“I fail to see anyone else in the room.”
When he was half ready to do anything she asked, his debatable birthright be damned, just because he desired to bed her? Yearned to wed her? “Nay!”
Stormy eyes flashed to his. “Aye. I want to hear her words in your voice.”
If he hadn’t caught the faint quiver in hers, or so Zeus told himself, he wouldn’t have done it.
Wouldn’t have retrieved the letter from the pocket of his tailcoat, brushing against her nude shoulder intentionally as he leaned over to do so, before retreating a respectable distance—Respectable? Hah!—where he unfolded the parchment, saw again the words written with so much unfathomable glee it made him cringe to remember, and willingly overlooked the sting to his dignity. “Ahem-hem.” Grit seared his throat, as if his body knew what it was about to audibly announce and sought to stop him. “Ahh-hemmm!”
Either that or maybe it was the blasted scone still making its presence known.
“Arrhhhh-hemm.”
“Mr. Tanner? Shall you proceed or shall I request Wivy rejoin us?” As if she would! Juliet would no sooner put a halt to their intimate encounter than she would force Mr. Tanner to do anything so obviously abhorrent to him—if she had any other choice.
Which she didn’t, not in this instance. She had to know what his lovers thought of his swiving prowess. “I’d rather not, but if I must, in order to secure your cooperation for the remainder of our interview…”
As though her empty threat loosened his tongue, he heartedly began reciting the words on the page. “I, Marianna Longley, currently of Torrington House, Surrey, do declare Zeus Tanner—”
“Zeus?” Juliet laughed as she said it, the surprising syllable tickling her tongue. “That’s your given name?”
It was either laugh or take to the floor in a faint. She’d never been so close to a man she found so harshly appealing.
His features were bold, definitely too severe to be considered handsome, classically or otherwise. But the fierce expression in his eyes drew her as nothing else. Screen, modesty and modest attire so far gone she couldn’t conceive ever wanting them back.
“It is,” he said so haughtily she could well believe he commanded a pantheon of gods. “Does it displease you? That the…bastard son of a maid would be granted something so illustrious, so far above his station?”
“Nay! I adore it, truly!” Sobering, she allowed her gaze to roam over defiant features that undoubtedly expected her to find fault with his humble origins, to eagerly skim over muscles worthy of Hercules and any earthly task. Then she stared intently into his eyes. A brilliant blue, she saw now. They shone like the eye of a peacock feather, reminding her of those majestic beauties that once strutted over the grounds of Amherst…but no longer. The bittersweet memory softened her voice. “Zeus. It suits you, for no name could be stronger. Fit for a king, it is.”
His complexion turned ruddy. “Aye. That’s what Mum always said—better to be king of the gods than king of a paltry country.”
“And I daresay she was right. Ruling mere mortals on Earth cannot compare to the inhabitants of Olympus.”
His shimmering eyes narrowed, as if to stop her from seeing into his soul. “And my birth?”
“What of it?”
Zeus couldn’t decide if she mocked him with her casual disregard or if his disgraceful beginnings were truly of no consequence. “The notion of wedding a bastard doesn’t degrade you? Make your tongue trip over itself in your haste to order me evicted?”
“Nothing could be further from my thoughts, I assure you.” A lift of russet brows accompanied her earnest reply. “I’ve learned the measure of a man is in how he treats others, not what title he may or may not possess, and certainly not things in which he had no say or control over. Your letter? Please continue.”
Stupefied by her calm acceptance of what he’d dreaded as his final obstacle, never anticipating a lady of rank would acknowledge him without exhaustive convincing, Zeus made an effort to find his tongue, pry it off the floor where it’d dropped along with his jaw, and employ it with the same aplomb she exhibited. “…declare Zeus Tanner to be a most generous and thoughtful lover. His praiseworthy actions before the…act…” He stumbled here, recalling the gaiety with which Marianna had written this part. “…are dampening in the extreme. He will set his sights—”
“Pardon me,” Lady Juliet interrupted, a quizzical expression replacing the encouraging one of before. “She deems it a tribute to call your efforts ‘dampening’?”
He stared. Was she in jest? “What?”
She leaned away from the settee, the skin between her eyebrows creasing. “Her…ardor…” Now she stumbled. Then forged ruthlessly ahead. “You dampen it? And yet she praises you?”
Good God. He’d known the lecher she was married to. It was inconceivable. But… “Are you an innocent?”
Rather than answer, she bit one corner of her mouth and relaxed back into the cushions, crossing, then uncrossing her arms and looking everywhere but at him. “Well?” Zeus demanded into the strained silence. “Are you in truth a virgin?”
Not that it made any difference to him; he wanted her, was beginning to think she needed him.
Hell. It did make a difference. A big one.
A lady for a wife. A virgin bride.
Fate had surely smiled on him for once. But how to convince her he was the husband she required without having to reveal the rest of this damnable letter?
Her own spirits dampened now that she’d inadvertently betrayed her ignorance, Juliet sought to cover the blunder by feigning confidence. “I was married to one of the crudest men in England for all of three years. What do you think?”
She finally brought her eyes back to his magnificent chest, her mouth going dry at the sight. Hair. Who knew a man could have such a glorious feathering of silky hair upon his sculpted musculature? Traveling across
