Fortune Favors the Viscount by Caroline Linden

Author:Caroline Linden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Caroline Linden

CHAPTER NINETEEN

She gave a muffled squeak as Nick crowded her into the service nook. They kept supplies for the main salon in here: cards, dice, counters, everything but markers, which were kept under lock and key in Forbes’s office. It was a tiny space, carved out of an alcove that had once displayed a statue or a painting in the house’s former days. There was barely enough room for one, let alone two.

Unless those two were pressed up tight against each other. Her hands were flat against his chest, the brim of her bonnet bumping his chin. Nick could feel every breath she took, and a shudder of lust tore through him.

He closed his eyes, even though it was pitch dark. He could see it all in his mind—how to hold the nape of her neck, how to angle his body so she fit perfectly against him, how to pull her closer and ravish her with kisses and make her quake with pleasure as he satisfied both of them.

His mouth went dry. Would her hands slide up around his neck? Would she cling to him? Kiss him back? Her longing gaze when they danced indicated she’d thought of all that . . .

Nick had not grown up in the ordered ways of the gentry. The women he’d known as a younger man hadn’t been offended by direct inquiry, and the women who drifted up to him now made the direct inquiries. Perhaps that would change, with a viscounty, but . . . perhaps not. He’d seen for himself how titles disordered people’s minds. Either way, he had no idea how to confront this thoroughly inappropriate desire for his new governess.

“Mr. Dashwood,” she said breathlessly, “what—?”

“Shh.” He squeezed her tighter and ducked his head. There was nothing but a velvet drape behind them; Nick could still hear the voices of the new arrivals, nattering at Frank. “Did you see who just arrived?” he breathed by her ear.

She shook her head, wisps of her hair brushing across his mouth. They were silky soft, and he finally identified the scent of her: honeysuckle. “Who?”

“Fitchley and his mates, including Parker-Lloyd.”

She recoiled, turning her head as if to face him. Her cheek touched his, and then her mouth.

It was an accident. Nick was trying valiantly to cling to the shreds of whatever honor he had. When her lips brushed his, he froze—waiting, wanting, wishing—

She didn’t retreat. Softly, tentatively, her mouth soft and light, she touched her lips to his again, and that was both enough and not nearly enough. Nick turned his head and something inside him growled in triumph as his lips covered hers. She inhaled, and her hand gripped his shoulder.

Not to repel, but to hold.

He gathered her to him and kissed her like a dying man striving for air. Her hands moved to his arms, clinging. He raised his free hand to cup her head and knocked her bonnet off. She moved against him, making a soft gasp of desire, and Nick’s good intentions fled for good.

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