A Wickedly Pleasurable Wager by Carole Mortimer

Author:Carole Mortimer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2011-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

“I trust you are not hiding out here because you are annoyed with me, pet?” Bastian prompted softly as he moved silently to the end of the darkened terrace to where the white of Trudie’s gown was visible, her dark curls gleaming like blue-black in the moonlight.

Bastian had hardly been able to contain his impatience a few minutes ago when he and the other gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room after dinner and he discovered that Trudie was not amongst those ladies. This led him to wonder if she was not attempting to avoid him by having already made her excuses and retired for the night.

Something which would not have pleased Bastian in the slightest; having already visited Trudie in her bedchamber once today, Bastian had been hoping for something much more…wicked to entice her into their second tryst. Besides which, everything he had come to know about Trudie told him that she was not a woman who would attempt to win their wager by avoiding confrontation.

Discovering that she had merely taken a walk outside onto the moonlit terrace confirmed that he did indeed know her….

Trudie had known of Bastian’s presence as soon as he joined her outside, had somehow sensed him there in the darkness, all of her senses now attuned, it seemed, to his every move. “I am not hiding at all, Bastian.” She kept her face turned away as she answered him softly. “I merely— I felt in need of some air.” To cool her body, if not her heated imagination.

She had been aquiver with inner excitement ever since Bastian left her bedchamber earlier. To a degree she had been able to listen without comment to the prattling of her sister as the two of them walked down the wide staircase to join the other guests before dinner, Daphne speculating excitedly as to which of the ladies present could possibly have so piqued the interest of the often bored and toplofty Mr Bastian Wilson that he had been willing to subject himself to this week-long stay at Shoreley Park.

Just knowing that she was that lady had caused Trudie to tingle from the top of her curls down to her slippered toes!

To the extent that she did not at all mind that Bastian was once again attentive to Harriet Copeland, Countess of Westbourne, as he sat on her left-hand side as they all ate dinner together in the candlelit dining room at Shoreley Park.

Instead, seated further down the centre of the long table, Trudie had been content to observe him from beneath lowered lashes, admiring the dark fall of his hair against his intelligent brow, heat suffusing her body as she stared at his harsh and yet also sensually sculptured lips as he smiled and chatted with their hostess, that heat increasing as Trudie watched his fingers lightly caressing the side of his wineglass—a seemingly casual caress that became something else entirely as those hooded grey eyes turned and met Trudie’s gaze down the length

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