Seduced by the Scoundrel (Danger and Desire 2)

‘Yes, you are right, miss. He’s a good man.’

‘He is. But he is going to marry a French lady. He has it all planned out. When Bonaparte is defeated he will go back to France and be a Frenchman again.’

Grace simply muttered something under her breath as she closed the door. Averil lay down again, breathed deeply and told herself that two weeks could seem like a lifetime if she lived it as if it was.

Through her thick veil the narrow hall was blurred. Averil pushed it back and looked around. ‘This is all for me?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Luc was still in uniform. He tossed his hat on to the hall table, unbuckled his sword and propped it in the corner. ‘Show Miss Smith’s woman to the bedchambers,’ he said to the footman who had opened the door to them.

At the back of the hall a thin woman bobbed a curtsy. ‘Mrs Andrews, ma’am, the cook. And Polly is down in the kitchens and that,’ she nodded towards the footman’s back as he climbed the stairs, ‘is Peter. I had the parcels sent up, ma’am.’

‘Parcels?’ Averil looked at Luc.

‘I did some shopping. You can send your maid out for anything I have forgotten, but I suggest she goes veiled.’

‘Of course. Thank you.’ Now what? Should she offer him tea? Would he expect to have a conve

rsation in the drawing room that she could glimpse through an open door to the right. Averil’s heart thudded and her mouth felt dry. Perhaps she should brazenly walk upstairs to the bedchamber.

‘Why don’t we go and check what I selected?’ Luc said and the amusement in his eyes told her he knew exactly what she was dithering about. ‘Dinner for seven-thirty,’ he said to Mrs Andrews without so much as a hint of embarrassment.

Presumably he kept all his mistresses here and the staff thought nothing of it. She set her expression into bland unconcern and mounted the stairs. As they reached the top Luc touched her arm and indicated a door that was already open.

Inside the footman was gathering up wrapping paper and Grace was putting away what looked like the contents of an entire shop. Or shops—there were gowns, underwear, shoes, bonnets in the armoire and the chest of drawers, a heap of toiletries on the dressing table.

‘Luc, this is too much! Grace—’ But the maid and the footman had vanished and the door shut with a soft click.

‘No, it is not,’ Luc said. ‘But just at the moment you are wearing entirely too much.’ He began to unbutton his uniform jacket. ‘And so am I.’

She had seen him undress before with a total lack of self-consciousness. I have seen him naked. I have touched him, she told herself as she tried to get her breathing under control. But this was different and the way he looked at her was different. Let me do this right, she thought. Let me please him.

She must not be passive, she thought. He had liked it when she had straightened his neckcloth; perhaps he would like her helping him undress. As Luc began to shrug out of the jacket she went behind him and eased it from his shoulders and hung it on the back of the dressing-table chair. Then she stood in front of him and pulled the ends of his neckcloth free and began to work on the knot. He went very still and she looked up to meet hot, dark eyes.

‘Go on,’ Luc said and made no move to touch her.

The neckcloth seemed endless as she unwound it. He bent his head, but even so she had to keep standing on tiptoe and her breasts brushed against his chest and her hands kept rubbing against the thick silk of his hair and by the time she had the length of muslin free she was as aroused as if he had been kissing her.

‘Go on,’ he said again as she turned from folding it on top of the jacket.

Her hands were shaking as she undid the shirt buttons and pulled it free from the waistband of his breeches. He bent as she tugged at it and it came off over his head, leaving him naked from the waist up and quite blatantly aroused.

‘Touch me.’

‘I don’t know how.’

‘What gives you pleasure? Men are not so very different.’

His hands on my breasts, his hands between my legs. She did not think she could touch him there, not yet. And men did not have breasts. But they did have nipples. Intrigued by the thought she touched the right one with a tentative finger. Hair brushed her palms and tickled, the brown disc crinkled, just as the aureoles of her breasts did. Luc caught his breath. She touched the other one with the same result. Her own nipples hardened and peaked and she gasped.

Averil used finger and thumb, squeezed, rolled and he clenched his fists, his eyes closed—and a startling shaft of pleasure caught her low in her stomach as though he had caressed her.

She moved closer, her hands flat on his chest, and lifted her face to kiss him and then he moved, his arms coming round her to crush her close, his mouth taking her proffered lips without hesitation.

The kiss was demanding, urgent, and his hands worked on her gown as he moved his mouth over hers and stroked his tongue into her mouth, setting up a rhythm that had her licking and nibbling back. Her gown came undone, he moved his hands, it fell off. There was a tearing sound and her chemise and petticoats followed it and Luc raised his head and stepped back.

‘Nice,’ he purred. ‘Oh, yes.’

She was standing there in corset, stockings and garters. She felt ridiculous and exposed and vulnerable in a way that being naked with him had never felt. Averil tried to catch hold of the corset strings, but they eluded her. ‘Leave it,’ he said and caught her to him again, one hand on her buttocks so she was bent back, her belly against the jut of his erection, as he lifted her breasts free of the constricting corset.