Miss Thornton had made it abundantly clear she needed no protection, least of all from him.
Her words stung more than they should have. It wasn’t the first time someone had criticized his choices, but something about her disappointment… He shook his head sharply. What did it matter if some common-born spinster thought him wanting?
“A newspaper editor,” he scoffed aloud. “Practically a tradesman.”
And she thought him a fool.
He turned abruptly, snatching up his discarded coat. This line ofthinking was dangerous. Miss Thornton was nothing to him, could be nothing to him. Her low status alone made any deeper consideration supremely inconvenient. And she had that limp which could mean Lord knows what. He needed a woman with a powerful build who could give him ten children in quick succession without blinking an eye. Love matches were the stuff of gothic novels, not real life. Well, maybe except for the Lancasters. And the Carlisles. And the Salisburys.
Damnation.He had his duties to his title, to his family name. Convenient liaisons with willing widows were one thing, but anything more…
“Utterly ridiculous,” he muttered again, though whether he meant her expectations of him or his own unsettling reactions to them, he couldn’t quite say.
*
Amelia slipped intoher chambers after one o’clock of the morning, her mind still seething with the memory of Hereford’s casual intimacy with the Duchess of Rutland. She dismissed her lady’s maid with a wave, claiming fatigue, but sleep was the furthest thing from her thoughts.
Once alone, she moved to her writing desk and unlocked the hidden drawer beneath her stationery compartment. From it, she withdrew several sheets of expensive cream paper and a small pot of distinctive violet ink—her private collection, separate from the supplies she used for theReview.
Amelia dipped her pen, watching the violet liquid cling to the nib like a drop of royal blood. She had intended to work on herMetropolitan Reviewarticle, but another story burned inside her, demanding release.
“Ridiculous man,” she muttered, thinking of how Hereford had stood in Brooks, his shirtsleeves rolled up, revealing those muscularforearms as he pressed against the Duchess of Rutland. “The key is to imagine the foil as an extension of your arm,” he had said. “Like a lover’s caress.”
Her pen touched paper, and words flowed with surprising intensity:
The Marquess moved with grace, his noble fingers guiding her hand upon the polished bow stick. “Gently,” he murmured, his breath warm against her neck. “An instrument responds best to a light touch.”
Miss Collins trembled, acutely aware of his powerful frame behind her, the heat of him seeping through her simple muslin gown. Though she was merely a chamber maid in his grand household, he insisted on these private lessons, claiming every music student should learn how to make love to her instrument.
“My lord,” she whispered, her voice catching as his hand slid from her wrist to her waist, steadying her stance. “This seems most improper.”
“Propriety,” he said with a wicked smile, “is merely a convention invented to keep passionate souls apart.”
Amelia paused, her cheeks flushing at the direction her imagination had taken. She should stop—this was beyond scandalous. Yet her pen returned to the paper with a will of its own.
His fingers tightened at her waist, drawing her closer until her back pressed fully against his chest. The bow clattered to the floor as he turned her in his arms.
“Tell me to stop,” he pleaded, his blue eyes darkening with desire. “Tell me you don’t want this as much as I do.”
But the chamber maid remained silent, her breath coming in short gasps as his hand slid boldly upward to cup her breast through the thin fabric…
The words poured forth, increasingly explicit, describingsensations Amelia had only imagined. She wrote of the marquess lifting his maid onto his massive desk, of papers scattering as he claimed her mouth with hungry kisses, of her legs wrapped around his waist as propriety and class distinctions melted away in the heat of their passion.
As her pen raced across the page, heat bloomed within her. She pictured Hereford—not as the insufferable aristocrat who mocked her editorials, but as the virile man she’d glimpsed at Brooks, shirtsleeves rolled up, powerful forearms exposed. In her mind’s eye, those strong hands now explored a fictional woman’s body with the same confidence he’d demonstrated when handling a foil. Her breath quickened as her imagination conjured the weight of him pressing down, the heat of his skin, the intensity that might burn in those blue eyes when focused on pleasure rather than mockery.
An ache formed low in her belly, insistent and demanding. Almost without conscious thought, Amelia’s free hand drifted beneath the desk, gathering her skirts until her fingers found bare skin. She hesitated, propriety warring with desire. But here, alone in her chambers, who would know of her weakness? Her fictional creation certainly wouldn’t judge her for seeking the same pleasure she described so boldly on paper.
Her fingers slipped higher, finding the sensitive flesh between her thighs already slick with want. A gasp escaped her lips as she circled that hidden bundle of nerves, her other hand still guiding the pen, filling the page with increasingly fevered descriptions. In her story, the maid arched beneath the marquess’ skilled touch; in reality, Amelia bit her lip to stifle a moan as her own touch brought her closer to the edge.
“Charles,” she whispered into the empty room, the forbidden use of his Christian name adding a thrill of transgression to her solitary pleasure. Her fingers moved faster, matching the rhythm she imagined he might set—demanding yet considerate, passionate yet precise. Heatspiraled through her body, tightening like a coil until it finally broke in waves of release that left her trembling and breathless.
When she finally set down her pen, her fingers were stained with violet ink and the candle had burned low. She read over what she had written, shocked by her own audacity. The scene was far more explicit than anything she had previously submitted, and the thought of the handsome marquess reading her words—perhaps even recognizing himself in the domineering aristocrat—sent another thrill through her spent body.
This was scandalous, yet she felt strangely liberated, as if committing these forbidden desires to paper—and indulging them in private—had somehow exorcised the uncomfortable feelings that had plagued her since seeing Hereford at the gentleman’s club.
She adjusted her clothing with trembling hands, feeling a curious mixture of satisfaction and embarrassment.
Amelia folded the pages and sealed them with wax. In the corner, she carefully drew the small snowflake symbol that had become her secret mark.
“Let Hereford enjoy his duchess,” she whispered, placing the pages in her dispatch box. “At least on paper, I can imagine a different story.” Though even as she spoke the words, she knew the truth—the story she’d written wasn’t so different after all. Only in fiction could she admit what she refused to acknowledge in reality: that beneath her disdain for Charles Bartholomew lay a dangerous attraction that threatened everything she thought she knew about herself.
