It wasn’t true in the least.
Uncle Ernest was a terrible shot and never comfortable with such a weapon. He excelled in fencing, stating on more than one occasion that he preferred the romance of a rapier to anything as boorish as a pistol.
Still, she had a point to make.
Leaving Mr. Sterling to ponder his fate, she moved toward her office. And there she found the cat sitting in the recessed window seat, absently pawing at the ribbon.
The creature lifted its scarred face, beseeching her with the slow blink of one green eye and a plaintiff “Meow.”
Without delay, Ainsley set down the lamp and crossed the room, scooping up the solid but scraggly cat. “Oh, you poor dear.”
In response, the animal burrowed closer, purring almost instantly as she rubbed her head against Ainsley’s fichu. There was nothing she detested more than to see suffering of any sort. Though it was quite evident from the well-healed scars beneath her fur that her injuries had occurred some time ago.
Ainsley cuddled her, softly stroking her patchy fur. “What would you say to a nice dish of cream, hmm? I’m sure Mrs. Darden has some in the larder.”
“That’ll be enough. Give her over,” Mr. Sterling said with an impatient gesture, crowding the doorway. “It took a long while for me to earn her trust, and I’ll not have you undermining my efforts by spoiling her more than I do.”
“With the way she’s been mistreated in the past, it’s no wonder she doesn’t trust easily. Why, just look at her. Anyone can see that she requires tender care. I can hardly believe she could ever be comfortable with a rough and burly man like you.”
“Are we still talking about the cat, highness?” he asked, stone-faced.
Recalling her noticeable flinch the other day, she felt the shameful heat of a blush rise to her cheeks. Why had her nemesis, of all people, borne witness to such a reaction? She swallowed down a vulnerable twinge in her throat.
He drew near and reached out, albeit slowly. Yet watching his hand close the distance, degree by degree, she felt herself tense and clutched the cat like a shield.
“I wouldn’t hurt her, not for anything,” he crooned.
Caught unawares by the unexpected warmth in his voice, Ainsley’s gaze darted up to his. At once, she was ensnared by the tenderness and understanding woven through those dye-dipped spheres.
She didn’t know what to make of him. Her thoughts were being pulled in two different directions. While she should be terrified of a man who’d made his fortune with his fists, she was also conscious of being helplessly, mortifyingly—and she would never admit it aloud—drawn to Reed Sterling.
Achingly uncomfortable with this fraught awareness, she held her breath as he crowded near. His movements were slow and patient as if he saw her as a wild animal—dangerous and needing to be approached with great care.
Yet if anyone was wild, it was he.
“If she truly belongs to you then, pray tell, what is her name?” she asked tersely, hiding her discomfiture over the new way he was looking at her.
“Doesn’t have one. I’ve tried to name her a few times, but she tends to let me know straightaway when she doesn’t like it,” he continued, his voice a low, soothing drawl. “Prefers ‘Cat’ to anything.”
“But she deserves a name, one that is special and is just as strong and obviously resilient as she is.”
His mouth spread in a slow grin that hinted at a challenge. “Then give her one.”
Ainsley’s gaze slipped to that nick on his upper lip. Absently, she wondered what it would feel like against her own.
The thought startled her, cheeks growing hot. Even her lips felt warmer. Whyever would she wonder something like that?
Clearing her throat, she looked down, watching as the cat extended a foreleg to him. In turn, he took hold of the paw. And seeing that big burly hand tenderly stroke the offering with the pad of his thumb, Ainsley couldn’t help but remember the way he’d protected that primrose.
The creature in her arms purred audibly, the vibrations so strong that they affected the beating of her own heart, sending it racing.
“Chloris,” she said after a confused moment, her thoughts in complete disorder. “Her name should be Chloris, as in the Greek goddess of—”
“Flowers,” he finished for her and cocked his chin. “Not all the sense has been knocked out. There’s still a bit of the university swimming around in this empty skull of mine.”
