“A common occurrence, is it?”
His arm shot out, and he grasped her hand. She tried to tug it away, but he held on. “You knew who I was when you came here, and I’m not going to start apologizing for it or for who I am and what I’ve done in my life. Besides, there’s a long line of malcontents ahead of you.”
“I see.”
“Is that what you want?” He gripped her arm more tightly. “An apology?”
Her gaze met his, and the tension ebbed out of her. “No. No, you’re right. You have nothing to apologize for. In fact—” She squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired and . . . worried.”
And beautiful, he thought. With the firelight behind her, he could see through the thin material of the chemise. The luscious curves of her hips and breasts caused the blood to roar in his veins. The tension crackled between them.
He wanted her. One last time. The last. And he was in no mood to debate with his conscience. “Come here, Lucia.”
She raised an eyebrow quizzically.
“I thought we were leaving.”
“Come here.”
Her eyes warming to indigo, she moved between his legs. Reaching up, he took two fistfuls of her hair in his hands, wrapping his fingers in it. “One last time,” he murmured.
She sighed as he drew her forward, lowering her head to kiss her, then releasing her hair and circling her waist. He pulled her against him, his mouth making a wet circle around her nipple through the sheer fabric of her chemise.
“Alex,” she breathed. “My brother. You said you had to see Wentworth.”
He pulled the straps of the chemise down, his fingers caressing her bared breasts, rolling her hard nipples over his palms.
“I do.” He kissed her rounded stomach, hands moving to lift her chemise over her knees, then her thighs.
“I thought it was a matter of some urgency,” she panted.
“I do feel a sense of urgency,” he murmured against her navel, his fingers stroking her inner thigh and then entering the cleft between her thighs.
She moaned. “So do I.”
He tossed her chemise on the bed and knelt before her.
“Then come here,” he said.
For once, she seemed only too happy to comply.
Chapter Eighteen
An hour later, Lucia and Alex came down the grand staircase. Alex took no care to muffle his footsteps, and Lucia frowned at his broad back. She still had difficulty believing only Hodges, Alex’s valet and butler, resided in the town house. She could only imagine the debauched picture she would present to poor old Hodges. Her rose dress was ruined, wrinkled and torn, her ball slippers were soggy and mud-stained, and she’d forgotten her gloves at home.
She’d tried to repair some of the damage the night’s activities had wreaked on her appearance, and Alex had even offered to help. She shivered. Once again, he’d played hairdresser. His warm hands cupping her head, his skillful fingers running through her tangled curls, and the brush of his breath on the nape of her neck had aroused them both, causing yet another delay. Finally Lucia had settled for scrubbing her face and tying her heavy locks back with a pink ribbon she’d stashed in her reticule. The style was simple but functional.
At the foot of the staircase, Alex said, “I’m going to order the carriage and speak to Hodges. Wait here for me.”
She nodded, descending the last of the stairs.
“No creeping out of windows,” he lectured, a glint of amusement in his gray eyes. She huffed and tossed her hair, the effect ruined by the simple style. He grinned at her and disappeared down the hallway. She hadn’t yet persuaded him to allow her to accompany him to this meeting with Wentworth, but she was working on a plan. After that, Alex would sail for France, and even Lucia realized that trip was beyond her reach. She shivered and remembered that she’d left her cloak on the bush outside the library window. She went to retrieve it, and it wasn’t until she was back in the foyer that she began to wonder if she’d latched the window. But Alex would return in a moment, and he’d lecture her if she wasn’t waiting right here.
She didn’t have time for an argument, especially not now that Alex was finally acting with some urgency in the search for her missing brother.
She was contemplating another sense of urgency when she caught her reflection in the large gilded mirror hanging near the foyer’s door. Unlike most bachelor residences, it seemed everything in Alex’s house was either gilt or crystal. His preferences were tasteful and expensive. Her own family was well-to-do, but she knew the Dashing family fortune paled in comparison to those of the brothers Selbourne and Winterbourne.
They were two of the wealthiest men in England. Half-brothers, Ethan had inherited his wealth from their mother’s first husband, the Marquess of Winterbourne. When the marquess had died, Lady Winterbourne married the Earl of Selbourne and bore Alex. Selbourne had died about ten years before, leaving Alex to take possession of the beleaguered Selbourne fortune and estates.
