Leaving the back suggestively gaping, the ends of the long laces dangling…he tied them in a tight double knot.
One even he would have trouble undoing.
She humphed, then realized he’d finished. Eyes suddenly wide, she glanced over her shoulder—first at him as he stepped back, then she tried to see down her back. “What…?”
Whisking around, she put her back to the cheval glass and peered over her shoulder. “Oh, good Lord!”
Precisely his thought. Faced with the fullness of his folly, with the fabulous sight of her so enticingly, not to say provocatively displayed, all he could do was grit his teeth and bear it. And try not to stare, or too openly salivate.
In devising this plan to allow her to participate in the adventure of recovering her sister’s letter, he hadn’t—definitely hadn’t—foreseen this.
Not only was the gown a rake’s erotic dream, but with her hair up in the artful knot on top of her head, with just a few flirting tendrils hanging down on either side to brush her shoulders, she looked like a lady just begging to be tumbled.
“Yes, well.” He heard his voice, the accents hard and clipped. “There you are.” Obviously.
Steeling himself, he reached out and grasped her elbow. “Come on—the faster we find that damn letter, the sooner you can get out of that gown.”
She threw him a strange, arrested look, but allowed him to lead her to the door.
He opened it and looked out. All was silent, somnolent, no guests or scurrying servants about. Drawing Lydia through the door, he closed it, then took her hand. “This way.”
She followed beside and a little behind him as he retraced their steps to the gallery, crossed it, and headed down a corridor into another wing.
Lydia glanced around, taking in the closed doors they passed; very conscious that behind each lay guests she had no wish to meet, she tried to tiptoe in her half boots. That only made the sensation she was trying to ignore all the more intense; she’d never worn a gown, let alone one like this, with no chemise underneath.
With very step, the fine frilled petticoat weighed down by the gathers of the delicate silk and lace skirts shifted and caressed her bare flesh. Above her garters circling just above her knees, she was naked. Despite the gown—or rather in some strange manner because of it—she felt exposed in some titillating, highly illicit, intensely suggestive way.
In demanding adventure, she hadn’t imagined this, but she wasn’t about to complain. For the first time in her life, she felt truly alive; for the first time in her life, she could perceive what drew Tabitha to bold and outrageous actions.
Reaching the end of the wing, Ro turned down a secondary stair.
Lydia leaned close as they went down, whispered in his ear, “Where are we going?”
“The desk in the library,” Ro whispered back. “Barham keeps all his vowels in the drawers.”
She thought about that, thought about how unerringly Ro was leading her through Barham’s house. “You know him rather well, don’t you?”
They’d reached the ground floor; he halted before a door and met her eyes. “Knew.” Then he opened the door; her hand still locked in his, he towed her through.
She assumed being towed was the norm for courtesans.
The room was empty. Releasing her hand, Ro turned back and shut the door. When she looked at him, he nodded down the room. “There’s the desk.”
She turned; her eyes widened. “It’s enormous.”
“It was his father’s and grandfather’s—now it’s his.” Ro crossed to the massive, ornately carved desk planted like a squat oak stump before the middle of the three bay windows. Lydia trailed after him.
The windows sported deep window seats with thick red velvet cushions; they looked out on the same side of the house as the bedchamber they’d been shown to. The desk stood ten feet or so before the central window; an admiral’s chair sat between. Rounding the end of the desk, Lydia saw its unusual length was filled with drawers, with only one relatively small kneehole between.
Eyes widening, she counted four sets of five drawers. “Twenty,” she said helpfully.
Ro grimaced. “Presumably he doesn’t keep vowels in them all.” He pulled the top drawer at one end open.
He stared down at the contents, then opened the next drawer, and the next. And the next.
Then he stood back and swore.
He’d presumed wrongly. It appeared that Stephen Barham, Lord Alconbury, had saved every note of hand he’d ever received—and as Ro knew, his lordship was over thirty-five, and had been a hardened gambler for the last fifteen years.
