Page 38 of One Night with a Rake

“I hope you never do.”

Silence stretched between them. Not the companionable silence Georgette imagined would fill the evening of a contented couple. Not the prickly, accusing silence she sensed jabbing back and forth between her parents.

This silence simmered like a pot about to boil.

Nameless wanting hovered around them. It crackled in the air. Georgette breathed it in with shallow gulps. She didn’t dare draw a deep lungful lest the rampant neediness rush in and consume her.

Georgette laced her fingers together to keep from reaching over and smoothing his hair down where it curled behind his ear. She ached to plant a kiss there, just at his hairline, to taste him, all salty and male…

She gave herself an imaginary swat on the nose. Somehow, she had to fill that potent silence with something or she’d end up throwing herself into his arms.

Another low roll of thunder filled it for a moment but didn’t lessen the sense that someone was lacing her stays too tight and something was about to pop. Which was patently ridiculous because she wasn’t wearing any stays.

Oh, my word, I’m all but naked under my wrapper and night shift. She gave herself a mental shake. Well, of course I am. Everyone is always naked under their clothes. Georgette, you are turning into a complete goose.

“Mercy tells me that Vesta is doing well.” It was a weak salvo, but it broke the tension that was building by the smallest of degrees.

“Mrs. Throckmorten is placing her with a florist,” Nate said. “She has a talent for flower arrangement, I’m told, and a good head for figures.”

“That’s good.”

Nathaniel nodded.

“And I understand all your rooms at the former House of Sirens are filled now,” Georgette said, desperate not to let the silence creep back in to beguile her.

“They are,” Nate said. “Once word got around the neighborhood, two more women presented themselves to Mrs. Throckmorten and asked for help. One was a vicar’s daughter, if you can believe it.”

“Oh, yes, I can.” It wasn’t simply that Georgette understood the allure of sin now. A young woman without means was easy prey for the likes of the Covent Garden madams. Once they snared a girl with debt, they all but owned her. “I assume her family wouldn’t take her back.”

“Her family is gone, all taken in a cholera outbreak in their village. That’s why she came to London in the first place—to search for work.” Nathaniel dragged a hand over his face, as if he were weary to the bone. “Seems the girl is more educated than most. Mrs. Throckmorten thinks she might be able to place her as a governess eventually with a family of the middling sort.”

“That’s wonderful, Nate. You’ve done a very good thing. Why don’t you seem pleased?”

He studied his own long toes. “No matter what I do, the scales will never balance.”

“Because of that deal with the devil, you mean?”

He nodded.

Her curiosity burned like a lit taper. “So what is it you’ve discovered you really want?”

“You, Georgette.” He turned and put a hand to her cheek. “I want you.”

Fifteen

Her lips formed a soft “oh” and her eyes took on the hazy otherworldly quality of a Botticelli angel. Nate was willing to wager none of that artist’s models had smelled so intoxicating. Her unique scent wove itself around his insides and threatened to turn him into a kneeling supplicant. Anything to be near her, to breathe her in, to—

She leaned over and blew out the candle. “I want you too, Nate.”

With a low groan, Nathaniel gathered her into his arms. His mouth closed over hers. He’d been holding his breath, waiting for the answer to his unspoken question. This was too much to hope for. He didn’t deserve her.

And she certainly didn’t deserve what he was about to do to her. She was meant to be royalty. He was about to steal more than her maidenhead. He was stealing a crown.

He couldn’t let himself think about that. Especially not with the way she pressed her lips against his neck and then under his jaw. Gently, her mouth touched, featherlight, beneath his ear, and then softly in front of it where the knobby protrusion of cartilage met his cheek.

“Whatever trouble you’re in with that devil of yours, it’s not your fault,” she whispered, then continued to plant soft kisses on his temple, first on one eye, then the other.

He’d meant to ravish her, but instead he grew still beneath her tenderness.