An Unwilling Conquest (Regencies 7)

The words were a dire warning. Harry shut the door on his old schoolfriend’s face, before he could think of doing anything else with the vacuously good-natured features.

He swung back—to find Lucinda staring at the door in utter disbelief. “Well! What cheek!”

Harry smiled. “I’m so glad you now see my point.”

Lucinda blinked, then gestured at the door. “But he’s gone now. You told him not to come back.” When Harry merely raised his brows, she folded her arms and lifted her chin. “There’s no reason you can’t leave now.”

Harry’s smile turned feral. “I can give you two very good reasons.”

They came knocking an hour or so apart.

Lucinda gave up blushing after the first.

She also stopped urging Harry to leave; this was not the sort of houseparty at which she felt comfortable.

When the hour after midnight passed and no one else came creeping to knock on the panels of her door, Lucinda finally relaxed. Curled up against the pillows on her bed, she looked across at Harry, eyes closed, head back, sprawled in the big armchair before the fire.

She didn’t want him to go.

“Get into bed—I’ll stay here.”

He hadn’t moved or opened his eyes. Lucinda could feel her heart thudding. “There?”

His lips twisted. “I’m perfectly capable of spending a night in a chair for a good cause.” He shifted, stretching his legs out before him. “It’s not too uncomfortable.”

Lucinda considered, then nodded. His eyes looked closed.

“Do you need any help with your lacings?”

She shook her head—then realised and answered, “No.”

“Good.” Harry relaxed. “Good night, then.”

“Good night.”

Lucinda watched him for a moment, then settled down amid the covers, drawing them over her. Although it was a four-poster, there were no hangings on the bed; there was no screen behind which she could change. She lay back against the pillows; when Harry made no sound, did not move, she shifted onto her side.

The soft flickering firelight touched his face, lighting the hollows, throwing the strong bone structure into relief, shading his heavy lids, etching the firm contours of his lips.

Lucinda’s eyes slowly closed and she drifted into sleep.

Chapter Eleven

When she awoke the next morning, the fire had died. The chair before it was empty.

Lucinda let her lids fall and snuggled down beneath the covers. Her lips curved in a lazy smile; a deep contentment pervaded her. Idly, she searched for the cause—and remembered her dream.

The time, as she recalled, had been very late, deep in the long watches of the night. The house had been silent when she’d supposedly woken—and seen Harry sprawled in the chair before the dying fire. He had shifted restlessly and she had remembered the blanket left on a chair by the bed. She had slipped from beneath the covers, her shimmering gown slithering over her limbs. On silent feet, she had retrieved the blanket and approached the chair by the fire.

She had halted six feet away, stopped by some sixth sense. His eyes had been closed, long brown lashes gilded at the tips almost brushing his high cheekbones. She had studied his face, the angles and planes, austere in repose, the carved jaw and sculpted lips. Her gaze had travelled on, down his long, graceful body, loose-limbed in sleep, the subtle tension that normally invested it in abeyance.

A little sigh had caught in her throat.

And she had felt the touch of his gaze.

Raising her eyes, she had seen his were open, his gaze, heavy-lidded, on her face. He had studied her, not broodingly but with a gentle pensiveness that had held her still.

She had sensed his hesitation, and the instant he put it aside. Lifting one hand, he had held it out, palm upwards, to her.