Lady Derring Takes a Lover - Julie Anne Long Page 0,89

much of her self since he’d left her penniless.

Then again, she’d only shown her true self to Captain Hardy. Which made it even more perilous.

There was the other thing about the word take: it often implied that whatever was taken didn’t actually belong to the taker. That the day would come when they would be made to give it up.

And he would be leaving soon enough, after all.

Here was where she could put Angelique’s experience to use: now that she was enlightened as to the extraordinary physical pleasures, she could and should make a truly sensible decision, and not partake of Tristan Hardy again.

Surely she could manage this? It wasn’t as though a stiff wind would howl down the chimney, blow her clothes off, and push her into his arms. It was simply a matter of not doing it. She’d managed to help create this boardinghouse, currently feeding and sheltering the most disparate people imaginable, and it seemed as though their little enterprise was well on the road to thriving. If that didn’t make her a miracle worker she didn’t know what did.

She sighed heavily, surrendering a little more to the beckoning arms of sleep. Relieved to have removed the serrated anticipation of sex by simply deciding not to do it. She was pleased and proud of herself in a faintly martyred way. She said a little prayer of thanks for having known the pleasure.

Nevertheless, all in all, it was probably a very good thing that Captain Hardy would be sailing away for good very soon.

Tristan was shaving himself ruthlessly, as if scraping off barnacles of a hull. Making himself shiny and sleek to face a new day of learning probably absolutely nothing useful about those damned cigars.

“I am shaving my face, la la la la,” he tried, in the mirror.

It didn’t make it any more pleasurable, really.

“I am catching a smuggler, la la la la,” he tried instead. Mordantly.

He splashed water from the pretty blue-flowered basin on his face, patted himself with a towel.

He turned and looked at his comfortable room. The wilting flower in his vase had been replaced sometime yesterday, he realized. He was suddenly, unaccountably moved. And appalled to realize that he quite liked having a fresh flower in a vase in his room.

Then he remembered the sheet of foolscap on the writing desk. He lunged for his shameful travesty and stashed it away in his satchel, lest it ever see the light of day.

Satisfied with what he saw in the mirror—resolute, hard, handsome, a little weary from staying up all night and writing a terrible poem—he shoved his arms into his coat and left the room.

He had just turned the key in the lock when he froze.

His heart gave a nearly painful bounce.

Delilah was poised to enter the room next to his, wielding a duster and looking, much like he did, cheerfully resolute.

She froze when she saw him.

She had faintly purple shadows beneath her eyes, too. Perhaps she’d spent the entire night watching her ceiling, debating with herself the wisdom of undressing and wrapping her legs around his waist again, and concluding it would be very unwise, indeed. Which was all to the best.

The trouble was, he understood at once as he stood there, eyes fixed on the soft swoop of her lower lip, that wildfires left unattended overnight tend to grow bigger and hotter.

They regarded each other somberly, making internal adjustments to accommodate the mere glorious fact of each other.

“Good morning, Lady Derring,” he said finally. “Are you going to narrate the dusting of the room today?”

“Good morning, Captain Hardy. Why? Did you find my singing tolerable last night?”

“Survivable,” he said pleasantly, as though correcting her with a more precise word.

She smiled at that and it really just undid him.

“You ought to hurry down, Captain Hardy. There are still some eggs left and Helga says you’re a very good eater.”

“While that’s very flattering indeed, alas, I promised to have breakfast with a colleague.”

Neither one of them moved.

So how had the space between them disappeared, and how was it that his arms were going around her waist as her face tilted up to meet his coming down?

He staggered forward with her in his arms until she was pressed hard against the alcove wall.

“Delilah.” He delivered her name in a desperate whisper in her ear. It was a sigh, nearly an accusation. As though she’d enchanted him against his will.

She filled her hands with fistfuls of his shirt and pulled him up against her. Then slid