Page 17 of Love and Other Disasters

He winced and hauled Sophie around so he could see her face. She seemed unperturbed by their conversation while he was struggling to keep up. “Men enjoy variety.”

She seemed unconcerned that he held her and did not seek to pull away. In fact, as her eyes traveled from his chest up to his face and down again boldly, so slowly, he felt it as a caress across his body.

His breath caught. Was that anticipation in her eyes?

Her lips suddenly turned up in a smile, and he was rendered mute by expectation. He slid his hand up to her shoulder slowly as his pulse quickened. “In fact, men enjoy many forbidden things.”

Her chin lifted in defiance. “Yes, I can believe that all too easily.”

Jasper felt that remark like a slap, but held his ground. He would get the last word today. He was a bachelor, a rake, and proud of it.

Yet, he had missed a great deal about the governess. There was far more to Sophie Radcliffe than met the eye. And after many months of not knowing her, it was a shock to realize she wasn’t quite the prude he’d imagined. “Now that you see why I did not want you or the children in this part of the house, you should go join them.”

“I’ve no desire to stay.”

And yet she did not leave. “What is it you want me to say, Mrs. Radcliffe? I am what I am.”

“You could be anything you want. You have unlimited potential.”

Now that was something he’d never heard said about himself before. “Do not provoke me.”

She held his gaze with a trace of bitterness. “I do nothing beyond extending you the courtesy of conversation. That is more than you have ever done for me.”

He would not apologize. They simply did not get along. “Well, what are you waiting for, Radcliffe? Go!”

“I would go—if you could please release my arm,” she said, looking down at his hand pointedly.

He was startled that he had hold of her again.

And Jasper’s fingers did not seem to want to cooperate and release her at first, either. They pulled her toward him ever so slowly until that smart mouth of hers was mere inches away from his own. He could see the flare of defiance in her eyes again, and the rapid rise and fall of her breasts beneath her prim starched gown confirmed she was not unaffected by his proximity.

Jasper’s gaze dropped to her lips, and they parted slightly. He could turn her head so completely that she would forget any infatuation she may have imagined she’d had for Nash. He could prove to her, too, that he required nothing but himself to please a woman in his bed. But then he’d never be rid of her.

He let her go, and Sophie Radcliffe swayed back from him, a slightly dazed expression on her face now. Her gaze dropped slowly down his body and stopped at his groin.

Her breath caught.

Jasper refused to be embarrassed that his cock had a mind of its own. He had never seduced a governess and didn’t intend to start now with her. No matter the provocation. “Begone, Radcliffe.”

She curtsied to him. “Enjoy your evening with your friends, my lord…and may you find someone willing to take care of that small matter for you?”

She swept away, chin high, shoulders back.

Jasper watched her leave, held captive by the sway of her hips and considering a vastly different ending to their little skirmish today…at least until he heard her laugh.

He narrowed his eyes. The saucy minx! Sophie Radcliffe wasn’t at all who she pretended to be. Nash must have no idea of the character of the woman he’d employed.

Chapter Six

A sound jerked Sophie out of a light doze. As had become her habit during Lord Jasper’s party, she slept in the nursery with the children. Sophie lifted her head to study them in their beds across the dark room now, but she was certain they were still fast asleep.

She turned to look about the chamber, noting the position of the moonlight across the floorboards. Only half the night had passed and she closed her eyes again. It had merely been a dream.

Sophie was dozing off again when another laugh rang out, this time clearly not from the children, and it was more than one voice, too.

She groaned and sat up, pushing her blankets aside. No one should be roaming the halls of the upper floor or laughing outside the children’s nursery at this time of night. She got to her feet, snatched up her robe to slip on even as she approached the door to put her ear against the wood. Definitely someone’s footsteps out there.

She pursed her lips. None of the servants had reason to be moving about near the nursery at this hour, unless there was a problem that couldn’t wait until morning.