“I’m terribly sorry about this,” she said, standing abruptly, “but would you give me directions to your water closet?”
“I’ll show you where it is,” he said, eyes practically sparkling, rising with her.
“Oh, no, that won’t be necessary,” she insisted, stepping away from her chair and toward the hall. “Just tell me which door it is and I’ll find my way there.”
His mouth pulled into a lopsided grin that made Lenore want to kiss it. “Second door on the right,” he said.
“I won’t be but a moment,” she said, gesturing to the table. “Please continue eating without me.”
She waited until he sat down—which he seemed reluctant to do—before skipping out to the hallway and disappearing around the corner. She could tell he wasn’t really fooled, which meant she had practically no time at all to snoop through his things in search of proof he was who she thought he was. Lucky for her, she’d discovered far more in far less time and under far more pressing circumstances.
Her first order of business was to find the water closet, exactly where he said it would be, then to open and shut the door so that he might think she truly was interested in using it. Once that was done, she tip-toed the rest of the way down the hall, searching for an office or library, or some sort of room where a man might write. Phineas’s house was tiny, all things considered, and she found exactly what she was looking for directly across the hall from the water closet.
As so many of the men who had gone before her family out to the West in the early days, she hit pay dirt almost immediately. She found herself in a small office crowded with books and, as one brief glance showed her, a copious amount of deliciously wicked drawings and paintings of women, men, and couples in various states of undress and sexual congress.
“Oh, my.” The temptation to abandon her search in favor of perusing Phineas’s art collection was almost too great to bear. A few of the drawings in particular made her tilt her head to the side and squint, then raise her eyebrows. “How is that even possible?” she asked, picking up the illicit drawing in question.
“One has to be exceptionally limber,” Phineas answered from the doorway.
Lenore shouldn’t have been half as surprised as she was to be caught in the act so quickly. She gasped all the same and dropped the drawing she’d been so fascinated with. Dropped it right onto a pile of past issues of Nocturne and writing paper scribbled with notes.
None of that was half as intriguing as the way Phineas leaned one shoulder wolfishly against the doorframe of his office, studying her with undisguised desire. “I should have known you’d be trouble from the moment we first met,” he said, casually undoing the buttons of his jacket.
Chapter 5
“I wasn’t—” Lenore stammered, darting a glance past Phineas’s shoulder to the hall, then looking behind her at the desk full of papers, drawings, and photographs, then back to Phineas himself. “I don’t—you have the wrong idea.” Her heart raced in her chest, and she didn’t seem to be able to draw a breath. And not simply because she’d been caught. The way Phineas finished with his jacket’s buttons had her insides shivering in expectation.
“I don’t think I have the wrong idea at all,” Phineas said, stalking deeper into the room and discarding his jacket as he did. He tossed it over a leather-upholstered chair sitting in front of the smoldering fireplace without so much as a side glance to see if it landed correctly over the arm of the chair—which it did, by no surprise at all—then proceeded to work open the buttons of his waistcoat.
Lenore’s eyes shot straight to his hands. They were beautiful, with long fingers and perfectly trimmed nails. They were the sort of hands that could do things, though they didn’t appear to be particularly calloused, like a working man. No, the things Lenore was certain those hands could do had nothing to do with hard labor and everything to do with the way he finished undoing the buttons of his waistcoat, letting it fall open to reveal a soft, white shirt.
“I understand entirely,” he said, lowering his voice to a timbre that was as intoxicating as the wine he’d served at their interrupted supper. “You’re a curious minx and you simply could not resist discovering all of my secrets.”
Lenore’s mouth dropped open, but no sound came out at first. He was dead right about that. She backed against the desk, thanking the heavens that bustles had gotten much smaller in recent years so that sitting against the edge of the desk was merely awkward instead of impossible. It was immediately necessary for her to grip the edges of the desk as Phineas stepped so close to her that their bodies were flush against each other, and she had to lean back slightly to stare up into his wicked, blue eyes.
“Did you have enough time to solve all of the mysteries of the universe?” he asked, brushing a hand up her side so that it came to rest just under her corseted breast. He leaned in so that his mouth was only inches from hers.
Good sense would dictate that Lenore should be terrified out of her mind to have a man make such a blatant advance on her. He’d already begun undressing, for heaven’s sake. The way he subtly nudged at her inner thigh with his knee, prompting her to widen her stance so that he could stand between her legs, was as bold an indication of impending seduction as possible. Any woman with half her wits intact would have run screaming from the room.
Lenore wasn’t a sensible woman. She wanted to throw