Ainsley shifted her feet on the carpet, the harsh slights she’d delivered to him on occasion ringing like a gong. “I never said you were a dimwit.”
“And I never called you a prude.”
Oh, very well, so they’d each exchanged a fair number of jabs.
“Nevertheless, we were discussing her name. Chloris is perfect because I’ve always thought flowers were rather resilient, coming back each spring even after the harshest of winters.”
He stared back at her, head tilted in scrutiny. “All except for primroses. You detest those, as I recall.”
“Yes,” she amended quickly, “except for those—sss!”
Ainsley hissed smartly as a sharp claw sliced across the thin skin on the top of her hand. The cat suddenly leapt out of her arms then stole out of the room, still trailing the ribbon.
“Apparently, she doesn’t prefer Chloris to Cat, after all.”
Glancing down to the thin red mark, Ainsley moved to follow the creature before Mr. Sterling had the opportunity to mock her.
But he blocked her path.
“Here. Let me have a look.”
“There’s no need. It’s only a . . .” Her words trailed off as his bare, blunt-tipped fingers closed over her wrist, gently but startling nonetheless. “A scratch.”
Shock quivered through her. Reed Sterling was touching her—and she was letting him!
Admittedly, during moments of weakness and errant curiosity, she had often wondered what this might feel like. But only abstractly, of course, as one might wonder what it would be like to bathe in milk like Cleopatra. It wasn’t to be done.
And yet . . . it was happening.
“Hmm,” he murmured, gently ascertaining the severity of this insignificant wound.
The warmth of his skin seeped into hers, his broad palm nestling the frantic throb of her pulse. Callused fingertips dragged lightly over her skin and her body gave way to shameful tingles, every nerve ending exposed and wanton.
She never expected it to feel so decadent. So illicit. She shouldn’t be surprised if she started to purr. Surely this was the reason society frowned on ladies and gentlemen touching each other with familiarity unless a severed limb were involved.
His hands were capable and seasoned, with long thick fingers and nails trimmed to the quick. The knobby protrusion of knuckles showcased nicks and scars that told a violent history all on their own. And yet, every touch was surprisingly tender.
Even so, she should withdraw and reprimand him soundly for taking such liberties. She was appalled that she didn’t. And shame on her for letting her fingers relax, curling ever so slightly over the sturdy mound at the base of his thumb.
Thankfully, he didn’t seem to notice. Nor did he pause in his study.
Singularly focused, he bent his head, his breath coasting over the thin upper layer of her flesh. The heat of it seemed to penetrate places where it couldn’t possibly reach, collecting in humid patches beneath the fine cambric against her skin.
At once, the air in her office seemed stiflingly hot. She felt both overdressed and underdressed. She was torn by simultaneous desires to shed some clothing while donning others.
The notion produced the strangest vision of herself wrapped in a coverlet while being completely naked underneath. Her breath quickened.
She caught the scent of him, her nostrils flaring on hints of warm spice and an earthy aroma—a subtle but potent mélange of salt, sweat, and undeniable masculinity. She should be disgusted by it. Instead she found his fragrance utterly—disconcert
ingly—appealing. So she dragged in another reckless lungful, her eyelids growing heavy.
Anyone would feel trepidation to stand this close to such a large, imposing figure. And yet, it wasn’t trepidation she was feeling. It was something else entirely. Something foreign and new.
“It doesn’t appear the cat broke the skin, but . . .” he said, his midnight timbre setting her pulse off-kilter.
“Yes?” she whispered, her throat dry. “Do you see something else?”
He shook his head, his touch careful as if he thought she was made out of blown glass and susceptible to shattering. “It’s just that . . . you have the softest skin imaginable.”
A hot shiver tumbled through her. Inanely, she stammered out a response, “I use a b-balm at night with rosehips and almond blossoms.”
He murmured an appreciative sound that rubbed a raw place, deep inside her body. A place she hadn’t even known existed until this moment.
