He put one hand to his perfectly tied cravat. Philippa held her breath.
Eyes fixed on hers, he slowly, slowly lifted a fold of snowy linen, over, up, over, through . . . she saw his hands from the corner of her vision, because she was drinking in his expression, the taut desire that shaped his face.
Then she raised her hands to the cord that held her wrapper together. A moment later, she was wearing only a light muslin nightgown. One glance down at her chest and she felt herself turning pink with embarrassment. Instinctively, she folded her arms over her breasts, hoping to flatten her nipples before Wick saw them.
She couldn’t tell if he had. He shrugged off his heavy coat and put it over a chair.
“You,” Philippa said, and cleared her throat. “You look . . .”
“Without that livery,” Wick stated, “I am a man, nothing but a man.”
Joy sparked her heart. “Do you wish me to remove my nightgown?”
He straightened, a shoe in one hand. “If you’re having second thoughts, I’ll leave.”
She gasped no, and a smile quirked the corner of his mouth. Then she added: “I think I would feel more comfortable with my nightgown on.”
Wick nodded. He dispensed with his other shoe, pulled off his stockings, then paused, hands on his waistband.
Philippa realized her voice had died. It was just that his body was so taut and muscled, like nothing she’d seen or imagined. It was a wicked smile he threw her, the kind that seducers threw maidens . . . though she was no maiden.
“I should probably warn you,” Wick said, but she hardly heard him. He removed his breeches, and now his hands were on his smalls.
“What?” she breathed.
“It could be that Rodney and I don’t—” Still his hands didn’t move.
“Don’t what?” she said, unable to image what he was getting at.
“Don’t resemble each other.” His smalls hit the floor, and Philippa’s mouth fell open. She instinctively fell back a step, ending up against the wrought-iron bed frame.
“Oh dear.” Her voice came out in a squeak. The memory of Rodney’s member flashed through her mind: Rodney’s little member, she now realized. There was no comparison.
“I gather we don’t,” Wick said, a wry, yet tender note in his voice.
“No,” Philippa breathed. “You don’t.”
Chapter Nine
Wick hadn’t known—hadn’t dared to think—about what was about to happen, and what it would mean for him. But as laughter gathered in his chest at the look in Philippa’s eyes, the helpless, desiring, appalled look on her face, he knew.
He meant to have her, to have and to hold, any way he could. Whether that meant becoming a butler in her house, or a gardener in her fields . . . He had to be near her.
This funny, delicious, intelligent woman had walked into the castle and straight into his heart and she would never leave it, as long as he lived.
But that was a problem to be worked out tomorrow. Just at present, he had to pry his beloved off the bed railings.
“Darling,” he said, walking closer.
Philippa flicked her eyes to his face, then back down. The agonized doubt on her face almost had him doubling over with laughter, but he couldn’t do that. Instead, he swept her up in his arms and lowered her onto the bed.
She lay in the path of the moonlight coming through the window; it flowed across the floor, up and over the bed, spilling on the window and splashing light over her white-blonde hair as it spilled over the pillow and down the side of the bed. She looked ethereal, like a fairy and not an Englishwoman, some sort of fabulous sprite he’d captured and brought to his bed for the night.
He sat next to her on the bed. “Why did you ask me whether you should undress?”
“Rodney didn’t, that is, he undressed but he didn’t remove my clothes.”
“Rodney,” Wick stated, “is a fool and a bungler. I don’t suppose he used a French letter either, did he?”
“No.”
“It will prevent your being with child,” he told her. “Our child.” There was a little stab to his heart as he said it. He would give anything to have his baby growing inside Philippa, to watch her stomach round, to see her eyes in the face of a little boy or girl . . . But since he didn’t know if the obstacles to their marriage could be overcome, the French letter was necessary.
A ghost of a smile touched her lips, but still, she looked strained and uncertain. He lowered himself slowly until he lay on his side, and gently, very gently, leaned forward to touch his lips to hers. His hands tangled in all that gorgeous hair, drawing locks of it through his fingers like silk spun on Jove’s own looms.
He kissed her until she opened her mouth to him and turned toward him. He kept kissing her not moving, letting her body inch toward his, letting her hands take the initiative, slipping from his neck to his shoulders, down his back.
Her touch made him shake with ferocious need, but he schooled himself. He remained still, telling himself that he must not frighten her. Philippa had already had one unpleasant experience; if he muffed this, she’d likely be put off for life.
He waited until her eyes flew open, and she said, “Wick.”
“Yes?” He couldn’t stop grinning.
“Don’t the gentlemen do more with the strumpets they buy?”
“What sort of thing would you like me to do?”
“You should know. And stop smiling at me like that.”
“I can’t help it,” he said, leaning forward and kissing her lips, her cheek, her feathery eyelashes. “I’ve never laughed in bed with a woman before.”
“That’s probably because you were more busy than you are now,” she remarked, and he nipped her earlobe, then felt the shudder that pulsed down her body.
“You look like a fairy, a sprite,” he said, running his hand down the long line of her leg. She seemed to have a fascination with his chest: she was tracing little patterns on it. “But you sound like a schoolmarm.” The last word was strangulated, as Philippa had leaned toward him and was tracing the same patterns with her tongue.
Slowly, slowly, he slid his hand under her nightgown, over her slender thigh, the tender curve of her waist.
“I just want to say one thing,” Philippa said, abandoning his chest, much to his regret.
“Mmmmm,” he said, his fingers gliding over skin as soft as daisy petals. His heart was thudding in a way he had never experienced before.
“No tiddle-taddling,” she said.
Wick’s hand was caressing her generous, lush breast, and couldn’t think very clearly. Philippa’s head fell back against the pillow as he brushed past her nipple and a small moan broke from her lips, so it seemed she wasn’t exactly clearheaded either. “Is this tiddle-taddling?” he asked, rubbing that sweet raspberry with his thumb.
Another strangled moan, a tiny pulse of air, flew from her throat. “No,” she said with a gasp. Then: “You don’t know what it is, do you? I should have known only Rodney would try to engage in something so distasteful.”
It struck Wick that bedding his beloved was the most delightful, funny, and passionate activity he had ever engaged in. He kissed her again, letting his fingers wander, marking what made Philippa arch her back, instinctively falling into a position to give . . . and take.