solitude.
“That is not what I meant,” she said, voice cool but eyes bright.
“A ken whit ye meant.”
“I do not—” She halted. Her gaze fixed on his mouth, lingering until Leam’s cravat tightened.
Then it slid slowly down his neck and chest, oddly searching. By God, she looked like a girl at times, vulnerable and uncertain beneath the facade of the ice princess she tried to appear, poised and tantalizingly aloof.
Her gaze returned to his, direct.
“What game are we playing, my lord?”
Leam did not wish to consider the consequences any longer. Not tonight. The frustration from her earlier kisses proved too much. He wanted one thing now.
“Piquet.”
Slowly her lips curved up, first at one edge, then the other. His chest ached.
“I accept your offer. It sounds like a splendid idea. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it first,” adding beneath her breath as she moved to the opposite seat, “except that I am not a roguish barbarian, of course.”
“O coorse.”
“I thought you didn’t like this gown.” Her fine eyes danced, releasing the pressure behind his ribs.
She would play. He must remember what he knew of her and disregard what the poet in him would believe, would he but give the poet rein.
“’Tis the reason for the game, lass,” he said smoothly.
“You will not win it. Mr. Yale plays well, but I am not Lady Emily. I know my way around a card table.” She paused. “But were you to win it…” Her cheeks flamed. “You cannot burn it or some such nonsense. I must have it back, at least until my luggage arrives. I cannot very well go about in my petticoat, can I?”
Leam sucked in a breath. He passed her the deck and she dealt.
“How shall we do this, my lord, by declaration and tricks or by hand? I daresay the former, as it is quite late already.”
Leam smiled but he wished to laugh. At this moment, he lived a fantasy. She was intelligent, beautiful, brazen, and could indeed laugh with him, albeit quietly. He should cut out his tongue. He should run and bolt himself into his bedchamber—alone. He should never have done this, for more reasons than he could count.
“Declaration an trick.”
Her lashes flickered.
They played, and she played extraordinarily well, considerably better than she had earlier.
“Four queens.” She did not look up from her cards. Leam had nothing to match them. He untied his neck cloth and removed it.
An unexpected trick went to the table beneath her fingertips. Leam’s signet ring followed it.
“Ye withheld yer skill afore,” he murmured.
“I had no particular desire to win then.” Her gaze came up, shining, and shifted to his neck. Leam had never before felt less dressed wearing so many clothes.
She took another trick. “Now what, my lord?”
He removed his shoes. It seemed safest. This had not been wise. But he could not halt it now. He wanted to see her undressed more than he wanted to breathe.
Cards shifted from table to hands, hands to table. His stockings came off, then his kerchief came from his pocket, followed by his watch.
She studied the timepiece on the table.
“You are not playing fairly, my lord. What shall it be next, a snuffbox?”
“A dinna tak snuff.” Perhaps she only wished to make a fool of him, but her eyes remained lit, her beautiful lips irrepressibly twitching. “Yer fixing to have me in ma drawers and ye still laced up tight, aren’t ye?’
“I am not
“A’ve been letting ye win, lass.”
“I doubt it.”
“Deal the cards.”
He won the jewels in her ears. Watching her remove them was like watching art at its creation, the tilt of her fine jaw, the ivory curve of her throat, the deft movement of her graceful fingers. She laid the ear bobs on the table.
“You have had your impressive sequence, my lord. But no more.” She spoke with only a hint of unevenness in her voice, but she did not now meet his gaze.
Her shoes and shawl went next. He could see no more of her than before, but as she discarded each item her cheeks grew pinker, her hands less steady.
“My trick,” he murmured, setting down a king to stop her run of hearts.
“Hm. I should ask you to look away, but that seems absurdly prim given the circumstances.”
Leam averted his gaze.
A minute later she said, “All right.”
On the pile of shoes and shawl rested a pair of stockings. Of fine woven wool and modest hue, they seemed suitable for traveling. Leam had seen silk stockings thin as water; he had removed them from feminine legs they had barely covered. But these practical scraps of fabric did to him what no stockings on or off a woman had before.
Beneath Kitty Savege’s skirts, her legs were now bared.
He must have those skirts.
He set to his strategy afresh.
She won his coat. As he pulled it off and laid it aside, she took a quick, deep breath.
“I told you I would win.” Her sweet voice had lost all smoothness. “You mustn’t play against opponents you do not know, Lord Blackwood. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that before?”
“Whit if A want ye tae win, lass?”
“You don’t.”
He didn’t. And he did. He could see the same in her eyes, reluctance yet eagerness. The day had felt like an eternity, the evening endless waiting. But her slightly hesitant surrender now was undoing him like nothing ever had. The mix of innocence and confidence intoxicated. Entranced. Watching her was to witness the most elegant of carriages slowly, surely crash of its own will, as though crashing were to be desired.
“Nine,” she said. “You cannot have better. Your waistcoat, my lord?”
He removed it. She stared. Leam locked his grip around the chair arm, holding himself in his seat.
How she finally won the hand with her gaze glued to his shirtfront he hadn’t any idea, unless it was that he wasn’t looking at his cards at all any longer. Her thundercloud eyes widened yet further as he unbuttoned the linen and tugged it off.
Her face snapped away. Her knuckles and fingertips showed white about the cards. His heart beat so hard he suspected she might see the flinching of flesh. But since she now seemed to be studying the waning fire across the chamber with great interest, he did nothing to hide. The cool air slipped over his shoulders. He leaned back in the chair and took up the cards to shuffle.
“I daresay this is not a very wise idea.” Her words were breathless. “What with Lady Emily and the gentlemen just upstairs, and Mr. and Mrs. Milch only on the other side of the kitchen.”
It was not wise for many more reasons than that. It hadn’t been since they’d started this.
“They’re all abed, lass. But if ye’ve had eneuch o cards…”
Finally she turned to him, and her eyes were clouds of confusion. Her gaze slipped across his chest and he felt it as though she touched him. He wanted to feel her hands on him. He
“My lord,” she whispered, “I believe it is your deal.”
Chapter 10
