Chapter 13

… Here may they learn to shun the dreadful quicksands of pain and mortification, and land safe on the terra firma of delight and love…

—from HARRIS'S GUIDE TO COVENT GARDEN LADIES

"We're… what?" He couldn't have heard her correctly.

"We're locked in here. That's why I told you to wait. When you close the door to this room, it can only be reopened from the outside. Sometimes it requires a crowbar to sort of prise the—"

Somehow it seemed he had. "Why the devil were you in here in the first place?"

"I?" She stared up at him, amber eyes dark in the half light. "I live here! Why are you in here?"

He stalked over to a looming dark shape that he was fairly confident was a settee. Maybe a chaise. Something he could sit on, at least. He dropped himself down. "I needed a minute away from that bleeding circus. And that's saying something, because I'm typically fond of a circus."

Selina made her way back from the door and perched on another low shape across from him. They were closer to the window now, and the starlight silvered her hair. "Well, you'll have a minute. Or ten, or maybe thirty before someone thinks to come look for us in here." She sighed. "I could pound on the door, I suppose. Seems a bit dramatic."

"Maybe," he offered, "I can climb out the—"

Her head snapped up and her fierce gaze caught him. "Peter, I swear to you, if you say that you will climb out the window, I will never speak to you again."

He stopped talking and considered her expression. He wasn't quite sure if she meant it. "I just meant that I could—"

She fixed him with a terrifying glare. "Do not say climb. That window opens to the street, and truly, if there is an engraving of you in the papers climbing out the window of the Duke of Rowland's house, I will buy Lucinda a dozen rapiers and let her loose on the streets of London."

He felt his lips twitch. God, he liked her much too much.

"Listen," he found himself saying. "I wanted to apologize. I should've—I've been wanting to apologize."

She stiffened. "I'd really rather that you did not."

For God's sake. Now he was an ass if he didn't apologize and an ass if he did , because she'd asked him not to.

"All right. I won't apologize. But I need to tell you that I can't follow your advice. I know you're not wrong. This evening made it even clearer to me than it already was. But I can't do it, Selina. And I know you don't want me to say it, but I am sorry about that."

Her dark brows drew together. "You're sorry that you can't follow my advice?"

He gave a little shrug and didn't speak.

"About marriage, you mean? You're sorry that you can't propose to someone else?"

Her voice had shifted slightly. It had been guarded before, tense like the set of her shoulders. And suddenly it was vibrating with… something.

He looked back up and found her intoxicating eyes.

"That's right," he said.

"Why?"

"Because you told me to." His mouth was talking away, talking, talking, and his senses had fixed on the one bright point in the dark room that was Selina. "You told me it was a good idea, and you're right. Eldon would've loved it. I'd be halfway to the guardianship by now. You're clever, and right, and I'm sorry I can't stick to the plan."

"I didn't mean why are you sorry," she said when he wound down. "I meant—why can't you marry someone else?"

Christ. He rose to his feet and took a step toward her. Another. When he spoke, his voice was thick and deep, almost hoarse. "You know why."

Her lips had parted. They looked like the heart of a fig, soft and ripe and impossibly sweet. He wanted to taste her. He couldn't keep breathing and not taste her again.

He reached out and took her shoulders almost roughly, tugging her up to her feet. She stood tall and slim and lovely before him, her skin not ivory now but something else in the silvery light, something shimmering and unreal.

She looked down between them at her own hands, her fingers twisted together in a gesture he'd seen her make before. And then, quickly, as though she couldn't give herself too much time to think, she uncurled her fingers and peeled off her white satin gloves.

He watched the fabric slide over her skin and felt his mouth go dry.

When her fingers were bare, she reached up and put her hands on his shoulders. Then, cautiously, slid one hand across the tight wool of his coat and brought it to the line of his jaw.

"Again," she said. "Once wasn't enough."

Everything in the world went still. Again. Yes. Again.

