the kitchens, suppressing a smile. She’d obviously grown fond of the puppy and just as obviously didn’t want him to know. “I suppose you were discussing the menus with Hicks?”
“Well…” Messalina looked guiltily at the cook while the puppy attempted to scramble onto her lap. It slipped and fell back to the floor with a little yelp.
Sam gasped.
Hicks and the scullery maid looked worried.
And Messalina snatched up the puppy.
Gideon raised his eyebrows and waited patiently.
“Oh, fine!” Messalina muttered, looking as if Gideon were crowing in victory. “I’ve decided to keep Daisy.”
Sam whooped.
Hicks and the scullery maid smiled.
And Gideon said faintly, “Daisy?”
* * *
“Daisy is a perfectly good name for a dog,” Messalina said an hour later as she and Hawthorne strolled along a lane just off Bond Street. They’d been bickering about the name for almost the entirety of that time, and Messalina felt rather lighthearted.
“Daisy is a perfectly good name for a cat. A female cat,” Hawthorne replied. “It’s humiliating for a male dog. Even a male lapdog.”
Messalina repressed a smile. “I’m not changing his name.”
Hawthorne sighed heavily, as if Daisy’s name personally offended him, but changed the subject. “What is wrong with the tailor I’ve always used?”
Messalina refrained with great effort from rolling her eyes. She should’ve known that convincing Hawthorne to see a proper tailor wouldn’t be as easy as it had seemed last night at the theater.
She glanced at him. Her husband wore an irritable frown, which should’ve made his face quite ugly. Or at least unattractive.
Alas.
She looked quickly away as if doing so could erase the memory of those devilish furrowed brows, the scar, just visible in the sunlight, and his diabolical lips frowning at one corner. It occurred to her that most women would find it near impossible to deny him anything.
Well, she wasn’t most women.
“Your former tailor,” she replied, “was undoubtedly a competent man, but we need far more than mere competence.”
“Hmm” was his only rejoinder.
Messalina pressed her lips together. They walked with her hand tucked into the crook of his arm, but other than that he seemed to be trying not to touch her, and she felt…
Well. Not disappointed, naturally. It wasn’t as if she wanted him to touch her. Of course not.
Except…
She stole another glance at him.
Unfortunately, his lips remained ridiculously beautiful. She couldn’t keep from remembering—over and over—his gleaming skin in the bath. The kiss they’d shared. She’d never been so overwhelmed, her body surrendering without her consent to his tongue, his taste, his passion.
And then there was the sight of his hand moving under the water as she’d left the room. She couldn’t get the picture out of her mind. It haunted her—Gideon, his head tilted back, his strong neck limned by the candlelight, and that moving arm…
Had he been touching himself? Did he spend like that?
Did he imagine her?
Messalina felt the heat climb in her cheeks.
She had to stop thinking about Hawthorne. Had to somehow forget that too-short touch that had promised so much more. She was leaving him. Although—a small voice inside her head reminded her—she would have to lie with him before she could gain her moneys.
What would those long legs, those broad shoulders look like without the veil of soapy water?
Oh, good God.
“Here we are!” she chirped in a voice much too loud for the day.
Hawthorne shot her an odd glance as he opened the door for her.
She ignored his look, sailing beneath an extremely discreet sign reading merely Underwood. The shop was deceptively plain—only two chairs before a low table and a counter in the back. Bolts of jewel-colored cloth were displayed on the wall. Rumor had it that this shop filled the clothing needs of more than one royal gentleman.
“Good afternoon,” the young man standing behind the counter said. He was dressed in a dull gray suit exquisitely fitted to his slender frame. “May I help you?”
His gaze moved discreetly between Messalina—dressed in the height of fashion in a cream day frock covered in yellow, blue, and red embroidered birds—to Hawthorne, who was of course in his black suit. The clerk was obviously of the highest sort, for he made no comment or assumptions. Messalina had a small moment of mirth when she realized he might think she was outfitting her lover. After all, she’d heard there were ladies who did such.
“I need a suit,” Hawthorne replied without grace.
“Several suits,” Messalina cut in. “My husband, Mr. Hawthorne, finds he needs something more…”—both she and the clerk assessed Hawthorne’s attire, and she smiled brightly