Lady Derring Takes a Lover - Julie Anne Long Page 0,52

of that sort of thing.

And yet she wanted to know what Angelique knew.

And what Captain Hardy likely knew.

But as her ruffled feathers settled and her dazed thoughts coalesced into reason once more, her thoughts were pulled, as if by a magnet, to that moment he’d gone utterly still in the drawing room the day he’d come to stay. The moment he’d seen her.

As if he’d finally found due north.

Captain Hardy referred to his watch, closed his book, stood, and politely, dispassionately, bid them all good-night.

His eyes brushed hers as he left the room.

She would warrant that Captain Hardy found her desirable, too.

Possibly even frighteningly so.

Chapter Fourteen

For several months now, Delilah had been in the habit of dropping off to sleep nearly immediately after days of rigorous household work. Tonight she was watching her ceiling. Her body was humming as though each of her cells harbored a little choir singer.

Are you flirting with me, Lady Derring?

She’d promised herself she’d be truthful in all things from now on, but as it turned out, she was a rank coward when tested.

Because she feared the real answer was, in fact, yes.

She tossed and turned and cast off her blankets as if her skin was too sensitive for their weight.

Well. So this was desire, she’d thought, none too pleased. It wasn’t entirely convenient, given the maddening object of it.

Even in the midst of Derring’s . . . attentions . . . something in her had stirred, somewhat hopeful, not entirely disinterested. She did know it had a vague resemblance to pleasure.

She had long suspected there had to be more to all that nonsense, otherwise men and women wouldn’t behave like such fools about it.

And now, thanks to what Angelique had said—“Derring had no imagination at all”—she knew both that she was not at fault, and that imagination, such as it was, seemed to be important.

Did she want to know what he knew, and what Angelique knew? When she knew full well how easily it was to come to grief, or to be used or savagely hurt? Did she want to know simply to have the experience, for the reason one visited Kew Gardens and the like?

Did Captain Hardy have an . . . imagination?

Why should this difficult, arrogant, taciturn, dryly funny, condescending man so occupy hers? Apart from the fact that all of these qualities came so thrillingly packaged in a tall, hard body. Handsome, well-formed men abounded in London. It wasn’t as though they were an entirely new species to her. Not one of them had made her breath hitch with a single glance. Obviously, it was because she was perverse and ironic and complicated, precisely the sort of person her mother had feared she’d grow up to be.

Somehow, this realization didn’t bother Delilah.

So. He was not a gentleman. He’d been shot. He seemed well-nigh implacable.

But tonight he had spoken to her, one human to another, about feeling expendable. It was the sort of conversation she’d never had with a man. Or another human, for that matter. It was the sort of thing that one didn’t typically discuss with anyone, any more than one whipped off one’s stays because they were confining, or went into battle without armor.

All exchanges between men and women tended to amount to transactions in the end. They seemed to be means to ends. And how weary she was of being an object in any fashion, and how luxurious it had been to just be a person here among other women at The Grand Palace on the Thames.

But she’d also seen the look in his eyes when he’d stood on the threshold of that room tonight. As if he wasn’t certain he was welcome. Until his eyes met hers.

Did he know how his pupils flared hotly? Even now she could make her breath come short picturing it. Did he care whether she noticed?

And his face had gone undeniably soft, just for an instant, when she’d told him she didn’t have a child.

Captain Hardy was neither rock nor trebuchet.

But one moment of softness didn’t mean he wasn’t hard.

Whether or not it was wise, it was this soft expression—surprised, careful, vulnerable, human—not his thighs, that lingered like a lullaby before she drifted to a restless sleep.

His plans to pick the lock on the third floor were daunted by a full moon and a cloudless sky. The door was lit up like a stage. He woke at dawn and decided to charm his way into the Mysterious Room via one of the maids-of-all-work