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She hastily gathered the pages into a pile.
“Is it writing or translation?” he asked, his curiosity aroused.
He must have read the words wrong. Must have been months’ progress... or some such.
“A bit of both,” she said vaguely, as she reordered the desk, everything in its place, pens here, inkpots there. “Third-century odes to the moon. That sort of thing.”
He dropped the subject, as there were other aroused parts of him to satisfy tonight. “You’ve been working late.”
“Is it late?” She glanced at the window. “I didn’t even notice the moon rise.” She stacked her pages with precision, lining up the edges. “Sometimes I lose all sense of time when I’m working. I was accustomed to studying through the night while my mother slept.”
When the desk was spotless and her papers tucked away in a drawer, she wandered to the window, hugging her arms around her chest. “You are pale, friend moon,” she spoke, gazing out the window at the swollen yellow moon. “... and do not sleep at night... and day by day you waste away. Can it be that you also think only of her, as I do?”
He approached her and ran his hands down her shoulders. “I’ve been thinking of you all day, Alice. Have you been thinking of me?”
“Yes, my lord,” she whispered. “I’ve been thinking of you.”
“Then come, Alice.” He held out his hand. “Come to bed.”
Come to bed.
Three wicked little words.
But they were married before God, her parents, and half of London high society.
This was a marital bed. She wasn’t breaking any rules. Still, her heart thumped almost painfully in her chest.
The idea of having an experienced rake answer all her many questions had seemed quite sensible as a solution for helping her translate the true meaning of the Kama Sutra fragment.
Oh yes, it was all quite sensible and logical until it became real.
Real marquess—really large marquess—smiling at her like Kali smiled at a field mouse before she pounced.
Smiling as if she were a bowl of cream and he’d relish licking her up.
Would there be any Alice left?
What if this experience changed her irrevocably?
Stop right there, Alice.
You’re a Lady Rake. And you wed this large marquess for a reason.
You’ve a fine, sensible head upon your shoulders.
You’re not about to lose it because a handsome marquess takes you to bed.
In his bed, all her questions would be answered. Well, perhaps not all of them in one evening. They did have several weeks of nights ahead of them.
She touched his hand, and his warm fingers closed over hers possessively.
The same crackling sensation kindled along her skin, like she were made of straw and he’d touched her with a burning torch.
As she followed him into the bedchamber, the unfamiliar sensation of the elongated silk-covered gussets shaping her midriff made her heart race even faster.
He had secrets to teach her but Alice had a secret, too.
A wanton, silken secret rustling beneath her serviceable cotton gown. Oh, Aunt Sarah, she thought. You definitely knew what you were doing.