Lydia, round-eyed, stared. “It’ll take forever to search through all these.”
Ro’s face set. He glanced at the clock sitting on the desk. “We have an hour and a half.” He pushed the admiral’s chair toward Lydia. “You take that side, I’ll take this.”
And with any luck, they’d either meet in the middle or find Tabitha’s letter—before Barham or anyone else found them.
Chapter Three
“This is absurd.” Lydia stared at the assortment of notes she’d checked and stacked on the desktop; they’d been working for ten minutes, but she’d barely made a dent in the papers crammed in the top right-hand drawer.
One drawer of the ten it fell to her to search.
“I thought gentlemen returned notes of hand when they were redeemed.”
“Most do.” Standing beside the chair in which she was sitting, Ro was sorting steadily through the papers crammed into the top drawer to the left of the kneehole. “But there are other ways. Some sign across the original note, signifying it’s been paid. Like this.” He showed her one such IOU, with Barham’s signature scrawled across Rigby Landsdowne’s.
“But why does Barham keep the wretched things?”
Ro shrugged. “Some men put deer heads on the wall—think of these as Barham’s trophies. He’s been a deep gambler for a very long time.”
“Clearly.” Lydia poked at three notes she’d lined up on the desk. “This one’s from Lord Shillingborne ten years ago, and this from a Mr. Swanson five years ago, while this last one is from Viscount Swinborne from three months ago.”
Ro humphed, then he paused, staring at the notes in his hands. Then he quickly shuffled through the other papers in the drawer he was ransacking. “Are all your notes from people with names starting with S?”
Lydia glanced at him, then flicked through the notes she’d sorted, then pulled a handful more from the drawer and checked them. “Yes. Everyone is an S.”
She leaned across to look at the notes Ro was shoving back into his drawer. “What were yours?”
“People with names starting with L.”
“Which means…” Suppressed excitement in her voice, Lydia looked along the front of the desk to the first drawer.
Ro shut the one he’d been searching and opened it. He pulled out three notes, looked. “Yes—these are the A’s.”
“Well at least that makes more sense.” Lydia stuffed the notes she’d been sorting back into the open drawer. No need to take care; there was no sense to Barham’s jumble within each drawer. “Here—give me some.”
First Ro checked the second drawer. “Bs. Good. All the A’s are in this one drawer.”
He lifted out a pile of notes from the top drawer and set it on the desk. Lydia pounced on it and started flicking through the papers—of all sizes, shapes, and construction. Some had started life as tailor’s bills; she found one that was an account from a modiste, and wondered what Lord Avinley, a renowned bachelor, had been up to.
They searched steadily, fired by their deductions.
Then Ro slowed, stopped. Lydia glanced up at him; he was frowning at the piles of notes. “What?”
Ro grimaced. “You said Addison hasn’t paid his vowel yet. It won’t be here.”
Lydia looked at the notes spread before her. “But not all of these notes are countersigned as paid.”
“If a gentleman paid Barham
somewhere other than here, he’d give the man a card with a few words signifying the amount was paid. Most men would then later destroy the original vowel, but Barham keeps them—here. So these are all redeemed, even if some aren’t countersigned.” Ro started dropping the notes he’d examined back into the drawer. “There are too many, most are old, and most tellingly, Barham wouldn’t keep notes that mean money in such a mess.”
Lydia watched him, then pushed her pile across the desk to be stuffed back into the drawer, too. “So where would he keep vowels not yet redeemed?”
Shutting the drawer, Ro stared at the desk; the surface was remarkably clear and uncluttered, a lamp close to one corner, an inkstand to one side of an embossed leather blotter holder. “They should be here. I’ve seen him bring new vowels in here and come out without them.”
With one fingertip, he poked at the leather blotter holder. It didn’t move. He smiled. “Aha.”
Lydia looked from the blotter holder to him. “Aha what?”
He waved her back.