He gave a muffled groan and dragged her hard to his body, angling his head down and claiming her mouth.

She tasted like raspberry syrup, and thank God his gloves were still tucked in his jacket because he needed the feel of her bare skin on his hands like he needed the lungs in his chest. More.

He ran his fingers up her bare arms, touched her shoulder, the line of her collarbone. He gave in to the temptation to slide his tongue along the seam of her lips, and when her mouth parted under his, he couldn't control the way his hand tightened on the back of her neck.

When she took his lower lip between her teeth, he groaned again.

Mother of God, she was so deliciously herself, even in this. Fearless and bold and electric with life. He ran a hand down her back, traced the line of her spine, and moved his mouth to her neck, licking, tasting her delicate skin.

She tipped back her head, wordless, and arched her body into his.

Her breasts met his chest. His hand curled around the generous weight of her bum and his cock leapt against her belly. God. He'd spent the last five days trying to forget the feel of her. He had tried to tell himself he'd imagined the perfect backside on this impossible woman.

He hadn't imagined. And he hadn't forgotten.

Two hands. He needed two hands to fully appreciate it. He slipped his other hand out of her hair and brought it to the curve of her buttocks, lifting her against him as he did.

His hips jerked at the contact, and she moaned breathlessly, rolling her pelvis against his. Her fingers locked around his neck.

God. It wasn't enough. It still wasn't enough. He lifted his head, trying to find a wall he could press her against, but his eyes caught on her breasts, straining against the tight fabric of her bodice, and he gave up and bent his head to the line where satin met skin.

He licked. She whimpered, her hips dragging against his own, and he did it again.

Somehow, despite her skirts, she had one of her legs wrapped around him. Had he done it? Had she? He didn't care. He pulled a hand under her leg, lifting it higher and cursing her skirts, cursing anything that separated his skin from hers, his aching cock from her heat. He had to feel her. He had to taste her.

There was a loud scrape of wood against wood. His mind registered the sound and couldn't make sense of it—his world was all Selina and heat and starlight.

In his arms, Selina stiffened and tried to leap away, but he, like an idiot, tightened his grip. She stumbled back and her skirts caught around his legs, and he was so damned dazed, his brain still trying to work out where they were and what in hell was happening, that when she started to fall, he fell with her.

He turned as they fell, pulling her on top of him, taking their combined weight on his hip and elbow.

Which was why, when Lady Eldon peered into the room, her bottom lip caught between her teeth and her gaze slightly puzzled, he was on the floor, Selina half on top of him, her buttocks still carefully cupped in both his hands.

Peter froze. Atop him, Selina seemed to do likewise. Her fingers still clutched the lapels of his coat, and as he watched, her gaze flicked between his face and Lady Eldon's.

Selina looked almost panicked, and he fought the mad impulse to cradle her against his chest.

Lady Eldon was still standing stock-still, as stunned as the rest of them, when a voice intruded.

"Bessie? Have you gotten turned 'round? That's not Rowland's library."

Eldon. That stern, hearty voice was certainly Eldon.

Lady Eldon turned and tried to block the doorframe with her diminutive frame. "Oh! No, my dear. Nothing—nothing—"

And then Eldon was in the room too, and Lady Judith, and Nicholas Ravenscroft, and Selina was trying frantically to scramble off his lap, but her hair was mussed and one of her slippers had fallen off, and he was pretty sure he'd heard something tear when they'd fallen.

He registered it all in the time it took him to stand and steady Selina on her feet.

Eldon's glower. Lady Judith's unreadable calm. Nicholas—Selina's brother , damn it all, what had they done —appeared absolutely incensed.

But when he looked back at Selina's face, it had gone calm and smooth, almost impassive. There was no trace of panic in her voice when she spoke.

"Lady Eldon," she said, placing her hand on Peter's forearm. "Let me be the first to present to you my future husband, the Duke of Stanhope."