“I’ll lose my place,” Finch burst out.
Ah. Comprehension slithered down Aimée’s spine. She met the maid’s gaze in perfect, horrified understanding.
I might find it harder to escape the attentions of an employer. She had said it herself, to Lucien, less than an hour ago.
“Howard?”
Finch looked away.
Outrage kindled under Aimée’s breastbone. Determination squared her shoulders. “We have to tell Sir Walter.”
Finch trembled. “Please, I can’t risk her ladyship finding out. I’ve only got another couple of months to save up, and then where will I go? Nobody’s going to hire a lady’s maid with a full belly and no character.”
Aimée’s gaze dropped instinctively to Finch’s waistline. Did she mean . . . ? “You are with child? His child?”
“He says it isn’t his.”
Of course he did. Connard.
“And you?” Aimée asked. “What do you say?”
The maid’s mouth twisted. “It doesn’t matter, does it? Who’s going to believe me?”
“I do.”
Finch looked at her sadly. “Begging your pardon, miss, but your word doesn’t carry much more weight around here than mine. You can’t help me.”
Aimée flushed at this bitter reminder of her own powerlessness.
But this wasn’t about her. If the Basings cast out Finch, the maid would be pregnant, vagrant, and destitute. How long before she ended in prison or a pauper’s grave?
You can’t help me.
“No,” Aimée admitted slowly. “But I know someone who can.”
Lucien rested his head back against the high, curved edge of the mahogany tub, his long arms stretched along the sides, his knees poking out of the water. Warm water lapped his chest and thighs. A red fire snapped in the grate.
His body was heavy. Relaxed. His injured hand throbbed. His thoughts drifted to Aimée, shooting him a look of amused challenge through thick, dark lashes.
Why are you courting Julia, Mr. Hartfell?
The question bobbed around his brain, slippery and hard to handle as the soap in his bath.
He wasn’t ready to grapple with the answer yet, so he pictured Aimée instead. Her bright face vivid with laughter or anger. The subtle arch of her spine, made for his hand. The sweet shape of her br**sts under the wet pelisse. Blue eyes a man could drown in.
Under the water, his body stirred. She stirred him. Aimée.
Sinking lower, he reached his uninjured hand into the water.
A tap on the door roused him.
Irritated, he opened his eyes. “Come in.”
She was there, wavering on the threshold, stepping out of his dreams, a mirage fashioned of lust and steam, summoned by the force of his longing.
Aimée, small-breasted and slender, her eyes dark and startled in her pink face.
He narrowed his gaze.