Her mother just laughed. “It’s all in fun, darling. You have to—”
But whatever her mother would have said was lost when Linnet was roughly shaken awake. She blinked through a curtain of tousled hair to see that it wasn’t her mother at the end of the bed. It was Piers, sitting there as easily as if he were the brother she never had.
And yet . . . she took one look at his lean face, shadowed now with beard, and her whole body told her that it wasn’t a sibling in the room. He was coatless, and his shoulders strained the sleeves of his white linen shirt. Warmth crept up her cheeks.
“Hello,” she said.
This was absurd! He was incapable, and would mock her intolerably if he had even the faintest idea that she liked the look of him so much. That was all it was: a perfectly normal admiration of physical beauty.
“Are you planning to get up one of these hours?” Piers said, his voice as peremptory as ever. “I brought you a cup of hot chocolate. It made me feel just like a lady’s maid, though one of those eunuchs who ran around serving emperors would be more accurate.”
He didn’t look like a eunuch, not that she’d ever seen one. Linnet reached out and took the cup of hot chocolate, curling her hands around it. It was rich and dark to her tongue, almost peppery.
She could see why people liked marriage, at least those who did like marriage. It was fun to have someone else there in the morning to chat with over hot chocolate. What’s more, she liked looking at him, and since he wasn’t paying any attention to her, she did just that, watching the play of his muscles from under her lashes.
The male body was so different from hers, so enticing in its own way. Silently, she sent up an apology to her mother. You were right. Piers stretched out his arm, and his shirt strained over the muscles of his shoulder.
For the first time, the very first time, she understood what made her mother’s eyes so bright when she set off on one of her assignations.
Then, all of a sudden, she realized precisely what she was looking at. Piers had his cane in his hand and he was leaning forward. She glanced along the line of the cane and sat up with a shriek, nearly spilling her chocolate.
“Stop that, this minute!”
He poked again. “It’s so hard to wake you up that I thought a little artillery would help.”
He had her jewelry box poised on the very edge of her dressing table. Another good poke and it would fall off.
Linnet put her chocolate on her bedside table. “Give me that!” she exclaimed, grabbing the cane and lying back down. “You may not exert your childish sense of humor on my jewelry box. I inherited it from my mother. It’s inlaid mother-of-pearl, made in Venice.”
Piers leaned toward her, putting a hand on either side of her hips. “That’s the second time you’ve called me childish. Men have been called out for worse.”
“Not by you,” she said, eyeing him. “You’re a cripple.”
There was a split-second pause. “Now that’s just cruel,” he said softly, leaning forward.
“It’s no worse than the way you talk to people,” she said, aware that her tone was distinctly gleeful.
He shifted position, and suddenly his hands were on either side of her waist, so close that she could feel his warmth. She clutched the cane, unable to choke back her smile. Teasing him was intoxicating . . . and dangerous.
Piers confirmed exactly what she was thinking. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that I’m nicknamed the Beast?”
She wrinkled her nose. “As is every two-year-old boy, by his nanny. What are you going to do, call me names? It won’t have an effect; all of London already refers to me by the worst names a lady can be called.”
“Well, there’s something you and my mother have in common,” he said. “It should make me feel right at home to cuddle up to a trollop.”
A bit awkwardly, she managed to turn the cane around and poke him in the chest. “Would you please move back? This is vastly improper.”
He didn’t move. His eyes glittered with a kind of emotion that went beyond impropriety. Suddenly Linnet realized that she’d made a mistake about him. She had assumed that an incapable man was—well—incapable of feeling desire.
Piers clearly had no problem with desire.
He knew what she was thinking too. His eyes moved slowly down her face, pausing at her lips, slowly down her neck, pausing . . .
And remained frozen.
She glanced down to find that the fine lawn of her nightgown was caught beneath her, pulling it tightly over her body. Her breasts were barely veiled, rosy nipples clearly visible. She tossed the cane to the side and folded her arms over her chest.
“You shouldn’t be ogling me like that,” she stated.
“You’re my fiancée.” His voice was husky and dark, without any of the usual mocking undertones that generally accompanied his every word.
“Not anymore,” she said, licking her bottom lip.
“You know,” he said, “I think we should explore this whole question of betrothal a bit more thoroughly. We might be tossing out the baby with the bathwater.”
He shifted closer once again. His hands were on her pillow now, his face just above hers.
“I’ve been kissed by a prince,” she told him. Her voice didn’t come out honey smooth like his; it squeaked.
“Competition,” he said, his eyes glittering even more brightly. “I’m fiercely competitive, did you know that?” He dipped his head and licked her bottom lip in one slick, sweet movement.
Linnet blinked at the wave of sensation that rushed through her body. “Prince Augustus wins,” she managed.
“But I haven’t even got started yet,” Piers said. “And do you know? I think we should leave it there for the moment. I should probably brush up on my technique. Read some books. Contemplate my strategy.”
Linnet’s breath was coming quickly and her eyes were half closed, waiting for his lips to descend to hers, for him to—
“What?” she squeaked. What was it about him that made her lose all her easy charm?
“You taste like chocolate,” he growled, his lips still hovering just over hers. Linnet could feel her eyes drifting closed. Yes . . . please . . . her stomach clenched as she caught his breath, chocolate and mint.
“If you were a bonbon, I would nibble you.” He bent his head and—nipped her? Bit her lower lip. Against all rational thought, it sent a jolt of heat down Linnet’s body.
Her eyes flew open. “I should think you do need to read a book or two,” she said. “Am I the first woman you’ve ever kissed? If you can call that kissing?”
Piers straightened up and tapped his chin with his finger. “Let me see . . . I seem to remember . . . No! You’re not the first woman. Do you find that disappointing?”
“It doesn’t matter to me either way.”
He stood up. “What in the devil did you do with my cane? Oh, there it is. Now could you please get yourself out of that bed and put on some clothes so that we can go swimming?”
But it was all different now. Piers may have looked precisely the same, as indifferent and sardonic as ever, but Linnet didn’t feel the same. She simply could not climb out of her bed and walk across the room in her nightclothes, not after that kiss. Or half kiss.