slowly. “I think Mrs. Jones must have confided the recipe to Lord Dewington’s sister.” All eyes turned to Dewington, who gritted his teeth manfully. His wife looked ready to sink into the floor.
“Good Lord!” Sir Percy exclaimed. “Your nevvy’s working in the kitchens!”
Lord Petersham shook his head. “There but for the grace of God go I. Will Hathaway was my Latin tutor too, and my sister would have run off with him in a trice if he’d asked her. Handsome devil. Heard the boy looks just like him.”
“He has my sister’s eyes,” Dewington said. No one seemed to quite know what to say to that.
Ordinarily, Serena would have entered the day’s earnings and expenses in the books before bed, but she was exhausted. Ordinarily, she would have taken the back stairs to the first floor to avoid running into guests in the hallway, but—“she was exhausted” wouldn’t wash as a reason for that, would it?
She would have done the books before bed, and she would have taken the back stairs, only Solomon was heading for the public rooms and the main staircase right now (it didn’t seem to have occurred to him that the back way was faster from the kitchens), and she had fallen into step with him without thinking about it—without wanting to think about it. She compromised by not speaking and going over the night’s numbers in her head, instead. The silence felt oddly companionable, and yet oddly charged.
Outside his room, he stopped. She could have kept walking, but instead she stopped with him. “Thank you for your help today,” she said, meaning to sound businesslike and sounding grateful instead.
He smiled and ducked his head. “You’re welcome.” Was it her imagination, or was his low, rough voice a little lower and rougher than usual? He raised his head and met her eyes, and she thought that yes, it must have been, because he was giving her a low, rough look.
That doesn’t even make sense, she thought. A look can’t be low and rough. And then it didn’t matter, because he was leaning in to kiss her.
She took a step backward, and he missed. But instead of giving up, as she wanted—expected—feared—he gave her a reproachful look and tried again. His lips brushed against hers softly, gently, as if it were her first time. It wasn’t her first time. It was her thousandth time, her millionth, and she had never, in her whole life, felt anything like this. She felt as if she were a neat page in a ledger and he’d spilled ink across her. She could feel it spreading over her skin, soaking in, making her messy and vivid and irrevocably destroyed.
He gasped against her mouth (when had they opened their mouths? the world tasted like almonds and pears) and put his hands on her hips, turning them so they fell against the door to his room. She could feel the carved wood against her back with more immediacy than she’d felt anything in ages. Someone could see them, a guest could walk by and see them. She cared about that. She should care about that.
But she was paralyzed by desire and the sudden bloom of color across her blankness; she could only tremble and kiss him back. When he leaned his weight on her it felt as if they were melting into each other like sugar and water caramelizing in a double boiler, slow and delicious. His chest was heaving against hers. Her breasts strained against her corset when she breathed, too. She wanted him to touch them, but he didn’t. He just pressed against her, his hands resting on her hips, and kissed her as if that was all he wanted, as if he could do it forever. As if it were her first time.
But it wasn’t her first time. He should know that. Why didn’t he know that? She was a whore and she wanted more from him than kisses, and when he realized that—he wouldn’t kiss her like this anymore. He was giving her this, and that meant he could take it away. He was in control, now. He nipped at her lower lip, and she made a needy, surprised little sound, like a damned kitten. She froze, mortified.
But if Serena had learned one thing in the last six years, it was that when you were threatened, usually the best thing to do was go on the attack. She wrenched herself away. “Someone will see us.”