Page 94 of The Seduction of an English Scoundrel

Chloe gave her a push toward the staircase. “Take charge, Belshire.”

Drawing a breath, Jane unfastened the frogs of her pelisse, handed it to Chloe, and proceeded toward the stairs. A few moments later she found Grayson emerging from his room, with Heath and Drake engaged in conversation at the other end of the hallway.

That conversation stopped at her appearance, and she felt a frisson of uncertainty at experimenting with Audrey’s ideas. Perhaps every woman secretly wondered how she would fare as a courtesan if given the chance; beneath her anxiety she was aware that it was rather a challenge to seduce the man who had made an art of seduction.

“Jane.” He gave her a rather stern frown. “There you are. I was getting worried. Uncle Giles and Simon have gone out to look for you. I searched the library twice. Where did you go?”

“Oh. Just here and there.” She glided toward him, taking the slow undulating steps that Audrey had demonstrated, which at first made her feel rather silly, then gratified when she noticed Grayson’s eyes widen.

“Did you hurt your foot, Jane?” he demanded.

She stood on tiptoe to wind her hands around his neck. “How sweet of you to ask. No kiss hello for your lover?”

He peeled her hands off his neck and smiled in embarrassment over her shoulder. “Heath and Drake are watching.”

“Are they? Well, good for them.”

“It isn’t good,” he said in a puzzled undertone.

She walked her fingers down the muscular wall of his chest. “But it was good at breakfast.”

“Yes, but—did you just touch me where I think you touched me?”

“It is my function as a mistress, isn’t it?”

“Not in front of my family, darling,” he answered, a deep flush mounting on his cheekbones. “Jane, are you certain you are feeling well? Perhaps I did not take that fever seriously enough. Perhaps I overexerted you last night.”

“What a fusspot you are.” She nudged him back into the drawing room he had just exited, giving the door a kick shut with her foot. “Now we are alone. Lie down on the sofa.”

“I think you are the one who needs to lie down. Do they serve brandy in that library, Jane?”

“I have been reconsidering your offer.”

“Have you?”

She led him toward the curved-back sofa in the corner. “Perhaps it is not such a bad idea after all.”

“Well—”

She pulled him down beside her by the lapels of his long-tailed coat. “I will need practice, mind you.”

“Practice?” He raised his brow, looking intrigued. “In—”

She began to unbutton his coat, then the black embroidered vest beneath. “In pleasing you.”

“You please me well enough.”

She ran her hand over his chest. “But one can always do better.”

He caught her hand in his, a muscle ticking in his cheek. “You do better than anyone I’ve ever known. What is this about?”

“Desire.”

“Desire?”

“Lust, Grayson. Passion. Setting off rockets.”

He cleared his throat. “This is all very arousing and unexpected. But—” He raised his thighs to draw her against him only to freeze at Drake’s voice outside the door.