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He muttered a curse, gathering her up and pressing her gently against the empty shelves. “What about your hair?”

He saw a flash of her teeth before she put her lips against his. She tasted him, long and slow. Every cell in his body matched this vibration, tuned to every touch she dealt him.

“Then hold my head, Rafe. It’s not hard.”

Ironic, that when he complied, cradling her neatly pinned hair in one palm and balancing her hips against himself with the other, some things in this equation were hard. Exquisitely, seam-rippingly so.

“Perhaps I lied,” she whispered. Her voice had dipped to a new low, and he got the chance to see her smile fully now. Her eyes were still closed, but she peppered his cheeks and nose with light kisses that turned cool in her wake. “It seems it is hard.”

He laughed, fingers squeezing into her soft flesh, and pressed his forehead to hers. “Christ, Sophie.”

Her voice stayed cool and even. “I didn’t lie.” Her touch grazed down, fingers spread wide as if to hold the more of him, before fastening on his hipbones. She pulled his pelvis into hers, and his smile faded on a groan. His mouth found hers, and then his tongue. There was no kiss deep enough, no connection vast enough, to settle this desperate ache.

His hips followed the pace she had started on their own now, grinding into the softness between her thighs. Her body moved up and down against the shelves and he had just enough presence of mind to adjust his grip.

“You all right?” He sounded like he’d ran for miles. And he would’ve, for her. He would have done any damn thing in the world.

Her brows notched together and she nodded as though it took great effort for her to do so. She moaned quietly into his mouth. That was the only thing that made this more brilliant than it already was: he had solved another piece of her, found another avenue by which to pleasure her.

His parted lips traced the lines of her neck, lower, lower—he couldn’t reach her breasts and keep this up—so his gaze fell to where his body had grown warm and achy against hers. Bunched layers of printed cotton skirts. The top of her stocking. The knot of her garter, and one beautiful inch of her bare fucking thigh. God help him, he wanted to bite it.

“Rafe. Rafe.”

Her fingers were tapping on his shoulder. Her voice was laden with a delicious urgency that made him desperate to deliver her to the edge. But when her foot kicked into the back of his knee and his balance faltered, he realized he’d misread her entirely. Her eyes had grown huge, and she stumbled out of his hold, beating her hands over her skirts.

He heard it, then—distant, recognizable voices and their accompanying footsteps. She was crouched, snatching one of her discarded gloves from where it had fallen to the floor. He bent to gather the second one. “Don’t worry,” he said, “it’s just two of the shop boys. No one ever comes back—”

She pressed a finger to her lips and gave him a slashing glare. Damn. He thought he’d been doing a decent job whispering.

She tossed his wrinkled cravat at him and turned away to start pulling on her gloves. A cool, creeping feeling came over him, instantly quelling his erection. She was ordering him to cover himself with the same tenacity she’d wanted to expose him minutes before. She was mortified by the idea of being caught with him.

Of course she was. Miss St. Quinton in a compromising embrace with the godforsaken merchant’s son. Fine ladies of the town didn’t want anyone to think they did such things, but certainly not with the likes of him.

He made the finishing knot under his chin and pulled a measure too hard, crushing his windpipe. He had no intention of courting Miss Penney anymore, but what of her? What of that coy smile she’d dealt him in the park when she’d spoken of Lord Hansbury?

“When can we go, then?” she whispered. She had her head bent, adjusting one of the pins at her crown.

He had to think for a moment. Oh, of course. The favors, which he had so breezily told her she needn’t repay. Did that make them favors, or him her servant?

Stop. He was being irrational. A witless buffoon whose self-doubt flared as easily as his foolish desire. She wasn’t misusing him; they, together, were going to help that child.

She glanced about the room, all set to rights now. The chattering shop boys had gone elsewhere, leaving them to the quiet. She strode up to him, took his face in her hands, and kissed him, quick and hard. “Perhaps Tuesday?”

His hands had gone up to cover hers. A beat passed before he opened his eyes. “I’ll have to see.”

“Very well.”

Their faces remained inches apart, her eyes burning copper fire in the slanting sunlight. Her hands felt marvelous against his skin, warm and so much smoother than his own. He wanted to trace the length of her gloves to her elbows. Pull her into him and simply hold her.

She slid her hands out from under his and plucked up the neckline of her gown. “You’ll let me know, then?”

He jerked at the knot in his cravat to loosen it. It didn’t ease the tightness in his throat. “You’ll hear from me, yes.”

eighteen

Sophie stopped on the threshold when she saw Anne in her bedchamber. The maid was partially shielded by the open doors of the armoire. Maybe if she just backed away …

The floor groaned under her slipper and Anne’s eyes leapt to meet hers. The woman was incapable of making an expression. “Pardon me, miss.” She curtsied woodenly. “I was only putting some gowns away. I shall return later.”