Page 73 of To Love A Spy
Chapter Eighteen
Damn, damn, damn the man.
Valencia flung off her cloak and yanked the ribbon from her plaited hair. He didn’t fight fair. Most mortals would have screamed and shouted, but Lynsley simply retreated into his unassailable shell of reserve.
A bloody cover that was thicker and more impenetrable than a suit of armor.
One shoe hit the carpet, followed by the thud of the other. Peeling off her breeches and shirt, she threw them at the bedpost, where they caught and hung like flags of surrender.
Count to twenty, she told herself, recalling one of her first Academy lessons for cooling off.
One, two, three . . .
Hell, all the numbers in the universe wouldn’t add up to a rational response to Lynsley’ssang froid. Cold blood? Ha, there had been nothing frigid about his sudden kiss.
She bit her lip, still tasting the sear of the moment.
Combat heats the blood to a boil—the pressure must burst out in strange, explosive ways.
Leave it at that, Valencia told herself. And yet, she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Stalking to the bed, she swore a savage oathand slammed her fist to duvet. Like the marquess, it shifted beneath her punch, the feathers refusing to offer any resistance. It was maddening. Mocking.
“No!” Valencia spun around, her temper flaring past the point of reason. “No, no, no.” Enough of his patrician parries. This time, she would make him fight back.
Three quick strides, and without pause for thought, she threw open the connecting door.
The firelight caught Lynsley in the act of draining a glass of brandy.
“Go away, and that’s an order.” His voice was slightly slurred. “I’m in no mood for further fireworks.”
She stepped over the threshold.
He turned away and sat down, swearing under his breath.
“Don’t you dare ignore me, Thomas. We need to talk about this.”
Lynsley looked up, his eyes overbright, and edged with a dangerous glitter she had never seen. “A lover’s quarrel?” he said with biting cynicism. “Let us not carry the charade of man and wife too far, Valencia.”
His tone, so at odds with his usual composure, goaded her to react with matching sarcasm. “I wouldn’t dream of pretending that this match is anything but a marriage of convenience, a way for each of us to get what we want from this mission.”
“Go away, Valencia,” he repeated. “We will talk in the morning.”
“Why?” she demanded.
Answering with a wordless grunt, Lynsley took a swig from the bottle. “Because I intend to drink myself into a stupor.”
A single candle sat on the sideboard. She drew closer, like a moth mesmerized by the dancing flame.
“Why?” she demanded again. “Because I am repulsive?” Pushed on by some uncontrollable urge, Valencia added, “Is that why you have never tried to bed me?”
“Don’t. Do. This.” he growled. She could hear his breathing grow more ragged. He recoiled from her, his face falling into shadow.
No.She wouldnotlet him withdraw into his Lair. “Do you find me ugly? Ungainly?”
The glass hit the wainscoting, shattering in a shower of tiny slivered shards.
Unrelenting, Valencia reached out. His dressing gown had come open, revealing a sliver of tanned flesh below the throbbing pulsepoint of his throat. The smell of spilled brandy and aroused male was overpowering. A dusting of curls, whiskeygold in the flickering light, gleamed against his skin. Her fingers itched to thread through their finespun texture, to feel the contrast of coarse hair and smooth muscle.
Lynsley tried to knock her hand away.