She scooted the admiral’s chair back and to the side, out of his way as he went down on one knee before the kneehole to peer, then feel along under the desk. There was space for a drawer above the kneehole, but there was no drawer front.
He found a small lever and pulled. A sharp click sounded. “There.” The nearer edge of the leather panel had popped up. Rising to his feet, he reached for it.
Lydia stood to peer around his shoulder as he lifted what was in fact a hinged, rectangular, leather-covered lid; they looked into a box—the hidden drawer. Various writing implements, a penknife, an ornate letter opener, Barham’s seals, a candle stub, and wax were all neatly laid within the box—along with a three-inch stack of vowels.
Ro hesitated; no matter what he thought of Barham, he didn’t like trespassing on the man’s privacy. But…steeling himself, he picked up the vowels, flicked through them, then drew out an envelope.
“That’s Tabitha’s writing,” Lydia said.
Examining it, he nodded. “With Addison’s note of hand on the back.” He looked inside the outer casing and drew out a single, thin, neatly folded sheet, with every visible surface covered in Tabitha’s scrawly script. He handed it to Lydia. “Check that it’s what we’re after.”
He assumed it was, but with Addison the spineless wonder involved, one couldn’t be too sure.
Lydia flicked open the sheet, then stepped back, closer to the bow window, angling the crossed and recrossed page to the light.
Ro slipped the envelope bearing Addison’s IOU back in the pile in the same position, then replaced the stack of vowels in the drawer exactly as he’d found it. Closing the drawer, he drew the admiral’s chair back to its previous position before the desk. He stepped back, scanning, checking; everything was as it had been before they’d started searching.
Lydia was standing before the window utterly engrossed in her sister’s letter. He was turning to her when he heard a heavy, lazy footstep in the corridor outside the library.
Seconds away from the door.
He had only those seconds to react, to protect Lydia while creating some plausible excuse for them being there.
His options were limited.
She caught the next footstep, closer, more definite, and lifted her head, eyes widening, lips parting.
He seized her about the waist. Her eyes widened even more as he lifted and swung her around; sitting on the window seat, he juggled her, pushing her skirts up with his knees as he lowered her.
Lydia smothered a squeak. She ended astride Ro’s hard thighs, her skirts rucked up, her stockinged knees sinking into the thick velvet cushions of the window seat.
Facing him, she clutched Tabitha’s letter—the amazing and detailed account of her sister’s determined dive into intimacy with Addison the spineless wonder—in one hand. Her other hand was on Ro’s shoulder; senses reeling, she clutched, vainly trying to steady her wits, thrown into utter turmoil by the feel of his hands hard and hot about her waist, her skin shielded by only the finest layer of silk.
Before she could gather her whirling wits, he released her waist, reached for her face, speared his long fingers through her hair, dragging locks free as he gripped her head, pulled her to him, and pressed his lips to hers.
Forced hers wide, filled her mouth with his tongue, and kissed her as if he were intent on devouring her.
Distantly—very distantly—she heard the faint click of the door latch…but then sensation rose up, welled through her and swamped her. Filled her mind to the exclusion of all else.
All else but Ro, kissing her deeply, flagrantly demanding, commanding and insisting on a response—on complete and abject surrender.
His hands framed her jaw, her face—each long searing kiss, each evocative caress, sank to her bones and melted them.
She slumped toward him. She’d stopped breathing long ago, but couldn’t spare any wit to wonder at it. All her mind, all her being, was totally focused on him and what he was doing to her.
What he was making her feel.
All he was making her long for.
He broke the kiss to fill his lungs; their lips all but touching, he whispered, “Barham’s at the door. He’s watching us.” He angled his head to trail languidly lazy, erotically tempting kisses along her jaw to her ear. “Pretend to be hungry—starving.”
Pretend? Her skirts were a silk froth across his lap; tucking Tabitha’s letter beneath the folds, she placed that hand on his chest, then slid it slowly and deliberately—savoring every inch—up the hard planes, over his heavy shoulder, up and around until she could splay her fingers, spear her hand through his silky dark hair, grip his head—and kiss him back.
