said we should forget it.’
‘I haven’t been able to forget. Have you?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. No! Are you happy now?’
‘Do you remember, I had to tell you to wheesht?’ Iain closed the tiny space between them. His voice was soft, a whispering burr without any trace of the Lowland growl. If it were not for that look in his eyes, she would have said it was seductive. He took one of her artful curls and began to twist it round his finger. He had an artist’s hands, the fingers long and delicate, though the skin was rough.
The muscles in her belly clenched. ‘You were every bit as— You enjoyed it every bit as much, as I recall.’
‘I did.’ He let her curl slip from her finger, only to cup her jaw in his hand, his thumb running along the length of her bottom lip. ‘Too right I did,’ he said, and covered her mouth with his.
She almost surrendered. His mouth fit so perfectly with hers, as no other ever had or would. Her lips clung to his, her mouth opening, her hands reaching automatically to twine around his neck, her body arching into the hard length of his. Cordelia yanked herself free and delivered a very hard slap.
* * *
Iain staggered back, his hand cupped to his throbbing cheek. Cordelia had not been messing about, and to judge by the way she was glaring at him, she would have hit him a deal harder if she’d had a chance. Or more precisely, she’d hit him again if he took another chance. He was forced to laugh. ‘I suppose you’ll tell me I deserved that.’
She folded her arms across her chest and stuck her nose in the air. ‘You know perfectly well that you did.’
‘And I suppose that you’ll also tell me you didn’t want me to kiss you?’
She raised her brows and pursed her lips, giving him one of those looks that managed to be both sceptical and challenging. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone whose ego is in less need of pandering than yours, Mr Hunter.’
This time his laugh was spontaneous. ‘Come now, hasn’t the very man just left the room! But since we’re talking extremes, let me tell you that I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman quite like you, Mrs—Lady Cordelia.’
‘Is that a compliment?’
Iain shrugged. ‘It’s the truth. I take it you had no more idea than I of what your father was going to suggest today?’
‘I am pretty certain my father had no idea either, until your card was sent in. It was a surprise attack. He was ever fond of Wellington you know, even though the duke has fallen from favour. And with him my dear father,’ Cordelia said sardonically.
‘They say that the king is in poor health. When he dies, there will be another General Election, though I doubt the Tories will win, even with Peel in charge.’
‘No, my father’s star is finally on the wane. We will have a woman on the throne too. The influential Lord Armstrong is now past his prime and stripped of influence.’ Cordelia’s smile was twisted. ‘Not that I believe that for a second. My father will bend with the wind, even if he can no longer direct it.’
‘What’s more, he’s sharp enough to see it’s men like myself who’ll be doing the directing in the future.’ Iain grinned. ‘I have to admire the devious old bugger, even if he is deluded. I’ve no interest in earning a fancy title, and I’ve certainly no desire to rub shoulders with those who’ve nothing better to do than spend their ill-gotten gains on clothes and parties and horses.’
‘Good heavens, are you a revolutionary? Perhaps you have ambitions to put my father’s neck on a guillotine?’
‘No, but I suspect you would. You’ll forgive me being blunt,’ Iain said, ‘but you don’t hold the old man in much esteem, do you?’
‘I doubt you are ever anything else but blunt.’ Cordelia turned towards the desk and began to footer with the blotter, aligning the pen holder and inkstand up. ‘No, I don’t have much respect for him. About as much as he does for me.’
He could not see her expression, but something in the hunch of her shoulders made him guess at the hurt she was attempting to disguise. ‘If he means so little to you, why do you let him upset you?’
She turned at that, and he saw he was right. Pain shadowed her eyes, though she was fighting it. ‘My sister Cressie said something similar to me recently. She seems to have found a way of overcoming nature which I have as yet to discover, despite my attempts to do so.’
‘I must consider myself fortunate not to be encumbered by parents then,’ Iain said gruffly.
‘You are an orphan?’
It was his turn to shrug. He had no desire to add a discussion of his pathetic history into the conversation that was already convoluted enough. ‘He may be your father, but you’re a grown woman, Cordelia, he can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.’
‘All very well for you to say that. You are a man.’
‘Aye, and when you look at me like that, I’m very glad I am,’ Iain replied, because the mocking look was back in her eyes, and there was something irresistible about the challenge of it, and in the sensual downward curl of that mouth of hers.
He caught her arm and turned her towards him, losing his train of thought in the scent of her, and the rustle of her gown against his legs, and in the way she reacted to the heat of his gaze, neither shrinking from it nor denying her own reaction.
‘I’m not going to kiss you,’ she said.
She spoke coolly, though her words were belied by the tempting tilt of her mouth. He slid his hand up her back, finding the delightful patch of naked skin at her nape, under her hair. ‘You’d better not hit me again.’
‘What, will you hit me back? I should warn you, Iain, I am not the sort of woman to take that sort of pleasure.’
‘Firstly, I never hit any woman, no matter what kind.’ Iain put his other arm around her waist, pulling her close. The perfume she wore was exotic, though the scent eluded him. The way she spoke his name made him shiver, made the muscles in his belly tighten, sent the blood coursing to his groin. ‘And secondly, you seem to have forgotten that I know very well what particular kind of pleasure you like.’
She did not move. He knew, despite her denial, that she would kiss him back this time. It shocked him, the fierce possessiveness he felt just touching her, so much so that he let her go. ‘I want that business, Cordelia. What has he got on you? I’m not daft, you wouldn’t still be here talking to me if he didn’t have some sort of hold over you. What is it?’
She hesitated, returning to her compulsive straightening of the desk furniture, aligning the already aligned pen holder and inkpot. Then she turned, her mouth tight with anger. ‘My family. My aunt. My half-brothers I have not seen since I left nearly ten years ago, the half-sister I have never met. And most of all Celia and Cassie. They were his trump cards.’ The pen in her hand snapped. ‘My two elder sisters,’ she explained with a curl of her lip. ‘Both are married to Arabian princes. I knew Caro and Cressie—they are my other sisters—would pay no heed to my father’s decree. Indeed, I was fairly certain his disowning me was sufficient
