smile, she reached up and tucked an errant lock behind his ear.
He caught her hand in his to place a kiss across her fingertips. “Why thank you?”
“I never thought I would ever experience anything like that,” she explained. “After all, I’m bordering on old maidenhood. And now I understand so much more than I did before.”
“Here, turn around.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and leaned closer.
She did as she was asked, marveling at how his warm hands on her bare skin managed to make her tingle all over again.
As he lifted her chemise back over her shoulders, then her hopelessly wrinkled dress and began refastening her buttons, he said, “First off, you’re hardly an old maid.”
She shivered as he placed a soft kiss at the base of her neck before turning her back to face him.
“I’m three and twenty. Do you know how old most of my friends were when they married?”
“How old?” he asked, though his tone was one of a man humoring her.
She gathering up her sweaty locks into her hands and began piling them up on her head, jabbing in the pins he offered her from the floor.
“Seventeen, perhaps eighteen,” she said. “According to my mother, I am firmly on the shelf.”
A frown creased his brow. “Your mother’s opinion makes a great deal of difference to you, doesn’t it?”
With a frown of her own, she dropped her head. “She disapproves of me. She always has.”
Griffin smiled. “Always?”
She refused to return his smile. “Always.”
With a sigh, she looked down at herself, still disheveled despite their best efforts to make her look presentable. Reaching over, she snatched up her gloves and shoved them back on.
“Who can blame her, really? I’ve given her enough ammunition. After all, I’m unmarried and I just lost my virtue to a man she’s told me a hundred times will never love me.”
The second the words were out of her mouth, Audrey clamped her half-gloved hand over her lips.
Lifting her eyes, she looked at him. He was frozen in his place, his eyes locked on her.
“Your mother told you that?” His voice was unreadable in the semi-darkness around them.
“I was a young girl,” she explained, hoping her tone made it seem like her infatuation was unimportant now. “And she knew best, after all.”
“What do you mean?” His voice was suddenly strained.
She watched him with intent, but still couldn’t read his expression. “You married Luci, didn’t you?”
He winced as he looked away, pulling the curtain back to allow the city lights to brighten the carriage a fraction. For a long time he didn’t say anything.
“Luci was…”
Before he could finish, the carriage pulled to a smooth stop. The coach rocked as the footman and driver climbed down.
“We’ve arrived,” she said, suddenly feeling awkward.
Though she’d just shared the most intimate of experiences with the man beside her, the thought of entering the blazing light of the house with him was a bit daunting. Surely people would look at both their mussed appearances and wonder what they’d been doing.
The door opened, but Griffin didn’t move. Her own exit was still blocked by his body.
“Griffin?”
“You don’t understand, Audrey.”
He accentuated the comment with a sigh as he finally stepped out of the coach and into the cool night air. Instead of allowing the footman to help her out, he extended his own hand.
With hesitation, she took it. She was nearly shattered by the electricity that rushed through her when they touched. Somehow it surprised her she’d still feel such heat between them after they had purged their more animal instincts. From all she’d heard, the passion between two people often faded once they had been intimate. Noah certainly seemed to lose interest in his paramours soon enough.
Griffin led her up the walkway in silence but the moment they entered the house, he released her and walked away down the hallway. Instinctively she followed him.
“I’m sorry if my actions interfered with your plan tonight,” he said, his voice clipped as she came into the leather and cherry wood room he called his office. “But I felt I was protecting you. You may explain that to your brother if he’s angry, or send him to me. I’ll gladly tell him exactly why I couldn’t stand to see you in danger one more moment.”
“Griffin?” She tilted her head as she pushed the door shut. “Are you angry with me?”
“No,” he said, but his voice was strained as he turned his back to her.
With hesitation, she added, “Are you sorry for what we did tonight?”
The answer was so important that she could barely hear it over the rushing of her blood in her ears. If he was sorry, she wasn’t sure she could bear it.
Griffin paused with his hand on a crystal decanter at the bar beside his desk. “I
“But…”
Turning, he looked at her with a gaze that was both even and so heated that her knees went weak. “I wanted you then. God help me, I want you now. Wrong or not.”
With a shiver, she moved a step closer. “I’m not sorry.”
He poured the drink he’d been neglecting and downed it in one sip. “Wait until morning to say that.”
With a tilt of her head, Audrey smiled. “I’ll feel the same way tomorrow. I don’t often change my mind.”
The tension in Griffin’s face left for a fleeting moment as he turned to smile at her. “I remember that about you.”
“I told you Griffin.” She stepped toward him and placed her hand on his face. The beginnings of stubble were rough on her palm and she longed her rub her cheek where her hand now lay. “What happened between us was fate. Don’t blame yourself for that.”
With a deep breath, Griffin covered her hand with his. “I’ll order one of the maids to bring bathwater to your room. The ache will ease if you soak for a while. Now go.”
Audrey took a step away with a broad smile. Even if Griffin didn’t believe in fate, she did. Fate had brought her to him once, and she had no doubt fate had much more in store for them before this assignment was through.
Chapter Twelve
Audrey sat on the window seat in her chamber staring out at the London streets below. Carriages swarmed around corners and in and out of alleys as the cream of the
What had happened after Griffin had dragged her away? Had her brother and Hannah searched frantically for her? Had Ellison carried out some kind of plot?
There had been no news of an assassination, so she assumed Noah had done his job to keep Ellison and his men from following through on any kind of major plan. But that was only a guess, and there was so much at stake that she was wary of going by instinct alone.
Noah was probably furious, and after she gave her explanation… that Griffin had carried her back home like a ruffian… he’d be even angrier. And what about Douglas?
A man like Douglas Ellison probably wasn’t used to being deserted by a woman, nor having his lady abducted. She only hoped she could repair all the damage done by Griffin’s actions. And her own.
“It was worth it.”
She sat down at her dressing table to brush her still damp locks of hair before lifting them into a simple bun
