hardly registered it.
“I wanted to retire completely from the service, but I had the skills and they knew where to find me. Once I have done with the task, that life is over for me. My parents are aging and they worry about me. I left the army for them, and I will leave this, too.”
No one showing that degree of consideration to his parents could be as severe as this man appeared. Moreover, he kissed like an angel. Or a devil. Already tingles rose up her arms, in the secret places of her body and he drew her so that she found herself leaning in to him. “What do we do now?”
“We leave,” he said simply. “I’ll continue this another time. I know where he goes now, and I am learning more than we imagined about his habits. He’s visited London before, you know.”
“In fifty-one.” It was supposed to be clandestine, but word had got out.
“And after. He’s made quite a habit of it.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. “How does he get away with it?”
He smiled, and then bent and kissed her, so swiftly she had no way of stopping him, even if he had wanted to.
“I’m sorry. Don’t look at me that way,” he murmured against her lips.
She smiled, her mouth caressing his. “Why not?”
“Because it makes you irresistible. You are adorable like that.”
She bridled. “Like a kitten?”
“Exactly like,” he said, unabashed. “Not at all like the wild Lady Claudia Shaw”
“People condemn where they don’t know. If I have done something slightly wrong, they exaggerate.”
Leaning forward, he placed his hand on the wall behind her head. “They wouldn’t have to exaggerate this escapade. What were you thinking?” He frowned. “How did you do it?”
“I went to the pleasure gardens, and then I told my brother I was joining my mother at Lady Colm’s.”
He rolled his eyes. “You run rings around them all.”
Before she could think of her actions, she reached out and grabbed his arm. She couldn’t get her hand half way around it, but she didn’t let that give her pause. “You won’t tell them, will you?”
After regarding her for a fraught moment in silence, he said, “I have to. Because you’re here, in this house, at the same time as he is. The Pretender.”
His words brushed her face, like an invisible caress. She arched up without conscious volition. “Kiss me again.” She could think of nothing else when he was this close.
With a groan of surrender, he complied, but he did not embrace her as he had before. He kept one hand propped above her head and the other at her side, caging her in delicious captivity. This time he kept his kiss tender, and when she opened her mouth for him, he barely dipped his tongue inside, delicately teasing her.
Eagerly, she chased him with her own tongue and found him waiting for her. Dominic sucked gently, as she touched the tip of her tongue to the roof of his mouth. Then she nuzzled his teeth, sharp and predatory. He did not scare her. He aroused her.
He was far more dangerous like this, tempting her to explore and discover for herself what these wonders were like. Oh, she’d been kissed before, but never with such care, such attention, as if she were the only woman in the world.
That was it. He made her feel special. As if she really mattered. At home she was loved but as one of a family of six, not as a whole, for herself. As a twin, one of a pair. Society loved them for that, but she did not. She wanted to be herself.
She opened her eyes. He was watching her, his dark, stormy eyes fixed hungrily on her features. The contact sent a new sense of awareness through her, and she moved back, although she had nowhere to go. Her back rested against the wall behind her, and as she stared at him, the chilly damp of the plaster seeped through her clothes. “I should go,” she said.
“I will take you.”
Turning her head, she glanced out the window and turned back to him in alarm. “My chair, it’s gone!”
“I sent them away. We’ll get a hackney,” he said. “You may say you were taken ill and you never went into Lady Colm’s.”
She nodded. “I want more kisses.”
With a sudden powerful push, he moved away from her. “Then you’ll have to want. You’ll get no more here.” He spoke in firm, loud tones now. “Come. I’ll pay the madam and we’ll move on.”
His sultry smile reminded her of the part she was playing here. Claudia should feel dirty, but the notion excited her, sent passion burning deep inside her.
“You like the idea, don’t you?”
She put up her chin and shook out her skirts. “What idea?”
“Customer and whore.”
The words sent a shaft of heat to her center, that spot between her legs that dampened when arousal struck her. She should deny it, be indignant and protest that she didn’t know what he meant. Maybe flounce to make her point.
She did none of these things, but stared back, meeting his eyes boldly. “Yes.”
Silence ticked between them until he smiled lazily.
“Good,” he said. “Lovers play games, do they not?”
“We’re not lovers.”
“We are nearly lovers.”
She couldn’t deny that. Nearly was very different to actuality. The idea of lying in that bed with him, completely naked, turned her insides to fire, but she would not let him know. He had that admission, and that was all he was getting.
“The idea is amusing, you must admit.”
To her relief he played the game. “Very amusing. Madam, shall we go?”
When he stepped forward, she lifted her face, already prepared of his kiss, but he merely bent and swept the mask up from the floor.
“Turn around.”
When she obeyed, he fastened the ties deftly. Then he pulled her cloak back around her and tugged her hood back over her head. He caught a lock of hair, sending a shot of pain through her. When she lifted her hand to free the curl, she found him there. “You should ensure your maid covers all your hair next time. That color is singular.”
“My sister has the same. Our father used to, before he turned grey. My cousins on his side of the family have it.” She didn’t like to think she was so easily identified.
“It’s yours alone,” he murmured, tucking the offending curl into her hood. “There. Keep your head down and we’ll scrape through this.”
Her adventure was ending and she regretted it. “This is still my house.”
“That is what concerns me.”
He opened the door for her and took her downstairs. After handing the landlady the extortionate sum of a guinea—it would hire a room for a year if this house was not engaged in nefarious activities—they were allowed to leave.
Outside, he threw back his head and took some deep breaths, as if the very atmosphere in the house were tainted. It did stink of wine, tobacco, and other smells but she’d known worse. Pigsties, for instance, if they were not cleared out.
“Do you want to close this house?” she said. If he did that, maybe she could have it renovated. People of fashion lived around here. Cheek by jowl with less reputable houses, to be sure, but it could be achieved.
He glanced down at her. “Not immediately. Pretend we are lady of the night and her man for the next hour. We’ll draw less attention that way, and you may escape notice.”
He