Then, lifting his head, he winked at her, grinning. “I never would have guessed someone so thorny in demeanor could feel like this. I always thought you’d be covered in thistles.”
All at once, Ainsley felt like a fool.
He’d only been teasing her. The cold, harsh realization brought her back to her senses.
Tugging her hand free, she purposely brushed it down her skirts. “Well, you’re just as rough and barbaric as I thought you’d be. I could hardly stand your coarse pawing.”
He eyed her with the expertise of a jewel cutter sizing up a paste gemstone, and issued a mocking laugh. “Is that why your cheeks are so red, highness? Because you could hardly stand the touch of a man?”
Ignoring him, she swept past him and out of the room, glad that he did not stop her.
Her nerves were worn thin, frayed from the upheaval of the past few minutes. She hated this never-ending sparring. It was exhausting. But was there another way?
No. They were either to be at odds, or to be nothing at all—a fact she should well remember for future encounters. Fortunately, there wouldn’t be many of those to endure once he was gone from St. James’s for good.
With a weary sigh, she rounded the corner but stopped abruptly.
The red ribbon was halfway up the stairs.
Ainsley’s stomach dropped. She would have to search for the cat in the family’s private rooms. And Reed Sterling would follow, whether she liked it or not.
Chapter 6
“. . . it might be wise to let the fancy touch it seldom; for evil in that quarter was at hand.”
Jane Austen, Emma
Reed mounted the stairs after Miss Bourne, brooding over his unpredicted outburst. Had he actually marveled over the softness of her skin aloud, like a besotted cub who’d yet to cut his milk teeth?
He had, damn it all.
Of course, he’d responded by putting up his guard with a jest, forestalling any blow she might strike against him. Their previous encounters had proven that Miss Bourne could flay a man’s ego with a single lash of her tongue.
As expected, she’d acted the injured party, insulted that he’d dared to touch her highborn self. And yet, there had been moments when she hadn’t been offended or repulsed at all.
He’d heard the rasp in her breath. Watched her lips part and plump with color. They turned the deep hue of wine-poached pears—one of the few sumptuous delicacies he’d never been able to resist. Was it any wonder he’d been tempted to take a bite?
He could have made a meal out of her.
The signs of attraction were there. He’d noticed the precise instant when she’d let her own guard slip, her hand curling softly over his, her eyes dark and inviting. Yet he also knew—beyond a shadow of a doubt—that Ainsley Bourne would sooner fling her precious fichus into the nearest fireplace than admit she’d felt anything other than supreme loathing.
All the same, he could still feel the perfection of her skin. White and warm as swans’ down. Soft and silken as fresh snow. Reflexively, his hands curled on emptiness. The pads of his fingertips pulsed with the need to touch her again. To discover all the places where she was soft and warm.
He could still smell her, too. Every indrawn breath was rosehips, almond blossoms, and thorny Miss Ainsley Bourne.
Bloody hell. He was more than half-aroused walking up the stairs behind her. The tailor cut of his clothes did nothing to disguise the heavy outline of his cock, bloating the fall front of his trousers.
This certainly didn’t bode well should her uncle return home and catch him in such a state. Thinking of that, Reed made an adjustment so that he was better concealed.
He approached the inner sanctum of the Bourne family with caution, his senses alert, his pulse drumming as he stood at the base of the narrow, arched corridor.
Ahead of him, Ainsley Bourne cast a wary look over her shoulder as she flitted in and out of the bedchambers on either side. To soothe her nervousness, he held back, keeping a good distance between them.
There was always something between them—class, profession, animosity, frustration. Yet when his bare hand had been on hers, there was something there, too.
Reed tucked that thought away for the moment, then proceeded at a measured pace.
His steps were muffled on the tightly woven runner as he passed gilt-framed landscapes flanking either side of the hall. The further he went, there was one thing that stood out from his surroundings. The stillness. Every sound was muted—the shush of her skirts, the occasional creak of the floor. Even the air in this private, untainted space seemed reverent, like the hush of a cathedral when the choir takes a breath before they sing.
