Oh, who the hell was he kidding? It was summer, and though the English nights were chilly, they were nowhere close to deadly.
He wanted to lie beside her, cradle her in his arms, and press his face into her lavender-scented hair. He’d wanted it since the first moment he saw her, and when would he have another opportunity? The professor—goddamn him—would be the man holding her after this night. He didn’t think Dover even knew what he had in Lady Madeleine.
Maddie sighed in her sleep and cuddled closer to him, and Jack felt his heart lurch.
No emotion, he told himself. Don’t get attached.
It was an old refrain. One he had adopted because he knew firsthand how much it could hurt when you lost someone you cared about. He would lose Maddie, and he’d be damned if he would care. Jack stared at the tree limbs above him and the twinkling stars beyond that. Beside him, Maddie stirred and moaned softly. He clenched his hand to keep from reaching out to her.
MADDIE AWOKE IN A COCOON of warmth and safety. Without even opening her eyes, she knew it was almost dawn. And still without opening her eyes, she knew Jack was pressed against her backside.
She knew his scent by now, and knew the feel of his strong arms about her. She should. She’d imagined him holding her just like this—gentle but strong—a hundred times or more.
She sighed, content to stay like this forever. It felt so good to be in his arms. She felt so safe and so happy and . . .
Well, if she were being honest, she’d also admit she felt a bit stirred up. His face was near her neck, and his light breath tickled and teased the sensitive skin just behind her ear. And one of his hands—
Maddie was certain he hadn’t done it on purpose, but Blackthorne’s hand was cupping her breast.
The sensation wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, she rather wished he would move that hand to stroke her, cup her more fully.
Jiminy! Why was she thinking about this? She blamed it on the early morning. She was still half asleep, still in that semiconscious state between waking and dreaming.
If she were awake, she’d be thinking clearly, thinking that the man holding her was pledged to marry Ashley. Loyalty to Ashley should have made her jump at his touch, and she would have. If she’d been more awake.
And if she’d been awake and alert, she would also be thinking about how wrong Blackthorne was for her. Her parents always told her to marry someone like herself.
“Similar interests and similar dispositions. That’s what makes a happy union,” her father had always said.
Maddie didn’t believe Blackthorne was much like herself at all. Did he care about orphans and widows? Would he have wept for the bleeding bear?
She didn’t think so. Even worse, she had a sinking suspicion Jack was a lot like her father. Her father argued with her every time she had to travel to an unsavory area of Town to aid one of her charities.
“Why can’t you stay in Mayfair?” her father would demand. “Stay where you’re safe.”
“Because there aren’t any poor widows or orphans in Mayfair,” Maddie argued back. Her neighbors were all rich and titled. Most didn’t care about the poor; they only cared about the latest scandal or who was hosting which ball.
She knew her father had her best interests at heart, but she was tired of being controlled. That was why she had chosen Mr. Dover. He wouldn’t try and keep her from helping others. And Mr. Dover wouldn’t upset her life with bullets and Black Dukes and troublesome brothers.
Maddie opened her eyes and turned to look at the man beside her. Blackthorne didn’t move or wake, but when she was facing him, his arms tightened on her again.
It was still dark, and in the shadows, she didn’t feel like Maddie Fullbright.
It was an old game—pretending that what she did in the moonlight didn’t matter. It had begun the first time her cousins dragged her from her safe warm bed into the dangerous streets of London on some madcap adventure. Lady Madeleine would never have run about in boy’s clothing, climbed out second-story windows, or stayed up all night laughing with her cousins. And so she had pretended she was someone else.
Someone who was not the daughter of an earl, who didn’t live in Berkeley Square, who didn’t own silk gowns and satin slippers. Someone who wasn’t weighed down with all the expectations and responsibilities of a peeress. Someone who liked risks.
Maddie felt that way now. She was just a woman in a man’s arms. A woman with urges and feelings and who sometimes wanted to feel a man’s arms around her or taste his mouth on hers.
Even if he was the wrong man.
Especially if he was the wrong man.
It was dark, the gray dark of day before the dawn, and Maddie could see the marquess’s face. She didn’t know what she’d expected. Perhaps that he’d look younger, more vulnerable, more accessible. Instead, he looked much the same as he did when he was awake.
He was frowning and serious, even in sleep. She remembered how he had smoothed her brow and told her not to worry, and she did the same for him now.
He didn’t move or wake, so she allowed her hand to trace his black eyebrow, to feel the tension beneath it. She would have stopped there—if it had been morning and she’d been Lady Madeleine—but it was still dark and she was still free. And so she cupped his cheek and trailed a finger to his jaw. It was rough with blue-black stubble, and the hair scratched her palm.
