The Scoundrel and I - Katharine Ashe Page 0,34

some other woman.

“Thank you for making the attempt.”

“Thought it’d turn out better,” he said upon a frown.

“I am sorry you went to the trouble of it all.”

“No trouble.” He sounded sincere, but the frown lingered.

“I hope you will give Seraphina my thanks, and tell her I will return the gowns to her tomorrow.” She fingered the pleats of the gown the modiste had loaned her to take tea with the bishop, silk exactly the color of the captain’s eyes. “She has been very generous.”

“She’s a good girl.” He cut her a quick glance. “Woman.”

Perhaps this had not all been a waste. At least if this one member of the elite began to understand Lady Justice’s message of equality between people, even between the sexes, something good had come of it. Ensconced in her prison cell, Elle would find comfort in that.

“No choice now,” he said and his voice sounded different. A hint of a smile creased his cheek.

“No choice?” she said.

The smile became a full-blown grin. “We’ll have to break in.”

~o0o~

“I repeat, this is a mistake,” she said as Tony pulled the curricle into the mews and jumped down from the box. Not waiting for him to go around, she slid her perfectly curved behind onto the driver’s seat and extended a hand for him to take. He grasped her waist and lifted her down.

She pulled away swiftly and made a show of smoothing out her skirt. To hide her pink cheeks, he suspected.

Today she wore the same dress from tea with his uncle the day before. But whatever she wore, simply looking at her made him hot, hard, and desperate to put his hands on her. When she had been fiddling with his waistcoat, her hands that had been plenty eager on him in the library were tentative to the point of maddening. He had nearly dropped the box and done what he really wanted to do, what he’d wanted to do again for days.

She, however, was keeping her distance. Markedly so. Despite her blushes—and those questing hands at the ball—she clearly didn’t want any part of him now. Since he was not in fact a scoundrel, he had to respect that.

He didn’t have to like it.

“Not a mistake,” he whispered, taking her hand and drawing her to the rear entrance of the house. Pulling a key from his pocket, he fit it in the lock.

“Where did you get that?” she exclaimed.

“Shh.” He laid his forefinger atop her intoxicating lips. “I stole it from Clement before we left yesterday.”

“The butler?” Her eyes were perfectly round, her lashes like starbursts. “You stole it?”

“When he gave me my hat. Out of his pocket.” He drew her inside and left the door ajar behind them. “Done it a hundred times before. Since I was in shortpants.”

“I am beginning to understand how you were so blithe yesterday about this theft,” she whispered as he led her along the cool basement corridor past the kitchen and butler’s pantry, to the stairs. “You should have been a pirate, or at the very least a privateer.”

“Considered it,” he said quietly, peering up the stairwell. Evening was falling and there were no lights above yet and her hand was snug in his and all was well. “Dashed fond of the naval uniform.”

“You are wonderfully profound, Captain,” she said dryly.

He looked down into her face to which he was developing an addiction. “And honorable.”

“Are we going up, or shall we just stand here in the dark all night discussing your penchant for theft?”

“I’m game for standing here in the dark all night if you are. Or standing anywhere else in the dark with you, for that matter.”

She tugged her hand free and slipped around him to mount the steps. He followed, considering how she might respond to him wrapping his hands around her hips and pressing his mouth to the small of her back. Probably not well.

Once on the ground floor she went on silent feet to the drawing room that was swiftly sinking into darkness. On the floor above, his uncle was sound asleep. For at least thirty years, Bishop Baldwin had bedded down at half past seven each evening, and his servants either hared out for the night or hid away in their quarters above. It was already eight o’clock. They were in the clear.

Halting before the glass case, she turned her face to him. The silvery light of the summer evening splashed across her skin, and he wanted her like he’d never wanted a woman