Page 41 of Courting Trouble
Then, with her back as straight as any royal, she glided down the corridor and disappeared into the guest room furthest away from his chamber. Shut the door.
And locked it.
Wild Beasts and Savages
Had they? Or hadn’t they?
The question burned a hole into Nora’s brain through the entirety of the night. Slowly. Torturously. Like the dedicated beam of sunlight a cruel child would direct through a magnifying glass at an insect.
Nora did her level best to concentrate on the conversation with Chief Inspector Morley. She knew it was important, that it had to do with her immediate future.
But how could she focus on anything else without knowing if Titus had been inside his mistress last night?
The woman hadn’t stayed over—thanks be to God—but neither had she promptly taken her leave. She’d remained shut in Titus’s chambers for exactly forty and seven minutes.
Long enough for a frenzied tryst, though Nora heard no evidence of pleasure.
Thank heavens for small mercies; that might have done what the bullet had failed to and finished her off entirely.
Titus had not come to her after Annabelle left, and she hadn’t truly expected him to. She had no claim upon his time, let alone his heart.
Or his body.
His lovely, long-limbed, exquisitely sculpted body.
But a kiss had haunted the space between them before they’d been interrupted. Or had she conjured that through wishful thinking?
Norahadn’timagined the rather unmistakable outline of his aroused sex pressing against the fitted fabric of his trousers. His physique had been as taut and strong as she remembered, and responded to the feel of her just as it once did.
With hard male need.
And his dratted mistress had been served up to him on a buxom platter, all pouty lips and giant bosoms,apparentlyfamished for him.
For his cock. That was what she’d been about to say…
Had he given it to her?
“Lady Woodhaven?”
Nora blinked against the late-morning light streaming in through the parlor window, somehow blindingly bright even though the sky was a dull silver-grey. She realized she squeezed the handle of her porcelain teacup hard enough to shatter it, and set it back on the delicate saucer.
“Forgive me, Chief Inspector, I haven’t been sleeping. Could you repeat the question?”
Morley cleared his throat and divested himself of his coat. Draping it across the back of the gold damask chaise, he tugged at the thighs of his trousers to perch on the edge.
He assessed her from beneath brows only slightly darker blond than the hair he kept ruthlessly short and elegant, no doubt in a ploy to soften the brutal angles of his features. If there were a more perfect man for Prudence, she’d dare the devil to find him. He was all hard jaw and starched collars, where her sister was flowing ribbons and soft smiles.
She hoped he made Pru happy. He certainly seemed to.
“I asked ifthe Fauvesmeans anything to you.” He kept his question measured, but she had the impression he evaluated every single aspect of her reaction.
She searched her memory. “A French word, isn’t it? Meaning beast? Wild beast?”
“What about Raphael Sauvageau?”
She shook her head. “Was William working for him?”
“My investigation has borne out that his is the fist tightening around the black market these days. And, for a while, his men were watching your house, and mine.” His expression flattened to patently grim. “It seems you were wise to go into hiding as, the deeper I dig into this brigand’s machinations, the more concerned I become. His gang of degenerates call themselves the Fauves.”
