An Affair Before Christmas

She reached out and pulled up his coverlet a little, thinking about it.



“Has the local doctor anything to say?” Dautry said it quietly, in case Villiers was sleeping lightly.



The doctor had said no more than she had guessed for herself. “If he survives the night…but Dr. Treglown doesn’t think he will. Do you?”



She saw the answer in his eyes, and it echoed the truth in her own heart.



“What will you do when he dies?” His voice sounded different. The drawl was still there, but roughened by desire.



“Nothing,” she said, turning around to face him. “Weep.”



“I’ll come sit with him to night,” he said, turning to the door. “I need to eat. Keep me company?”



She looked at Villiers but he was sleeping in that profound way he had, as if every breath were too much and he might just slip away. It was tiring, watching a man die.



“Come sit with me,” Dautry said, his voice a little softer. He held out his hand. “You can return later. We’ll both come back later.”



Blount disapproved. He did his butlering duty, of course. He placed the couple at a snug table in the morning room. He served them himself, because he saw the lay of the land, the way Dautry smiled at Miss Tatlock, and the way his hand lingered on her shoulder. No point in allowing that Jezebel to corrupt one of the young footmen.



But he was aware of a great uneasiness. He had identified the woman as a concubine of the Duke of Villiers, and here she was with the heir. Laughing.Talking. What sort of woman was she?



He lingered as much as he could while bringing in the courses, intent on learning her secrets. The conversation didn’t seem particularly salacious. They talked of India (godforsaken place, to Blount’s mind), and pirates (godforsaken people), and then about whales (he had no particular opinion, but he was suspicious).



He was pouring the second bottle of wine before he discovered what made Miss Charlotte Tatlock so irresistible. It was the way she talked back to Dautry. Talked back! Inconceivable for a young woman. Yet she did. He refreshed their wine glasses during a conversation in which she was arguing in the most lively way about smugglers. Defending them, if you please!



Blount made up his mind on the spot. They got no more wine. None! Not even if the Jezebel herself rang the bell.



So it was disappointing when they sauntered back to the Duke of Villiers’s bedchamber, almost as if they didn’t notice that their butler had forsaken them.



They were talking that hard.



Chapter 48



Poppy wasn’t herself. She wasn’t the meek, silly daughter of Lady Flora. She wasn’t the kind of person who could be screamed at, or told what to do.



She was more likely to scream. And tell people what to do.



She felt powerful. She let Fletch carry her into the room because it felt good to be in his arms, to be carried about. As soon as they were in the bedchamber, she pulled free. She had to control the night.



She walked away from him slowly, leaned back against the bedpost so that her breasts arched forward. Fletch was standing next to the door and what she saw in his eyes made her heart beat even faster.



It was working.



But she had a plan, a plan that Jemma and Louise had drilled into her upstairs, and she wasn’t going to deviate from it now. Not after practicing it twice, even after Isidore fell on the bed and went to sleep, complaining that no man was worth all the energy.



So she let her lips curls into a sleepy, inviting smile. “I hear,” she said, “that you’re tired of your spouse.”



“I—”



But she didn’t let him answer. “Bien,” she said. “Because as it seems, I am in the same position.”



“You are?”



He sounded stunned. She lifted both hands above her head to the bedpost, feeling the deliciously free, wild sense of her breasts against the frail ruffle of her bodice. She could hear Fletch breathing. He didn’t look like the sophisticated sleek duke now. His eyes were gleaming.



“Poppy…” he said slowly.



“Monsieur?”



She brought one hand down to trail down her throat and then across her chest, just as Jemma had showed her. “It’ll drive him mad,” Jemma had said. “Men love it when a woman touches her own flesh.”



“Maybe I should send my husband a painting of me,” Isidore had said drunkenly from the bed. “Doing that.”



Poppy let herself smile at Fletch, just enough to make it clear that she was in charge.



“Why don’t you come closer?” she purred.



He was before her in one bound.



“No touching!”



He held up his hands. The smile in his eyes made her shiver, and she could feel herself getting warm and shivery between her legs. “Jen’y touche pas, madame,” he said.



But she had to be sure he understood, be sure that he knew. “A woman like myself,” she told him, “has demands.”



“Yes?” He came a step closer. “Tell me.”



She let her hand close over her breast and dropped her head back. She could feel her entire body tingling now, longing for the touch of his hand. In the days since she’d made her discovery in the inn, she’d explored her own body. She knew what she liked…and she knew just what she’d like him to do, though the very thought made her feel as pink in the face as Isidore.



“Tell me,” he demanded. There was a fierce wildness in his voice that made her tremble with excitement.



It was hard to be explicit. Embarrassment momentarily strangled her, stripping away her French cover. But then she looked at Fletch, and it was Fletch, her darling Fletch, standing in front of her. The only thing she really wanted was for him to touch her. And then—for her to be able to touch him.



Looking at him made her steadier. What she wanted was just what he wanted. Just like that a whole hot flush swept over her body. “I want to touch you,” she said. Her voice was quiet and steady, but she wasn’t whispering.



Without taking his eyes from hers, he wrenched off his coat. She leaned back against the bedpost again. She felt all the power of desire making her taller, making her more beautiful, making her lips shine and her body voluptuous.



Fletch’s shoulders were powerful and muscled. He pulled his shirt out of his breeches.



“Go on,” she said. To her embarrassment it came out as a croak.



But there was a smile playing around his lips too. “But what exactly do you want me to do?”



“I want you to take your shirt off.”



His smile made her shiver. He pulled up his shirt slowly, so she saw his rippled stomach, and then the golden muscles on his shoulders. It was odd how she saw it all different now. She had always thought he was pretty before. He wasn’t pretty.



He was…



She wanted to lick him. Luckily he couldn’t hear that thought, though she felt her face getting even redder.



“And now?”



But she was done. She couldn’t possibly ask a man to remove his breeches. Even though…she could see a bulge there and she—



She shook her head.



He walked forward another step so they were almost touching. “That’s all right,” he whispered, reaching down and feathering a kiss across her cheekbone. “I didn’t want to take my breeches off. I just want to kiss you.” He was nuzzling her lips, kissing her so sweetly that her knees trembled. “There’s no need to—”