Page 88 of Heiress Gone Wild

“I needed to see you.”

“Now? It’s three o’clock in the morning.”

“Yes, which means we don’t have much time.”

“Time for what?”

“Well, not for a conversation.” She laughed softly, an exhilarated little sound he didn’t understand. “I’m here to seduce you.”

“What?” Not, sad to say, a worthy response to such delicious news, but he supposed eloquence didn’t matter, since he was obviously dreaming. Though how that could happen when he was wide-awake and hadn’t slept a wink, he wasn’t quite sure.

“Shameless of me, I know. But life is too short to worry about proprieties, don’t you think?”

“No,” he said at once. “I don’t.”

Even as he spoke, arousal was already rising in him, an ache far too familiar to him these days. “What I think is that you’ve had a bit too much champagne this evening.” He leaned around her and reached for the doorknob, but when he tried to nudge her out of the way to open the door, she didn’t move.

“No, no, it’s not the champagne. I think it’s the necklace.” She lifted one hand, slipping pearl buttons free at her throat to reveal the Rose of Shoshone still around her neck. “I have to say,” she whispered, leaning closer as if she was imparting a secret, “whenever I have it on, it’s amazing how it makes me feel.”

“How does it make you feel?” he asked and wanted to kick himself in the head.

“Wicked,” she confessed, and his control slipped a bit. “A bit wild.”

A wicked, wild Marjorie was just too much for a man to bear, and he knew he could not hear any more. Not another word. Force might not be noble, but in this case, it was required.

He reached out to grab her arm, thinking to haul her out of the way so he could get the door open and boot her shapely bum into the corridor, but she ducked around him, then turned, her beautiful, laughing face pushing him to the brink of his endurance.

“Marjorie, you’ve got to get out of here. Now.”

She shook her head, moving closer, close enough that he could smell the scent of her, the fresh, pristine scent of lavender soap and talcum powder. She’d bathed before bed. The knowledge made him dizzy, his resolve teetered, and he wondered if there would ever come a time when this woman did not manage to make him feel as if he was sliding off the edge of the earth.

Desperate, he tried again. “You don’t even know what seduction is, but if you stay here much longer, you’ll know its result.”

“Gosh, I hope so. Otherwise, I’ll have worked up my nerve, stumbled my way through this enormous house, and risked humiliating myself and ruining my reputation by plunging into the wrong room, all for nothing.”

Far more was at stake for her than embarrassment. He had to make her understand that. “If you don’t go, I’ll take your innocence, and then you’ll have to marry me. You won’t have a choice. I’ll have ruined you, and as tempting as it is to know that I could win your hand by such delightfully nefarious means, I’d prefer to do it the honorable way.”

“So, you are tempted? That’s encouraging.”

“Of course I’m tempted. What do you think I’m made of? Stone?”

“I’m not sure. Shall we find out?” She moved closer, lifting her arms as if to touch him, and he shied away as if he was the virgin here.

“For God’s sake, Marjorie,” he whispered, growing desperate as his desire deepened and spread. “Don’t you remember what I said earlier? I want to persuade you to marry me. I don’t want you to marry me because a baby is on the way. And please don’t make me explain why that would be a possibility if you stay. My nerves can’t take it.”

She made a sound of derision, as if he was talking nonsense. “There’s not going to be a baby.”

“When it comes to this subject, you don’t know what you’re talking about, a fact we established weeks ago. But unlike you, I do know, and I can assure you that if you stay, I will give you everything you are so lusciously asking for, making odds of a baby quite high.”

“I don’t think so.” Reaching into the pocket of her robe, she pulled out a red velvet envelope that his checkered past enabled him to recognize at once.

“I’m told,” she said as he stared at her in disbelief, “that the device inside this packet prevents babies.”

“God,” he choked, stepping back again, at the absolute end of his tether. “Oh, my God.”

“It’s called a French letter.”

“I know what it is,” he shot back, his voice a rasp. “How do you know what it is?”

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