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“Burning with it,” he said, the words low and clipped. “I know I haven’t the right to, but I hate the idea of you in the arms of another.”
She shouldn’t like that. But oh, my, she did. She liked it very much, and rewarded him for it by pressing even closer. “Does this help?” she whispered. “I’ve never danced this close to another.”
He had so many sounds. This one was pleasure. Andshe liked it the best. “So, this is how you would have us dance?”
“If there were music, yes.” She paused. “But Mayfair would most certainly notice.”
His lips were so close. Was he well enough for this?
“Not me,” he said. “They’d notice you, though. Certainly.”
He was so warm, and so alive, and so perfect—it was impossible to imagine the wide world letting him go unnoticed for even a moment. He was the opposite of her.
“I notice you, Adelaide.”
His touch on her skin, his voice in her ear, his heat... all around her.
“I notice this.”
She clung to it, that vow. The impossible truth of it.
Knowing that it would not always be true. Knowing that it would end, because there was no other option. Knowing that every moment she stole was just that... stolen. Criminal. Smuggled.
And then he kissed her, and he played the thief.
Chapter Seventeen
He had been lost the moment she sat on his lap.
Before that, truthfully. When she’d perched on the edge of the bed, mirror in hand, and he’d noticed the tremble in her fingers as she tried not to look at him. But she’d wanted to. She’d liked looking at him.
Just as he liked looking at her. Just as he liked touching her, testing the curve of her hip on his thigh, the weight of her on his lap, the silk of her skin.
The warmth of her in his arms when he pulled her to her feet and danced with her, teasing her closer until they were pressed against each other, and he was wondering how quickly he could get her back to London, so he might take her to a ball and scandalize the doyennes of the aristocracy by claiming every dance, and scandalize the rest of the aristocracy by tugging her into dark gardens and having his way with her.
And scandalizeher, because he was coming to see that she liked to be scandalized.
Bandages and rosemary balm be damned, Adelaide was his cure.
The realization was a gift, as though he’d found something for which he’d been searching for years, and now that he’d found it—found her—a new road rolled out before him. He’d spent months watching her and days chasing her and mere hours discovering her, but there, in that house on the hill, with his brother eloped to God knewwhere and heirs to come, suddenly it was all clear, and Henry was free to watch her and chase her and discover her at his leisure.
She liked it when he watched. And chased. And discovered. She reveled in his notice. And he intended to give her more of all she wished.
All she asked for. All she deserved.
So he did what any intelligent man would do and returned to his chair, tugging her into his lap, so he could give her his undivided attention.
“Like this,” he whispered, pulling up her skirts until her knees were on either side of his thighs and she stared down at him like a queen.
His queen.
“Have a care for your ribs,” she said, resisting giving him her full weight. “You couldn’t shave.”
“Could I not?” he asked, his fingers at her hips, holding her on his lap. “I cannot remember anything painful about the experience. Not when you made it so pleasurable.” He moved to the ribbons of her skirts, toying with them. “These ribbons—the first time I saw you use them, tossing your skirts away on the docks to run faster—they’re brilliant.”
Her smile was full of pride. “Not just to run faster. Don’t forget the element of surprise.”
“How could I? Those grey skirts disappeared and sudden I was chasing this...” His hands went to her bottom and squeezed. “Glorious.”
