Redeeming the Reclusive Earl - Virginia Heath Page 0,89

back at her now. Effie wanted to appear both confident and alluring like the fiancée who had captured his heart in just three short weeks. Max liked her hair down—at least she assumed he did because he had made short work of the loose bedtime plait last night before he had fisted his hands in it possessively.

Maybe she should take it down? Her scalp would certainly be happy if she did. All those pins were digging into it now and her head felt as heavy as her aching, needy breasts. She pulled out the pins and watched it tumble around her shoulders. If that wasn’t a blatant invitation, she didn’t know what was and, seeing as at this stage she was prepared to do almost anything to move things rapidly forward, she didn’t care if it was too obvious a gesture. Obvious was confident and confident, if Miranda was any gauge, was alluring.

But had she pushed him into the second kiss?

The question which had been niggling the most since she had shut her door last night made her pause again to consider it. The simple answer was most definitely—she had had ample opportunities to leave his bedchamber at the end and had taken none of them. But he had seemed to enjoy it regardless. He had been as breathless as she when she had ended it—it had been she who had necessarily ended it for certain, not he, because she couldn’t trust herself not to take things too far and scare him off. But she had felt his obvious desire through her nightgown pretty much from the outset. Surely he couldn’t fake that? Everything she had read about the male anatomy suggested such a feat wasn’t possible. Therefore she decided to trust the science and assume the kiss had affected him as much as it had affected her. He felt lust at least, if not affection, and that was a start.

However, the first time they had kissed he had seemed as overwhelmed by it as she was and then he had dismissed it as a heat-of-the-moment bumping of faces born out of the excitement of finding the shield. Maybe his passionate reaction this time stemmed from the sheer relief of getting through the first day of their charade without issue? And while he might well have said he would kiss her a third time today, after sleeping on it he could well have changed his mind.

But if he wasn’t averse to indulging in a third kiss, which she sincerely hoped he wasn’t, should she broach the subject of all the other things she had lain awake thinking about then incessantly pondered still or was it too soon? All-encompassing new feelings, desire, outright curiosity—and the future. Would such things scare the daylights out of him? She’d never had anyone to ask.

Common sense told her of course it was too soon even though she might feel the moment was right. What did she know about such things anyway? She usually got this sort of stuff wrong as her extensive lack of real friends and woeful shortage of eager beaus was testament to. Just because she was feeling all of these heady, thrilling and all-consuming things, just because she was tumbling head over heels into love, did not mean he was. In fact, so early into their ever-changing relationship and only two actual kisses in, there was every chance he hadn’t given any of it much thought. Max was clearly an expert in kissing and she certainly wasn’t his first. Therefore, it stood to reason that what they had shared thus far wasn’t the least bit significant as far as he was concerned.

Besides, and to give him the benefit of the doubt for his potential lack of similar angst, he’d had his hands full since yesterday pretending to be something he wasn’t. He’d been too busy charming Lord Denby into agreeing that her roundhouse was indeed a roundhouse, that one could clearly discern the remains of the long-rotted-away post holes in compacted mud and that the amazing finds which had emerged from the site so far indicated the Celtic dwelling was considerably older than the Roman ruins nearby.

And he was doing all that for her. Which suggested he must care in some way, although it was which way he cared that consumed her. She sincerely doubted Miranda would have