A Portrait of Love (The Academy of Love #3) - Minerva Spencer Page 0,79

“Or too bloody lazy, more like.”

“What’s that?” he said, smiling.

“I can see the skin on your side is cracking—there is a little blood.”

“Drop it already,” he said, no longer amused. “You can slather me in pig fat after my bath.” His eyes located Peel’s in the mirror. “You did order me a bath, didn’t you?”

Peel’s expression told him what he thought of such a question.

Simon grunted. “Good.” He’d been washing himself in a damned basin since he was too much of a bloody scatterbrain to remember to send for a bath most of the time.

Peel removed the towel and began to lather his face. Simon closed his eyes and relaxed.

***

Simon was half asleep as his valet rubbed the not unpleasant smelling substance into the slick, shiny skin that ran along his left side.

He’d not applied any of the unguent since Whitcomb and his scarred skin had begun to tug and shrink and pain him. Specks and streaks of blood showed up on his shirts with increasing regularity.

There was a soft knock on the connecting door.

“Come,” he called, lazily turning his head.

His wife stood in the open doorway, her expression like the one she’d worn this morning, when she’d caught him tugging on his prick.

“Oh!” she began to take a step back.

“Don’t leave,” he ordered, and she froze. “We are finished here. Leave us, Peel.”

His valet left swiftly and quietly through the entrance that led to his small room.

Simon rolled onto his side, the towel Peel used to protect his modesty sliding and drawing her eyes to his hips.

“What can I do for you, my lady?” he asked when he thought she might run.

She hesitated, holding out a rectangle of paper.

“What is that you have?” he asked.

“A letter from the duke.”

“Oh? Why was it delivered to you?”

“I don’t know, but I thought you should have it. Er, quickly. So that’s why I’m here.”

Simon bit back a grin at her uncharacteristic babbling. So, he made her nervous, did he? He knew his behavior was uncouth; the average aristocratic wife would be shocked at seeing her husband without a cravat.

But he didn’t want to behave like average aristocrats.

He sat up, watching her watch him as he wrapped the towel snuggly around his hips, tucked in one corner and stood. She eyed him as if he were a demon sprung from the hideously patterned carpet.

“You look very beautiful,” he said, his eyes hovering on the exceptionally—for her—low neckline of her bodice. “That is one of the new gowns?”

She blinked, thrown off balance by either the change of topic, the compliment, or both.

She’d been correct in the carriage; Simon enjoyed keeping people off balance, but her especially.

He could see it was a struggle to wrench her eyes from his towel and the erection that was growing beneath it. It was bad of him to keep her with him when he was all but naked, but he did not want to hide himself from her. And he had no intention of allowing her to hide from him.

She smoothed her gown with one hand. “Mrs. Fenton worked very quickly on it but the others are not ready, of course.”

Simon wagered they’d be ready before the week was done. A sharper businesswoman he’d yet to meet.

“Turn around.”

She cocked her head.

He twirled a finger in the air. “Turn around, I want to see you.”

Her blushes were an aphrodisiac to him, he’d realized that early on.

She turned rather awkwardly, the diaphanous silk rippling like water against her long, subtle curves. When she came to a halt Simon was full hard. Her eyes dropped to his towel and it was all he could do not to tear it off, rip that pretty new dress from her body, and bend her over the back of the nearby chair.

It was a struggle, but he suppressed his savage urges. This was civilization; such behavior would be viewed harshly.

Besides, she was a maiden; he wanted to take her slowly and make her first time a pleasure for her.

Thinking about being the first man to enter her body made him almost woozy with desire. He’d never been interested in virgins, but something about being her first made him burn to possess her.

She was clenching the letter so tightly it was almost bent in half. “Are you not yet healed?”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Hmm?”

She gestured to his shoulder, to the raw scar from the poacher’s bullet. “Was your valet applying medication?”

“That ointment wasn’t for this scratch. It’s a salve to keep the burnt skin supple. The scarring