Captain Durant's Countess - By Maggie Robinson Page 0,38

to herself she would take no joy in their arrangement, and she’d broken that vow already, on his very first afternoon at Kelby Hall. She was worse than Patsy Rumford.

She pushed his hands from her body and smoothed her skirts over her stockinged legs. “It’s late.” The room was no longer bathed in bright sunlight, and shadows deepened in the corners.

“Don’t go yet.” He wasn’t satisfied.

Did he want her to return the favor? She knew that women could kiss men down there, even if she’d never suspected the tables could be turned. David had tried to make her do it, and a ghastly business it had been.

“I-I really must. I have a thousand things to do before I have to dress for dinner.” She couldn’t remember a single one.

His hand slipped into her disordered hair and pulled out a loose hairpin. “I feel guilty, Maris. I tricked you. You were expecting an altogether different kind of kiss, weren’t you? Something ‘usual.’ Although I don’t think anything between us will ever be usual.”

“There is no ‘us,’ Captain Durant.” She meant to sound superior, but her words rang hollow.

“Oh, there’s going to be an ‘us,’ if only for a few minutes every day. Maybe several times a day to make sure we’ve given this mission all our efforts. I’m willing to make the sacrifice.”

He was teasing her! Did the damn man not know his place?

And it wasn’t between her legs in whatever form he happened to choose.

“I need to go,” she said firmly.

“A good-bye kiss then. For luck.” He waggled a black eyebrow at her. It needed some smoothing down after his recent activity.

“I am only going downstairs to my rooms, Captain, not off to war.”

“Luck always comes in handy. We will need as much of it as possible in the weeks ahead. Come, Maris, just a quick kiss and then you can scamper off while I go back to numbering boxes.”

She slid off the work table, surprised her legs were strong enough to support her. Before she could refuse his offer she was in his arms again, tasting herself on his lips. She was shocked—and something more.

The kiss was not long in length, but not short on sensation, either. Reyn was very gentle, teasing her again, but not with words. A butterfly kiss, that’s what it was called. She’d read about it somewhere, but had not understood.

Now she did.

And knew she was in trouble.

Chapter 9

Reyn’s chair before the fire was comfortable, his dinner delicious, the accompanying wine truly spectacular. A man like the Earl of Kelby must have a cellar anyone might envy and a kitchen staff imported from damned France. Reyn was no connoisseur of the finer things in life, but they were all around him and inside him, digesting happily. Even a heathen like he could appreciate his new position.

Especially since it involved seducing the countess.

Maris.

The afternoon had been promising. He’d been valiant in his effort to make her come, and come she had. Repeatedly. Her taste still resonated through the vintage port he held in his hand. Reyn had always enjoyed giving women their pleasure. He’d never been a selfish lover. In his experience, the more one gave, the more one got back.

He had been willing to try anything—hence the Reining Monarchs—to feel sated. Find peace. There had to be some fun in life beyond bayonets and tradesmen’s bills. He was good at three things—cards, making men laugh, and making women breathless. Resentful as he might be over the earl’s investigation, Reyn’s reputation as a lover must have been discovered and found acceptable.

Maris Kelby was not quite the buttoned-up biddy she’d first appeared. For one thing, now that she was not dressed in drab grays and browns, she was more than passably handsome. With her wavy hair loosened, her cheeks flushed, and her lips swollen, she could rouse any man’s desire. Reyn had been in such agony when she’d left him that afternoon, he’d sat back down on the chair and jacked off, imagining those swollen lips around his cock.

However, teaching her to do that was not part of the plan. They were not having an ordinary affair, after all. He was there for one reason and one reason only. His own pleasure was incidental, but he wanted Maris Kelby to find hers . . . to help ease her regret about their liaison and find it less sordid.

A little less cold.

She was a virtuous woman. Virtuous women were hard to come by nowadays. From what he could