But it was an area that Nellie Regan would know well. He thought back to when he had first seen her, entertaining the servants with an imitation of himself and Lady Cecily in the servants’ hall at Ashmore House.
He smiled at the memory of how she looked when she realised he was watching her. How her face had quickly turned from embarrassed to defiant. How he’d seen that defiant look again when he’d visited her shop and once more when he’d appeared at The Hanged Man. Then another image entered his mind. One he knew he shouldn’t think of, the image that had been tormenting him for the last month. The image of her beautiful body visible beneath her nightgown, her red hair flowing down her back. How could he not think of that? How could he not want to see such tempting beauty again? She had literally taken his breath away and it was a sight he knew would be etched on his brain for ever.
He paused, breathed deeply to try to clear his mind. What he should be focusing on was finding his fiancée and helping her with whatever problem it was that had taken her away from the ball. He strode towards the back stairs that would take him down to the servants’ hall, reminding himself that he would not think of Nellie Regan again. He would not remember the way she looked in the morning light, with the sun shining through her nightgown. He would not think of her soft skin, her sparkling green eyes, her lips. And he certainly would not think of her curvaceous body.
He passed the open door of the library, glanced in and there she was. Nellie Regan. Standing beside a bookcase, her head bent, a book in her hand, a smile on her face.
He stopped walking and stood in the doorway, staring at her. Like a willing captive he could not walk away. Nor did he want to.
Chapter Fifteen
As if pulled by a magnetic force he walked into the library. She looked up. Her green eyes held his gaze. Slowly, she closed her book. ‘I’m sorry. I hope you don’t mind, but I can’t walk past a library without going in and seeing what books it contains.’
‘I don’t mind at all.’ His voice came out as a low growl. He coughed to clear his throat. ‘What are you reading?’
She smiled at him and looked down at the book in her hand. ‘A very well-thumbed copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.’
Dominic laughed and leant over her shoulder to look at the cover. ‘It was my favourite book as a child. I envied Tom his freedom and the way he happily got himself into all sorts of trouble.’
‘I knew it was yours. I saw your inscription in the front.’ She opened the first page of the book and showed it to him. There was his childish scrawl, announcing that the book belonged to Dominic Lockhart and everyone else, especially his sister, were banned from reading it. She laughed. ‘I hope that ban doesn’t still stand and you don’t mind me reading it.’
‘I’ll make an exception for you.’
She smiled again and his gaze was drawn from her laughing eyes to those full, pink lips. Pink lips that he had often thought of kissing. She stopped smiling and his gaze moved back to her eyes. She was staring at him, her eyes soft. Like a prisoner held by invisible restraints he couldn’t look away. Her lips parted slightly as she drew in a rasping breath and her tongue slowly moved along the full lower one, as if relieving suddenly dry lips. It was a simple gesture, but Dominic was captivated.
‘I’ll make an exception for you,’ he repeated, his voice husky and constricted. Before he could register what he was doing he had leant forward and was kissing those tempting lips.
He had first imagined doing this when he had seen her standing at her washstand, her curvaceous body on display. And he had repeatedly dreamt of doing it ever since. Now his dream had become an intoxicating reality and he was drunk with the pleasure of it.
His arms enveloped her. He pulled her towards him. What he was doing was wrong. He knew he should stop. He waited for her to react with horror. To push him away. To slap his face as he deserved. To let him know his kisses were unwanted. Then he would stop, but he couldn’t do it by himself. He was incapable of stopping, even though he knew that was exactly what he should do.
But how could he stop now? How could he pull away from her, now that he had experienced the touch of her lips, the silky feel of her skin? That alluringly feminine taste of her lips had stripped away his last vestige of control. He had been robbed of the power to do what he knew was right.
She moaned lightly. Her lips parted. Exhilaration coursed through him. She did not want him to stop. She wanted this as well. This was more than he could have dreamt of.
He pulled her even closer, held her tighter, kissed her harder, his hand lightly stroking the soft skin of her neck. He wanted this woman. Wanted her right here, right now. He ran his tongue along her full bottom lip, tempting her to give him what he wanted. And she did. Her lips parted wider, letting him in. His tongue entered her mouth, savouring the intimacy of the act.
To his immense
