The Duchess and the Highwayman (Hearts in Hiding 1)

“You don’t know anything, do you?” Shaking his head, he topped up her glass. “Ah well, I’m a philosophic man by nature, so I’ll just have to try and console myself with the fact that it’s not a wasted evening to enjoy dinner with a woman as easy on the eye as you are, my dear.” He sent her a rueful look. “I think I must be soft in the head to let you talk me into giving you such latitude. Mrs Withins asked me before you entered… ‘Where will it end, sir?’.” He shrugged and sent her a piercing look across the table. “Where will it end, Phoebe?”

His voice had dropped. The light was fading outside, and the candle in the center of the table sent long shadows dancing on the wall.

Phoebe finished her second glass of wine and noticed with a surge of appreciation how well he looked in evening clothes. His snowy stock was pristine. He’d shaved, and the smoothness of his skin was suddenly intriguing. She had a ridiculous urge to feel the soft linen of his stock drift across the back of her hand before she twined her fingers up through his hair and caressed the smooth skin of his newly-shaven jaw.

Goodness, he was a handsome man. His eyes were somewhere between green and brown, though in some lights she would describe them as…tawny. She’d never seen eyes like his. His light brown hair was fashionably styled; angular sideburns followed the line of his sharply-delineated cheekbones. When he was amused, he had one dimple that popped out, but when he was angry, his mouth was set in a hard, uncompromising line.

Now, however, the rhetorical question clearly both perplexed and amused him.

Phoebe pushed back her chair and slowly stood up. The wine had emboldened her, and she had a position to maintain. In this man’s eyes, she was for all intents and purposes a doxy; and one who’d failed to give him any return on his money, at that. The money he’d spent on a fine dress which she hoped would come in useful for effecting her escape some day.

She took a couple of steps toward him, and her calculated thoughts were entirely a separate matter to the heat that swept through her core. She needed this man, it was true. Thank God she wanted him, too.

“Where will it all end, Mr Redding?” Her voice was low and husky as she stood behind him, lowering her head so that her breathy tone ruffled the curls behind his ears.

She noticed how he tensed, thrilled that her ploy really did seem to put his nerve endings on notice.

Gently she laid a hand on his shoulder, and slid her other down his waistcoat, lingering on his breast before snaking down toward his groin.

He startled, but beyond that was still. Phoebe was in charge.

In charge and charged with lust. She didn’t believe she’d wielded such power. Certainly not with Ulrick. She doubted with Wentworth, even in the early days.

But this man had been attracted to her from the start. She’d seen it in the first interested flare during their heated exchange in the woods when her face had been smeared with mud.

Well, that was only a few of days ago, but the tension had been building up between them ever since and now Phoebe knew exactly what she wanted.

And what she needed.

“You have ordered me a very beautiful gown, sir, for which I am truly grateful.” Gently she nipped his ear. “But I do not barter anything unless my interest is piqued.”

“Your interest is piqued, now, Phoebe?” He sounded strangled. “I’m glad to hear it. I’d all but given up hope.”

“Either this fine Rhenish has gone to my head, or perhaps we’ve been leading toward this moment from the start.” She slid her body around as she spoke, and sat on his lap, twining her arms behind his neck as she offered an impish grin. Oh, she was in charge and how mightily she was enjoying it.

“I like to think it is the latter.”

She closed her eyes as she gently ground her bottom over his growing erection. They would make love, and she would feel safe and enjoy it. The anticipation of what the next few minutes…night…might bring was singing through her veins. Her brain throbbed with excitement, and the heat and moisture between her legs made her lightheaded.

Kissing his ear while he gently ran his hands over her, she acknowledged that she desired this man deeply and sincerely.

She felt his thighs tense and heard his slight exhalation as she pressed her lips to Adam’s apple.

Tipping her head and tightening his arms around her, he kissed her long and hard, and excitement fueled her body to fever pitch. She’d never felt like this before.

Yet she had to remain in charge. She could not be the weak vessel, the slave she’d been to Wentworth.

Mr Redding’s hand was on her knee now, beneath her skirts, and climbing higher. She’d given him license at last, and he was succumbing to the ecstasy of the moment. She could see it in the lust-fueled glaze of his eye and his smile as he touched her.

Her own excitement was growing, but to remain in charge, she needed distance.

Within seconds, she realized distance was not going to be possible. She was as swept away as he by this moment of mutual desire when she had surely everything to gain by abandonment.

With one practiced hand, Phoebe unbuttoned his trouser flap while she continued to kiss him, then slid her hand into the opening.

“Oh God!” he gasped, jerking as he was taken by surprise, cupping her chin, but ever so gently. Not like Wentworth, though dear Lord this was no time to make comparisons. Not when the men were as different as chalk and cheese, and the reasons for her behaving no better than a whore purely life preserving.

No, that wasn’t true. The only time she’d offered her body up to a man’s like a whore was when she’d married Ulrick. She’d felt nothing for him. At least with Wentworth in the early days, she’d been listening to her heart.