A queer sort of tension filled him at the thought, his lungs tight. He took it as a reminder that he didn’t belong here, where the rooms were dressed in hand-painted silk paper and costly oil paintings, floors draped with thick Persian rugs and topped with imported furnishings.
Doubtless she hadn’t lived a day without such luxuries in her life. Hadn’t been brought up in a house so small that the only sort of kitchen was a hook above the hearth and a pail of water on the floor.
Of course Reed’s father had always planned to buy a big house and to make the tavern a grand coaching inn. But those dreams had been cut short that day of the duel.
A traveler had come to the tavern—one of the many pompous aristocrats to stop on the way through Knightsbury.
The fop had issued a slight to another, insults had been exchanged. Then came the challenge—pistols at dawn. Having no companions with them, the slighted lord had asked Reed’s father to be his second. Since Dad was the kind of man to feed the poor with the last food from his own cupboard, he’d agreed.
Mum had later said that he’d wanted to force an apology, but Dad’s attempt was futile.
The duel commenced, and a misfired shot had gone straight to his heart.
That event was the cornerstone for Reed’s determination to make something of himself while he was alive to do so.
Distracted by the memory, he caught himself staring at one of the ornate tables, too narrow and delicate to serve a real purpose. It seemed more like an altar, hosting a slender vase filled with flowers and bits of greenery. Above it hung a painting of sheep on a windswept hillside. A little stone hut with a thatched roof stood in the distance, looking almost idyllic. Highborns would likely think so, imagining the romance of such a setting. They wouldn’t think about the stench of sheep dung blowing in the tiny window and caking the boots of the people who trudged those hills every day.
That was the difference between them, he thought. Well, one of the many.
“I imagine you miss your quiet country life,” he said, needing to disrupt the silence that was starting to unnerve him.
Two doors down, Miss Bourne scoffed. “Quiet, indeed. With a constant list of tasks to be done, Jacinda knocking about and getting into mischief, and Briar singing or plunking away on the piano, our cottage was hardly ever quiet.
“If anything, I miss the noise,” she continued with uncharacteristic
verbosity. “Especially of late, with my sisters married and seldom here unless . . .” Her words trailed off as if she realized she was rambling and revealing more about the inner workings of her mind than she’d ever done before. “Oh, never mind all that. I’m sure it’s of little interest to you.”
She was wrong about that. From the day they’d met, he’d wanted to unwrap her. Not only her prim and proper clothes, layer by layer, but all the thoughts she kept buttoned up as well.
And he would no sooner admit any of that than she would to being lonely without her sisters here.
Besides, that wasn’t how things worked between them. She liked doling out waspish retorts, and he liked shocking her to a crimson blush.
“Ah, so the truth comes out at last,” he said, his tone dripping with the smugness he knew she despised. “All the times you’ve stormed across the street, pretending to rail at me for the noise of my patrons, was actually an uncontrollable desire to see me in my shirtsleeves again.”
Stopping in the corridor, she cut him a narrow-eyed glance. “Once more you are assuming that I find an absurd sort of pleasure from our encounters when the reality is, I would have preferred it if we’d never met at all.”
“Believe that all you like, highness.”
She bristled and stormed off into a room at the end of the hall.
Instead of emerging after a few seconds as she’d done before, she lingered. It was long enough for him to suspect she’d found his cat. Though after making his way to her, he wasn’t prepared for the sight that greeted him.
Peering into the last room, Reed saw prim Miss Ainsley Bourne on her hands and knees, searching beneath a glossy mahogany tester bed swathed in deep blue silks.
He went still in the doorway. As she reached under the heavy wood frame, his greedy eyes roved over the pale fabric of her dress, molding over the curve of her hips and the perfect delineation of her heart-shaped bottom. Every muscle and appendage in his body gave a lush kick, spurring him forward, pulse swift and insistent.
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