How bizarre. How wrong. How…delightful.
“Dear heaven…” she muttered with less horror than a genuinely virtuous woman would muster.
When she made a token effort to sit up, Erskine’s hold tightened. “Not yet.”
How far she’d ventured from her safe little world. He hugged her into his side so she curved against him, her face buried in the front of his coat. One hand lay on his shoulder, and her legs curled beneath her, her thigh resting against his hip. The alien but delicious scent of a man surrounded her. Clean skin. Male musk. A touch of sandalwood.
Compared to her, Lord Erskine was so big. At their first meeting, she’d noted his height, but now, pressed to his hard body, she was overwhelmingly conscious of restrained power.
Any sensible girl would be terrified. Instead, Philippa stayed exactly where she was.
The sheer strangeness of how much she liked resting in Erskine’s arms made her try yet again to sit up. This time he let her.
“I’m sorry.” She raised trembling hands to her untidy hair.
How mortifying. She must have been wriggling all over him while she slept. Her hair was half collapsed around her face.
“No need to apologize.” His voice was low and subtly insinuating. Or perhaps only her uneasy conscience made her think that.
“Did you sleep?”
“No.”
Somehow that made it worse. That he’d remained alert while she’d felt easy enough to drift off into dreams. Dreams now wisps, but which left behind a trace of guilt.
“Was I asleep for long?”
“I’m guessing only an hour or so.” Erskine’s laugh was mocking. “Fear not, Miss Sanders. You didn’t confess your darkest secrets in your sleep. You didn’t molest me. Your innocence remains unsullied.”
Except now she knew the touch of his hands and the scent of his skin. Now she knew how it felt to sleep beside him. A man of his experience might consider their interactions as pure as spring water. Philippa felt like she’d surrendered a corner of herself. She didn’t like this vulnerability.
Erskine’s arm still encircled her in a loose embrace that could have felt merely friendly, if not for her prickling awareness. She should insist that he release her, but curling up with her head on his shoulder had established an intimacy that made missish megrims too coy for words.
“Are you cold?” The softly accented voice was rich with concern. She’d once pegged him as a selfish, careless man, but tonight he’d been kinder than she deserved.
“No.” If anything she was too warm. A blush rose in her cheeks. She struggled to sound calm and mature. It was fiendishly difficult. “Are you? I can get another coat.”
“No, I’m fine.”
Such a banal discussion, while all the time his touch filtered through to her bones in a way she’d never experienced. Worse, she couldn’t stop wondering what she’d do if he kissed her. Something about the late hour and the cramped room and, above all, the delicious warmth of his body, made her think of forbidden pleasures.
Given Erskine was such a rake, it seemed a pity not to sample his famous rakish skills. Unwelcome curiosity coiled like a snake. Curiosity, and a fatal yearning to play the wicked woman. Just once, before life as beautiful Amelia Sanders’s sensible, disregarded sister resumed.
Philippa was never likely to have another adventure like this. The whole season, she’d trailed around London behind Amelia, making no impression at all. Now that Amelia had made a brilliant match, Philippa would return to the country and her dull but useful life, running her mother’s modest estate. Perhaps in lonely old age, she’d look back on this encounter with a libertine and smile.
“Why don’t you go back to sleep?” he suggested softly.
How horrified he’d be if he guessed the wanton pictures filling her mind. “No.”
Although the idea of drawing on someone else’s strength was so appealing. In the family, she kept things going, managed the farm, ordered the household. She’d always believed herself perfectly content. Until this brush with a scoundrel made her wonder if she’d settled for second best, only because it was easier for her mother and sister if Philippa undertook every necessary but unexciting task.
Discomfiting thoughts. Thoughts that did nothing to dilute her physical reaction to the man sharing this dangerously intimate space. It rankled that if he’d been trapped with Amelia or one of his glamorous London ladies, he’d do more than fling an avuncular arm across her shoulders.
“Aren’t you tired?” she asked.
His laugh was a mere grunt. “I’m used to late nights. Unlike you, my innocent country lassie.”
The darkness lent her courage to take issue with his remark. “You keep calling me innocent.”