Loving the Earl by Sharon Cullen

Author:Sharon Cullen
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-11-10T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Nathan stomped down the steps. An Italian lover, indeed. What the hell did she mean by that? It had to be the wine talking. Sweet Claire Hartford who barely knew how to kiss was not going to Venice to find herself an Italian lover. That was preposterous.

With a nod at the participants, Nathan fell into a chair at the gaming table and scooped up the cards they tossed to him. He really hadn’t been thinking of joining the game. Well, mayhap he had. But he’d told himself he wouldn’t, until Claire whispered, oh so sweetly in his ear, that she was in pursuit of an Italian lover.

His hands shook and he cursed himself while signaling for another whiskey. His hands shouldn’t shake. He shouldn’t care why Claire was going to Italy. What he should do was concentrate on his own reason for traveling to Italy. The letters. The questions he needed answered.

He played his last card and lost. Resigned, he watched the winner scoop up the money. When the dealer raised his brow in a silent question, Nathan nodded to deal him in again. He rubbed his chest where her hands had rested and his heart still thumped wildly. It’d taken every bit of self-control not to lean down and kiss her. She’d certainly looked at him like she wanted him to kiss her, with those wide, green eyes and her pink lips parted just so.

He groaned and organized his cards, trying to concentrate on the game, but no matter how hard he tried to think about the cards, he thought about Claire harder.

He’d practically shoved her into her room and slammed the door after her for fear he’d follow and give her what those jade green eyes were begging him to give her. However, for all his nefarious ways, Nathan wasn’t about to take advantage of a woman who had too much to drink.

His gaze wandered to the stairs. Was she undressing right now? Quickly he looked back at his cards, plucked one from his hand and tossed it on the table. He lost that round as well. And the next.

He ordered another drink and nodded that he was in for another game. The dealer smirked. Nathan ignored him. His leg bounced restlessly while his mind went back to that moment in the carriage when he’d kissed her so thoroughly. What had she said? Ah, yes. She’d told him he’d kissed her senseless. Pride welled within him but that only increased the restlessness, for there were other ways he wanted to render her senseless than with a mere kiss.

He gathered his cards but didn’t really see them as he tossed out another. He won that hand, but just barely. Gathering his money, he glanced around the common room. It was late, not many were about. Just the diehard card players and a few serious drinkers. Everyone else had gone to bed for the night, leaving the lone proprietor wiping the bar with a dingy rag as he yawned widely.

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