Her Christmas Earl

“I did.”

“Really?” She didn’t bother to hide her skepticism.

“Really.”

“You hardly spoke to me.”

He smiled into the darkness, encouraged to hear she’d paid that much attention. “Whenever I approached you, you regarded me with complete disdain.”

“I didn’t,” she said, shocked.

“You don’t approve of me, Miss Sanders.”

“I don’t know you.”

“No, you don’t.”

A prickly silence descended and he heard the slide of fabric against the wall as she turned toward him. These soft, hellishly suggestive sounds of her body moving inside her clothing drove him crazy. He wondered if she wore one of his coats, too. The idea was arousing. The urge stirred to cross the mere inches between them and find out. But the memory of her earlier nervousness kept his hands at his sides.

This was a confounded odd encounter. He couldn’t see Miss Sanders, but every other sense was alive to her. Her scent teased him. Fresh and innocent. And as alluring as Eve to Adam.

“You must think me odiously judgmental.” Her voice was low.

He sighed. “I imagine that you listened to a lot of gossip before we met.”

She shifted again. Dear God, he wished she’d stop doing that. Every time she moved, his restraint battled the urge to touch her. And if he manhandled her, that would only prove she was right to despise him.

“That makes me sound even worse. Not only am I judgmental, I base my judgments on unreliable public report.”

He laughed softly, charmed despite increasing discomfort. “You’re awfully hard on yourself, aren’t you?”

“You have no idea.” Humor warmed her voice. “But you’ve behaved like a gentleman tonight and I apologize for any unfavorable thoughts.”

“I’m no saint,” he was compelled to point out, much as he hoped to rise in her estimation.

Heaven help him, what had got into him? He never wanted a woman to think him a better man. He’d devoted his time to women who expected the worst of him, then generally got even less.

Philippa’s sigh was breathy and alluring. He fought the surging need to seize her in his arms. This tiny room transformed into a torture chamber.

“I assumed you set out to seduce my sister, but if that was so, you’d never have destroyed the letter. If nothing else, it would make a fine tool for blackmailing Amelia into doing what you wanted.”

When she paused, he leaned forward. Damn it, moving closer filled his head with her intriguing scent. After tonight, he’d know her among a thousand just by her fragrance.

“And you haven’t been angry with me. And you should be.”

He admitted the truth, even if it made him feel like an awkward schoolboy instead of a worldly man with a history of too many lovers. “I always wanted the chance to talk to you.”

The disbelief in her short laugh roused another of those unwelcome pangs in his chest. She was so convinced that she was of negligible interest. Erskine developed a hearty dislike for her overbearing mother and birdbrain sister.

“For a man renowned for his rakish ways, you’re not very rakish.”

“It’s Christmas Eve. I’m taking a rest from wickedness.” If she could see into his mind, she’d know that was far from true.

She sighed again, more heavily this time. “Surely it’s well after midnight.” She paused. “If you’d stayed downstairs as usual, I’d have been in and out of your room and you’d be none the wiser.”

Unworthy pleasure flooded him. “So you’ve been watching me, too.”

Another of those dry laughs. “You’re very noticeable. You’re the handsomest man I’ve ever seen.” She stopped on a gasp and he heard her squirm with embarrassment. Her damned wriggling would be the death of him. “Oh, no. Shoot me now.”