worth their weight in gold.
Certainly Lord Wesley had admired her breasts. Apparently it was the only thing he wanted about her.
“No.” Grace said it aloud, to make it more resolute, as she rinsed the cloth. “I have to move forward. I need to decide what I can do. There is still marriage after all. I could marry an older gentleman. There’s any number of older wealthy peers who would like my breasts, I’m sure—”
“Sweetheart, you do not have to sell yourself that way.”
Startled by the familiar male growl, she turned to the door, suddenly tense, aware, uncertain—yet liking the thrilling mix of sensations. “I locked that.”
Mr. Sharpe shrugged. “Indeed, you did.”
“Do you make a habit of breaking into women’s—” She paused, aware of the heat in her cheeks, aware she wore only her corset and shift. Of course he broke into women’s bedchambers. He was both a pirate and highwayman—two male pursuits that involved stealing women’s virtues.
Mr. Sharpe looked annoyingly smug. “It might surprise you to know that I do not. I usually await the inevitable invitation.”
He leaned elegantly in the doorway, propped on his arm, legs crossed at his booted ankles, obviously awaiting hers. The blue of his eyes kept her mesmerized—sapphire blue, dark and glinting in the light of her one candle and her low fire. As spectacular a color as she’d imagined and entirely unlike Lord Wesley’s, thank heaven.
Why had he come? What did he want? If she had sense she would send him away, but she needed him—if only to undo the knot in her corset ties. “You may come in, because otherwise someone will peek out their door and see you standing there.”
She couldn’t help but give a triumphant smile as he hastened off her threshold into her room and shut the door behind him.
His masculine scent, different from his brother’s—more earthy, more spicy, entirely seductive—filled her senses, filled her room.
He filled her room.
And in that instant, as she drank in his astonishing height and his wide shoulders, she remembered Lady Prudence’s stark fear and accusations. She turned away, struck by nerves, wondering at her own sanity, and she crossed her arms over her breasts. He had openly admitted to dueling and she had brought him into her bedroom.
But he’d rescued her. He had made her smile when any sensible, well-bred woman would be crying so hard she would have to wring out her bedspread.
“I spoke to Wesley.”
That caught her attention and she spun around. “What—good heavens, your neck is bleeding!”
His lips parted; his teeth flashed in the audacious grin of a man accustomed to taking what he wished. “Not anymore. I used my overpriced and overstarched cravat to soak it up.”
“Lord Wesley attacked you? What did you do in return?”
“I took that stupid knife off him, took him over my knee, and spanked him.”
“You didn’t! You couldn’t have possibly done so!”
He calmly peeled off his glove and winked. “I thought my hand might still be red. My palm is still stinging. I felt childish, bullying behavior deserved a child’s punishment. I would have used a belt on him, but the coward fled out into the gardens.”
She snorted. Then clapped her hands to her mouth in horror. She’d meant to laugh in the demure and melodic way that women should do, but her natural laugh came out. The horrid snort that always sent her sisters into gales of laughter. Inappropriate laughter, theirs might be, but it was feminine at least.
The highwayman in her bedroom grinned broadly. “Good Lord, did that sound come from you?”
“Yes,” she declared with defiance, aware that they now stood on either side of her bed, which was neatly turned down for the night.
He raked back his long blond hair. “You are lovely, aren’t you?”
Embarrassment struck. “Before you raised your hand—or your belt—to Lord Wesley, did you discuss my…my reputation?”
“Why do you think I was flogging his backside, Miss Hamilton? It wasn’t for exercise. It was an indication of how seriously I would humiliate him, hurt him, destroy him if he dared to breathe a word of what happened.”
She was half-undressed, and had no idea what to think. How could a highwayman be her knight protector? “But he is your brother, and he must know you wouldn’t seriously hurt—”
Clenched in a fist, Mr. Sharpe’s hand rested against the fluted column of her bed. His dimple deepened. “He knows I would. How do you think I got him to stop lording his legitimacy and his title over me? I kicked his little bottom at school with my booted foot.”
Grace realized that for all she was barely dressed Mr. Sharpe’s eyes never left her face. It gave her an odd sense of courage and focused all her thoughts on him. “You went to school?”
“Do I appear uneducated? My master of literature was certain I’d never be more than a hulking, semiliterate beast.”
“But you do not use your education!” she protested. “You—”
He leaned closer and the spicy hint of sandalwood, the delectable warm smell of his skin, intoxicated her. It spoke of the most intimate things he did—bathe, shave, even sweat.
“Do not doubt that I use every one of my lessons, Miss Hamilton. I’ve been known to quote Shakespeare while blowing the mast off an English warship.”
“You never have!”
He was laughing now, quietly, the sound throaty and deep. “What—the Shakespeare or the warship?”
“The warship,” Grace answered, her tone sharpened by his teasing. “Wouldn’t you have been hunted down and strung up by now? You are not exactly secretive, are you?”
“Suffice it to say that I performed some duties for his majesty that made amends.”
“For destroying ships? What did you do? Capture a continent and stick the flag in the middle of it?”
“Essentially, yes.” He laughed. It intrigued Devlin that Miss Grace Hamilton was speaking entirely about him. It was something he was not accustomed to—generally he let women prattle on about their worlds, content to listen to the lilt in their voices as they spread gossip.
He should go. It was his intention to protect her reputation, not destroy it by taking up residence in her bedroom. But as he was about to bow and bid her farewell, he saw the glint of a tear in the corner of her eye and knew her courage was about to fail her.
“And what can I do?” she asked. “Become a governess? Oh, wait—my schooling is almost nonexistent and most ladies want young women of impeccable reputation for their children. Perhaps I’m qualified to scrub the floors—”
“Gently bred women rarely are. I’d never employ one to tend my home.”
“Mr.
