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Even in the carriage they hadn’t been this close; not a poppyseed width existed betwixt them, and she could feel every firm muscle of Mr Seth Hawkins, her sensitive back to his rippled pectoralis major, her waist to his flat musculus abdominis, her derrière to…protrusions.
“I’m not sure this is a part of the manoeuvre I was taught,” she asserted stridently.
“I’m quite sure it isn’t,” he countered softly. “Now…how yer gonna free yerself from me villainous and depraved clutches?”
This may take some thinking time…
“Erm… Well, I could… No, not that… Maybe…” Savouring the wanton sensation curling beneath her skin, she shivered and arched her neck a dash. “Perchance…”
Seth shifted. “If yer don’t think sharpish, damsel, I might ravish yer maidenly body.”
Hmm…
“I suppose I could kick my heel back and catch you in the nether appendages.”
She slid her bare foot up his leg. He cursed low. At least she assumed so, as it was a short word she was unacquainted with.
Not utterly ignorant of a male’s anatomical physique, Matilda understood he was…readied, for want of a better word, and that her own wantonness had ripened to outright waywardness.
Miss Appleton would be shocked to the core.
“You could indeed do that,” he murmured, “but please don’t. Anything else?”
“I could…bash my elbow in your ribs, twist to the left then wallop you in the throat. Or perhaps wrench your ear and make my escape.”
“Excellent. So why don’t you?”
Many, many reasons…“I have no wish to be disemployed for rendering my employer insensate.”
“You’d be welcome to try, but since I have you helpless within my roguish grip, a question: if we could go on a jaunt for an afternoon, where would it be? You attended the prizefight with me, now I’d like us to go somewhere you would enjoy.”
“W-without Chloe?”
“Just the two of us…and the maid should it be required…or if you don’t trust me?”
Of course she did. Just wasn’t sure if she trusted herself.
“Well, I attend a literary salon once a month. Merely a few…not friends exactly but fellow devotees. We discuss a poem or play. I thought to miss this month as it’s tomorrow afternoon but perhaps… And I don’t believe a chaperone would be required for that.”
“Then, Matilda, we shall go. And maybe some dinner afterwards?”
“Why thank you, Mr Hawkins.”
“Seth.”
“Seth,” she repeated, savouring it. No one in the Haut Ton had such a delicious name.
“Chloe can spend the night with Modesty. This, of course, is if your host would not mind my attendance at your salon?”
“Not at all. Although if theatre prints are all you read,” she said rather dryly, “I’m not sure how interesting it will be for you.”
A flicker of lips at her ear told her that he smiled. “But you will be there, Matilda.”
Gosh.
And she became aware that Mr Seth Hawkins was perhaps…courting her?
Not in the conventional ‘waltz and a posy’ manner of the Ton world but with tender words, a legion of kindness and those ravenous, devastating kisses.