She was as hungry as he could possibly want. She made no attempt to hide it, easing up on her knees, leaning into him to press her kisses ever more avidly on him.
Only to discover she was engaged in a duel with him, a heated, willful exchange, one that escalated dramatically, fed her greedy hunger until she grew ravenous, yet she still couldn’t match his rapacious demands. The more ravenous she grew, the more rapacious he became, the more flagrantly arousing, the more blatantly sexual his actions. The steely need she sensed rising within him in response to her—to her nearness, to her eager kisses—fascinated and lured, and drew her on.
Ever deeper into the spiraling whirlpool of sensations.
Ever more deeply under their spell.
From some way behind her, a fraction to the side, Barham rather pointedly cleared his throat. “Ro, dear boy.”
Barham waited until Ro, unhurriedly and with every evidence of reluctance—including a small but audible sigh—drew back from the kiss. Making absolutely no attempt to sit up or shift Lydia back, heavy-lidded, he remained slumped against the padded back of the window seat, looked at Barham, then arched a languid brow.
He kept Lydia’s face anchored between his palms, stopping her from glancing around, keeping her face hidden from Barham.
Barham’s smile was all masculine understanding. “A pleasure to see you once again within these walls, dear boy. Grafton mentioned you’d arrived.”
“Indeed. It’s proving a delight to be back, old chap.” Ro pitched his voice to a world-weary drawl, his tone that of a man interrupted, distracted from an activity he would much rather be pursuing only by the demands of polite behavior. “Finally having the chance to rejoin you, as you can see, I grasped it. However, not having attended your revels for so long, I wasn’t sure who else might be here. I decided it was wiser to amuse ourselves here, within these more exclusive surrounds, at least until you were up and about.”
Barham smiled, nodded, the genial host. He’d been studying Lydia, what he could see of her. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting your new lady.”
Ro smiled at him, the cat with the cream. “Indeed, old son. You haven’t. But I’m sure you won’t mind if we delay the introductions.” He lifted his hips, jigging Lydia. “We’re rather absorbed at the moment.” br />
Barham’s smile was the definition of lecherous, but Ro knew he wouldn’t object; this, after all, was the principal purpose of his “revels.”
“Oh, indeed. Do continue.” Barham half turned toward the door. “Join us when you’re free—breakfast will be available in the dining room shortly. No doubt you’ll both wish to recoup your energies for the evening’s games.”
Ro let his smile widen, more overtly sexual. “Indubitably. We’ll join you there.”
Barham saluted and walked to the door.
Ro didn’t wait for him to leave, but drew Lydia’s face back to his, covered her lips, and plunged back into her mouth, into the hot, forbidden delight, eager—even desperate—for every last taste for her, before his excuse for kissing her disappeared.
Reaching the door, Barham paused, watching.
Taking one hand from Lydia’s face, Ro spread his palm over her silk-clad side, gripping, then he slid his hand around, over her back, intending to pretend to unravel the knot securing her laces—only to discover that the laces he’d so carefully double-knotted, being of corded silk, slithered and gave at the lightest touch. The knot unraveled, the laces loosened and eased; the back of her gown parted, gaped…he had to follow through and slide his hand beneath the silk, to feel her skin—a hotter silk—against his palm, to caress, to possess…to make it and her his.
Barham went out and shut the door.
Ro told himself to take his hand out of her gown, to break the kiss and sit up—to help her up from her blatantly suggestive position astride his hips, with not even the silk skirts between them to shield the hot, tender skin of her inner thighs from his trousers.
He told himself, and kept repeating the message, increasingly stridently—but his body failed to comply.
His body was all hers, caught, trapped in a web of sexual hunger stronger and more powerful than any he’d previously known.
But this was Lydia.
It took immense effort to force himself to draw back from the kiss, force himself to gasp, his voice gravelly and low, “He’s gone. We can stop.”