vicinity and pulled him back toward the bed.
Her coughing resolved itself with a mighty sneeze.
He stared at her as though she’d just exorcised the devil. “What the hell is going on?”
Blinking up at him from watery eyes, she croaked, “No need to worry. I was choking.”
“On what, in God’s name?”
On her own fear. “On … myself. You startled me.”
“I startled you?”
His brows fell impossibly lower, and only then did Alexandra notice that he’d not only relieved himself of his mask, but of his cravat, tiepin, and jacket as well. His shirt fell open to the divot in his neck. She remembered what he’d been like in the storm. Wild and wet, the dark whirls of hair covering the swells of muscle on his chest visible beneath the shirt the rain had plastered to his torso.
“Alexandra.” His voice lowered in pitch. “What are you doing here?”
She stood on the round dais next to the bed still clutching him, finding that her fingers couldn’t even encircle his dense wrist. Though he stood a step beneath her on the dais, she still had to drag her eyes upward to meet his. What she found in those azure depths made her swallow hard and release him.
Her mission, she observed, shouldn’t at all be difficult to achieve if his gaze already contained such things.
“I’ve come to seduce you,” she announced.
His furrowed brows climbed toward his hairline in surprise. “Seduce me?”
It was her turn to frown. “You’re making a habit of repeating what I say as though it’s extraordinary or astonishing.”
“You’re making a habit of saying extraordinarily astonishing things,” he volleyed back. “I’m often uncertain I’ve heard you correctly.”
“Oh, well, you have.”
“Excellent.” Looking exceedingly pleased, he tugged his shirt from his trousers.
“Wait!” She held out a hand to stop him. “Don’t you want to know why I’ve decided to seduce you?”
He paused, eyeing her like Cecelia did the pastries she never denied herself. “Is it too much to hope that you were so overcome by my masculine appeal and erotic prowess that you couldn’t stand to live another moment without the pleasure of my touch?”
Alexandra gaped at him, rendered momentarily speechless.
His lips twisted wryly. “You’re worried you won’t like the marriage bed; no doubt you’ve heard horror stories, and, being ignorant of the act, you’re here to conduct some sort of scientific assessment of our physical compatibility before we take our vows.”
Just as she’d recovered, this second observation had precisely the same effect upon her.
Because his guess was closer to the truth than she could bear.
“Well,” she breathed. “Well, I—I’m not ignorant of the act, you see. I’ve read several anatomical texts and have done multitudinous research.”
“Multitudinous, you say?”
There he went, echoing her again. “My research indicates that females do—might—enjoy the act of congress. If it’s performed correctly. Under the right variables, I mean.”
He stepped on to the dais, crowding her backward toward the bed. “My research has indicated that as well,” he murmured.
“What research?” She took one look at his self-satisfied smirk and frowned. “Oh.” Alexandra couldn’t tell if it relieved her or bothered her that he’d pleasured a woman before. Some stomach-curling amalgamation of both.
It was probably a good thing. He seemed as though he knew what to do.
He leaned in, reminding her of the substantial width and breadth of him. Their proximity to the bed forced her to inhale a deep, calming breath.
She could do this.
His nearness both overwhelmed and enthralled her. Here stood a dangerous man, an untamed creature, made more so by his wounds and his size and the ever-present wary tension in his wide shoulders.
He surveyed the world with disdain. With distaste. She’d noted it at the ball as she’d watched him on his platform, looking down at those below him like a king.
Like a god.
But when he gazed at her, as he did now, a warmth ignited in his eyes, turning them from winter skies to summer heat. The hard brackets beside his mouth softened.
And that dimple. It was almost unfair. She couldn’t help but be charmed by it.
“It is getting more difficult to wait patiently,” he rumbled, clasping his arms behind him.
“For?”
“For my seduction, of course.” He smiled before her notepad on the sapphire coverlet snagged his attention.
Alexandra leaped for it before he could reach it, hugging the pad to her chest.
“Something you should learn about me as a husband.” He chuckled, interest sparking in his gaze. “If I know I’m not meant to see something, it makes me all the more determined to do so.”
Alexandra cleared nerves