The Rake's Secret Son by Annie Burrows

Author:Annie Burrows
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

For a moment Nell was so surprised she could not react. Carleton was kissing her.

Her husband was kissing her as though he meant it.

‘Wh…why did you do that?’ she could not help blurting, the moment he stopped.

He looked down at her ruefully.

‘Did you not like it?’ He stroked her face gently, then ran his hands down her arms, squeezing her hands gently as his shoulders sagged in defeat.

But when he would have let go of her hands altogether, Nell gripped them tightly.

‘It was not that I did not like it,’ she explained. ‘Just that you took me by surprise.’

‘Surprise?’ he repeated, studying the way her fingers were clutching his spasmodically. ‘If I were to give you fair warning of my intent,’ he asked with great seriousness, ‘would you object if I were to kiss you again?’

‘No,’ Nell breathed.

‘Quite sure?’

She nodded, blushing.

‘Thank God,’ he sighed. ‘Because I find you irresistible. Even on our wedding night,’ he mused, ‘when I thought I hated you, it was the same.’

He took her in his arms and, far from making any move to escape him, she let her darkened eyes fasten on his lips. His last doubts as to whether she found his attentions unwelcome dissipated when she looped her arms about his neck and very inexpertly attempted to kiss him back.

In less than a heartbeat Nell was melting into the sofa cushions, Carleton sprawled half on top of her. She was trembling, and when he laid one hand upon her breast he could feel her heart pounding beneath his palm.

His own heart was racing too. In fact he was feeling quite light-headed.

‘We are going to have to stop,’ he panted, drawing back from her reluctantly. ‘Else Peregrine will get his wish.’ He lay back, letting his head loll against the sofa-back, his eyes closing.

Nell scrambled upright. ‘Oh, dear,’ she exclaimed, noting his pallor. ‘I did not mean to harm you.’

‘It is not your fault I got a little carried away,’ he assured her. ‘I know you would never do anything to hurt me. Nor anyone else, I suspect.’ He opened his eyes and regarded her curiously. ‘I do not think you have a malicious bone in your body, do you?’

Nell was so flustered by the unexpectedness of the kiss, the havoc it had wrought on her senses, and the flattering words coming from the lips of a man who had previously done nothing but sneer at her, that she found herself opening and closing her mouth like a fish.

‘Helena,’ he sighed, reaching for her hand. ‘You are a rare treasure in this benighted world. You took me in and cared for me when anyone else would have left me outside in the snow. You have tried to restore me to what is lawfully mine, at risk to yourself and our son.’ He found her hand and grasped it, his eyes suspiciously bright. ‘You know it is no use, though, do you not?’

‘No use?’ Nell’s heart plunged.

‘No. From what you have told me I have come to believe Peregrine swindled and cheated and lied to get his hands on my title.

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