but the gilded spine glimmered.Memoirs of a Courtesan. A French one, no less.
She saw his gaze catch on the words. “I was only leafing through it,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t quiver as much as her knees did.
Hudson crossed to the fire and took up the poker, stirring the coals into a brief, furious glow. “You might have chosen something less… educational.” The glint in his eyes made her want to slap him and kiss him at once. “But I suppose that’s one way to spend the evening.”
“I didn’t realize what it was until I’d begun,” she said, mortified by her own honesty, but unable to stop the words. “The volume was mis-shelved. I was looking for… for philosophy.”
He arched an eyebrow, the movement almost imperceptible but deeply infuriating. “That book contains a philosophy of sorts.”
She pressed her lips together, wishing she could simply vanish into the carpet. “I didn’t read much,” she lied.
“Of course,” he said, and this time she could not decide if he was mocking her or not. “But tell me, what was it then that made you blush so furiously?”
Augusta felt her blush deepen, rising from her chest to her cheeks in a single, treacherous wave. She tried to replace the book on the shelf but missed the slot and fumbled it, nearly dropping it on her toes.
“Excuse me,” she muttered, stooping to retrieve it.
Hudson’s boots appeared beside her, planted firmly on the carpet. “Miss Norton?—”
She straightened, clutching the book, and found herself looking up at him. Too close. Far, far too close. She felt the heat of the fire and of him, the two tangling around her like smoke.
He reached out, one large hand engulfing hers, and for a moment they both just stared at the point of contact.
Augusta’s mind went blank, or perhaps just white-hot, as she tried to remember if she’d ever been touched so deliberately by a man before.
He did not let go. Instead, he gently pried the book from her fingers and set it on the table with his one hand. But his other hand lingered on hers, his thumb brushing her knuckles in a gesture so familiar, so unbearably intimate, that she wanted to bite his wrist just to see if he’d flinch.
“You don’t need to apologize,” he said quietly. “You’re a woman.”
She pulled her hand away, but the gesture cost her all of her resolve. “It’s not proper.”
He smiled, but it was a sad smile. “Miss Norton, if I wanted a proper governess for Cassie, I’d have let an agency send me an elderly widow with a face like a haddock and a moral code borrowed from the Inquisition.”
Augusta’s lips almost quirked up into a smile, but she stifled it. “You are mocking me.”
“I am not,” he assured her. “I am teasing you. Only because you’re doing such a poor job of teasing yourself.” His voice lowered, and his eyes darkened. “The book is just a book, Augusta. You’re allowed curiosity. Evenespeciallya woman like you.”
She wished he’d stop saying her name that way, as if tasting it. She wished she could stop imagining howhewould taste.
She tried to retreat, but he followed, trapping her between the bookcase and his body, not quite touching but radiating enough heat to make every hair on her arms stand on end. She had to tilt her chin to keep looking him in the eye.
