grace! I did not hear the bell.”
Dexter was shocked to recognize Carrington, the butler from Cole Court. Four years ago the man had been vigorous and healthy. Now he looked old and broken. He stooped. His hands shook and his voice was a whisper. Dexter doubted that he could hold a tray, let alone announce visitors.
“It does not matter, Carrington,” Laura spoke softly. “Please could you show Mr. Anstruther down to the warming room whilst I find some dry clothing for him? We have had a small mishap.”
The butler’s gaze darted from one to the other like a furtive rabbit. “An accident? Oh, madam—”
“There is nothing to cause distress,” Laura interrupted firmly. “It was no more than a fall in the river. If you would be so good…”
The butler nodded and drew himself up with a sad echo of his former authority. “This way, sir, if you please.”
Chapter Three
DEXTER FOLLOWED the tottering butler down the old stone stair. On more than one occasion he put out a hand to steady the man when it appeared he was about to tumble down the steps to the bottom. He could not believe the change in Carrington and was tempted to ask him what had happened except that the butler seemed confused and did not appear to recognize him at all. He showed Dexter into the little warming room, where a fire burned hot in the grate and the air was scented with lavender from the drying sheets, and promptly disappeared.
Dexter stripped off his sodden shirt with some relief, for little trickles of water were still running down his chest and they felt icy cold. His boots were also full of water and it was one of the most unpleasant things he had ever experienced. He hoped that they were not ruined. They were almost new and he could not afford to buy another pair. He had invested in several new items of clothing to add credence to his role as a fortune hunter since he did not think he could turn up to pay court to an heiress looking like the beggar he was. Lord Liverpool gave such expenses short shrift, so now his wallet was empty.
He heard a knock and a step in the doorway and turned to find Laura there, her arms full of clothes. She was staring at his naked torso and a deep pink color stained her cheeks. There was shock in her eyes. The clothes slipped from her hands and she made a grab for them even whilst her gaze was still riveted on him.
“I’ve brought…Um…Did you…”
Dexter was surprised that she was acting like a startled virgin when she was an experienced woman, a widow with a child. Surely there was no need for any pretense between them after all that had happened? And surely she did not possess an ounce of modesty? In bed with him four years previously she had been open and generous, warm and wanton. Her sweet, seductive shamelessness had been one of the reasons that he had fallen so disastrously in love with her. It had seemed so honest and unguarded at the time.
But she had put him right quickly enough on that score. She had no use for him and his devotion, so she had said. And when she had had him in her bed once it seemed that she had no further use for him in that respect, either.
“It would be best for you to leave now,” she had said in the morning, with a cool, aristocratic disdain that had made him feel utterly insignificant. “I would not wish the servants to find you here…”
Yet now it seemed that she had forgotten her indifference to him, since she was staring like a woman who had never seen a half-naked man before and looking flustered and more than a little intrigued. Her glance stirred something sensual in Dexter, reviving the fire he had only just managed to damp down.
Somewhere at the back of his mind a voice was cautioning him that to take this any further would be dangerous and irresponsible. He ignored it. He wanted to know if what he had experienced before with Laura had been no more than vivid imagining. He needed to know. Once he had exorcised the power she had over him, once he had proved that there was nothing special about Laura at all, he would be free of the past. He was no longer an inexperienced youth. He was at no risk of falling in love with Laura Cole all over again.
Very deliberately he bent down and eased off his boots. When he straightened up Laura was still staring. With calculated intent, he started to unfasten his trousers.
“Did you want me to take these off, as well?” His voice had a rough edge to it now.
Laura’s eyes met his and there was a confused and heated expression in them that made the lust slam through him, tightening its grip on him even as he cautioned himself against it.
“Stop! No!” Laura seemed to wake from a trance. She thrust the pile of clothes down on the table and glared at him. “What are you doing?”
“I am removing my wet clothes,” Dexter said. He allowed his gaze to drift over her appraisingly. “You should do the same, your grace. You look—” his voice dropped “—most disheveled.”
He saw Laura swallow hard. Her hazel eyes darkened further and the unconscious desire in them sent another jolt of lust through him. The warmth of the room, the intimacy of the small space, the heady scent of lavender and his seminakedness were a powerful blend. Dexter took a step toward her.
He had not intended this when first they had met. He had certainly not meant to provoke Laura or tease her or make love to her. Such a course of action was completely irrational. But she was standing there with her hair tumbled about her shoulders and the damned gown still clinging to every curve and he wanted her with all the raw longing he had known four years before. And he wanted to prove that he could master that longing and take one kiss and that it would mean absolutely nothing.
He took another step toward Laura. She took a step back so that she was trapped between his body and the warming room door. She was clutching one of the shirts to her breast now like armor.
“Mr. Anstruther,” Laura said, her voice a thread of sound, “this is most improper.”
“You were swift enough to help me out of my clothes the last time we met,” Dexter said, “and we both know that your concessions to propriety are only for outward show.”
He took the shirt from her hands and tossed it carelessly aside, closing the space between them.
He saw the expression flare in Laura’s eyes, pain as well as heat. “I did not invite you here to—”
“To take up where we left off?”
Dexter was so close to her now that he could see the rapid rise and fall of her breasts beneath the damp muslin of her gown and the pulse that beat in the hollow of her throat. He wanted to rip the dress from neck to hem and expose her pale body to his sight and touch. The violence of his reaction shocked him, a man who prided himself on his self-control, even as the shock was swept away by the desire that ran through his blood in a ravening tide.
“Perhaps you did not intend this.” His words were a breath against her lips. “But now that I understand what it is that you want…”
Confusion flickered in the hazel eyes so close to his. “What I want?”
“Yes. An affair. No complications, no involvement. Four years ago you told me that sex was nothing more than sport to you. So that is what I am offering now—a love affair, nothing but pleasure.”
She put a hand against his chest and pushed him away from her. “I never said an affair was what I wanted!”
Anger
