Her Christmas Earl

“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.”

Another taut silence descended. Her comment overstepped the barrier separating polite strangers.

Well, mostly polite.

After a moment, he sighed and lifted his arm away from her. “It’s a reminder that you’re out of bounds.”

With that, any pretense that only a jammed lock linked them melted away.

“If we’re discovered, everybody will think that we’ve been up to no good.” Philippa’s voice faded to a whisper. But in this tiny room, there was no chance that he wouldn’t hear, even if she was cowardly enough to hope he mightn’t.

“Are you inviting me to ruin you?” he asked wryly. “Somehow I doubt it.”

She raised her chin and told herself to be brave. Some devil in her soul turned her into a person much more daring than her workaday self. Right now, she couldn’t bear to think that she’d leave this closet with her curiosity unsatisfied.

“I’d like someone to kiss me.” Her words emerged more steadily than she’d imagined possible. “Someone who knows what he’s doing.”

She flinched at Erskine’s laugh. “To Hades with you, who else have you been kissing?”

It didn’t occur to her to lie. “Prescott Wayne, the vicar’s son, kissed me last year.”

Danger hummed in the air. Lord Erskine’s long body brushed hers as he shifted. One of the startling things about being so close to him was how physically aware she was of his every movement. She even heard the catch in his breath before he spoke. “You didn’t enjoy the experience?”

“No, it was horrible.” She shuddered, recalling the bad fish taste of Prescott’s mouth and the sloppy suction of his lips.

“And you think I can do better?”