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“Beds are much nicer than bogs, wouldn’t you agree, MissPenny?”
“Ah... I suppose so.”
“So many wonderful things happen in beds.”
She blinked. “I’m quite fond of sleeping. I never rise before noon. I never help with household chores, I prefer to laze abed.”
“Mmm. Yes. Lazing about in bed can be so very diverting.”
“About your treatise on the rotation of turnips and clover, Your Grace—”
“I’d rather talk about beds than turnips, wouldn’t you? I have a nice bed. It’s big. Comfortable. Has crimson velvet bed hangings. Beeswax candles to light my way in the dark.”
“Quite as I pictured a ducal bed to be,” she said gamely.
“Do you picture ducal beds often?”
“Er, almost never,” she mumbled. “That is never. I never, ever picture beds. Or dukes in beds.” She clamped her mouth shut.
“Are you quite sure about that?”
No, she wasn’t sure about that.
She was picturing his bed right now. With him in it, wearing the bedclothes and nothing more. Soft linens sliding down a heavily muscled expanse of chest to reveal...
When he gazed at her and spoke of beds in that low, husky voice that sent shivers between her shoulder blades, well, any red-blooded young lady would experience at least a little bit of thrill.
Except that this was a full-blown quake, as if her body wanted to split along the seams.
He had the most disconcertingly gentle grip, as though he thought her hand the most precious gift he’d ever received.
There was an indefinable quality about him, a majestic ownership of his body that Mina felt on her own skin, within her own body.
He was the heated, menacing atmosphere right before a thunderstorm. The zing of attraction zipped from where their hands touched, up her arms, and spread throughout her body.
Her hair might be singed when the waltz ended.
She wished Thorndon would stop talking about beds. And she wished she could stop picturing him in bed.
Gather yourself together, Mina.
Stairs and doors.
That’s where her attention should be. Lord Rafe would either come through a door or descend the central stairs.
“You keep glancing at the entrances,” said Thorndon. “Are you waiting for someone?”
Your brother. Who is my pathway out of the prison of rusticating spinsterhood and into a thrilling life of international intrigue and espionage.
So stop distracting me with your molten gold eyes and molded jaw.
She had to regain the upper hand here. All of that talk of beds... he’d been trying to fluster her, but what if he truly was taken with her? It would ruin everything if he decided to want her.
She had to antagonize him further.
“Of course not. Why would I be waiting for someone? I’m dancing with the very pinnacle of English manhood. The very essence of a country nobleman. You’re ever so rustic andquaint.”
“Quaint?” he growled.
