Page 71 of A Figure of Love

She flung herself into the wingback chair beside the fire and took her sketchbook out of her all-but-empty satchel. She’d put the other items—the miniature, wedding lines, and money—in the reticule she’d carried tonight, keeping those few things with her, as always. But there’d been no room for a sketchbook. She had dozens of sketchbooks, but this one—with the sketches of Gareth—had now become an item of value. She flicked through the book until she found her favorite. He’d been looking at Oliver, who was on the shore. His face wore a smile she’d never seen before and she’d known they were trading taunts about manliness or lack-thereof.

She carefully tore the page from the book and folded it, tucking it in with the marriage lines. There, now she would not have to worry about losing all trace of him should she and Oliver need to run.

∞∞∞

Gareth beat the leather bag with a savagery that popped one of the seams loose and sent sand flying across the padded floor. He seized the bag with both hands and stilled it, resting his head on his forearms while he caught his breath.

His mind seemed to have arranged itself into two distinct camps. On the one side was reason and calm and mathematics—he was still annoyed to have been stopped before he and Poundsworth could finish their counter-proof. On the other, was that woman. She had taken possession of a full half of his concentration. Perhaps even more than fifty percent?

Gareth shook his head at the pointless thought.

He told himself he’d done the right thing—the gentlemanly thing—when he’d left her standing alone in the hall. He had to confess that when he’d woken this morning he’d not entirely abandoned his plans to ravish her and then callously leave her. But sometime during the evening, without him even being aware of it, he’d come to realize such petty, childish revenge was beneath him. It was beneath anyone—or at least it should be.

So instead of ravishing her, he’d taken his bruised sensibilities to the library and made preparations for his departure in the morning. Yet here he was, at two o’clock in the morning, beating this infernal bag.

He’d sent Chalmers to bed after the man had driven him half-mad with questions about where they were going and for how long and so forth.

“You are going to London and will await me there, Chalmers.” The last thing Gareth needed was more spectators to Dec’s bad behavior. Not that his dour valet hadn’t seen most of it before. Still, Gareth decided he wanted to take the journey alone. He’d dressed himself for years without a valet, he could do so again.

Once he’d sent Chalmers packing, he’d stripped to his drawers and begun to exorcise whatever possessed him. He should have wrapped his hands, he realized, looking down at his grazed, swollen knuckles. He heard a sound behind him and sighed.

“Chalmers, I was—” he stopped. It wasn’t Chalmers, but the woman who stood in the doorway.

She swallowed so hard he could hear it all the way across the room.

“I’m sorry. I knocked. I thought your valet was in here. I heard you both talking as you passed my room. I thought maybe nobody heard me because of all the activity. I didn’t—” she broke off as he strode toward her, her eyes sweeping his naked chest and dropping lower, to where his body had begun rejoicing at her unexpected arrival.

He stopped a foot away from her, not bothering to put on his robe or conceal his sweaty body or growing erection. If she insisted on invading his privacy, she could deal with the consequences.

“What can I help you with, Mrs. Lombard?”

She licked her lips in a way that made his cock throb, her eyes making the journey from his hips to his face with tortoise-like speed.

Again, she swallowed, her chest rising and falling in little jerks. “Your bag is beside the door. Are you leaving?” Her voice sounded strained and it pleased him to know he could at least discountenance her with his body.

“In the morning.”

“But you said you’d stay until we’d begun filling the lake?”

“I changed my mind.”

She nodded slowly, her expression oddly . . . stricken.

A ball of anger rose from his stomach and momentarily choked him. She was an impressive actress; she should not be playing with stone and dirt but treading the boards. How dare she act as if she cared what he did or where he went? Did it mean nothing to her to take her lover to her own bed one night and go to Gareth’s bed the next?

He took a step closer, for once shedding his obsessive fastidiousness and not caring that he was sweaty and no doubt smelled like a barnyard animal. “You still have not told me what I can do for you, Mrs. Lombard.”

She had to crane her head back to meet his eyes.

“Are you angry with me?”

The question stopped him like a stone wall. Before he could think of an answer, she touched him, her hand on his chest as light as a soft breeze.

Gareth’s control snapped and he crushed her mouth with a ferocity that left the metallic taste of blood flooding his mouth. His blood, her blood, both, he didn’t know or care. Her fingers plunged into his hair and she yanked him down, meeting his violently ravaging tongue with her own.

She pushed her hips against his and his mind went blank as they ground against each other like rutting beasts. Vaguely, he heard the tearing of fabric and realized it was her dressing gown. He pulled away from her throat, which he’d sucked hard enough to mark—and looked down at her. It was her hand that had torn the fastenings off her dressing gown while trying to open it. Gareth took the fragile nightgown she wore beneath it with both hands and tore it open with a long, soft hiss.

She shrugged and clawed at the garments until both fluttered to the floor. When she would have pulled off his drawers, he stopped her, taking both wrists in his hand and lifting them above her head.