Page 67 of Her Tempting Traitor
“Oh, no sir, I can’t afford it,” came the maid’s breathless reply, getting closer. “I’ll have to use my mouth on you again and again.”
Cassian pressed back against her and Gabby glanced frantically about. There was nowhere for them to hide. By the sounds of her steps, the maid was going to come barreling out of this room and they would be standing here like statues.
Maybe she’d turn left instead of right?
“When I catch you, you’ll be on your knees, girl!”
“Oh, woe is me,” came the high-pitched voice with the north-east English accent as the poor harassed maid reached the doorway. “Oh, my virtue will never recover—Oh, hello, Cassian.”
Gabbyhadto assume Cassian was staring the same as she was, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from Lady Zilphia to confirm. The older woman had managed to shove her plumpness into a maid’s uniform that left little to the imagination—especially with her breasts practically spilling from the top—complete with an apron and what appeared to be an ornamental feather duster.
And now her cheeks were flushing bright pink as she patted at her graying hair beneath her mop cap.
“Where are you, you wicked girl—” Sir Dickie was saying as he rounded the corner and slammed into her back, wrapping his arms lovingly around her middle. “Gotcha!”
“Dickie, love, stop it!” Lady Zilphia said in her normal voice, slapping at his arm. “We have…um…”
“Hello,” Cassian said entirely too blandly. “We were just out for…for a midnight stroll.”
Gabby clutched the edges of her silk robe together—knowing perfectly well that she was naked beneath it—and tried to pretend that it was completely normal to be carried through the corridors of Inverlochy Castle by a half-naked man.
Well, actually, if Dickie and Zilphia make a habit of this role-playing, perhaps itiscompletely normal…
Lady Zilphia, still blushing furiously, had sighed and sagged against her husband. “Oh goodness—well, Dickie and I—sometimes we like to play a little game?—”
“Say nae more, Aunt Zilphia.” Cassian held up his palm. “Yer business is yer own, as I think ye’ll agree is the same for us.”
“Quite right,” boomed Sir Dickie, even as his wife smiled happily. Then he winked at Gabby in what she thought was supposed to be a lewd manner. “Glad to see my heir knows how to have a fun time with a doctor’s pretty sister, eh? I guess I can’t turn the man out tomorrow for his sad incompetence if you’re busy enjoying Miss Gabby’s company, eh?”
Oh Lord.
She felt Cassian stiffen and was afraid he was about to come to her defense. At this moment, all she wanted to do wasget out of here. So she slid her hand down his arm to twine her fingers through his, and smiled brightly as she made her own attempt at Lady Zilphia’s Liverpudlian accent. “Oh aye, Sir Dickie. Doing my best to ensure my brother ain’t dismissed and…and all that.”
Perhaps the wrong thing to say, judging from the widening of Lady Zilphia’s eyes—had she heard the faint teasing in Gabby’s tone?—Sir Dickie’s laughter, and Cassian’s faint growl. But he nodded curtly and yanked her into motion as he stomped down the corridor.
Gabby, feeling quite cheeky, turned to waggle her fingers at the other couple.
“I cannae believe ye’d—” he began, but when the door to his suite shut behind them, Cassian shook his head. “Aye, Icanbelieve ye would say something like that. Gabby—whoever ye are…” He turned to wrap his arms around her middle. “If ye’re fooking me just so yer brother?—”
Her laughter interrupted him as she pressed upward to kiss him. “It was cruel of me to mock Sir Dickie’s narrow-minded assumption.”
“He didnae really mean it,” Cassian grumbled.
“No, he likely did not. His mind was clearly on punishing a certain maid at that moment.”
Cassian’s lips slowly curled as he remembered the thoroughly awkward encounter. And when she began to chuckle, he joined her.
But when his laughter subsided, one side of his mouthcurled ruefully as he stared down at her. “Who are ye? Ye’re no’ really Gabby?”
“I am. Well, I have been Gabby since I was ten years old.” She pressed her cheek against Cassian’s shoulder to tell the story. This, at least, was an easy story to tell, since her family still teased her about her name at times. “My brother and I were raised mainly by a series of miserable schoolmistresses, then miserable governesses. I decided the name my mother gave me—she was an actress, quite bohemian, who decided we would ruin her career and so made us our father’s problem, until he drank himself to death at a ridiculously young age…what was I saying?”
Cassian’s huff of amusement ruffled her hair. “The name she gave ye.”
“Was quite horrible. When our uncle—our father’s younger brother—finally inherited from our truly evil grandfather, well…we became his problem.”
“I have a hard time picturing ye as a problem.”
Gabby lifted her head to raise a disbelieving brow. “You had best believe it. Imagine Gus’s anger at the world, except I believed that I needed to protect my brother since his heart is soft.”
