Page 25 of The Devil in Her Bed
“But ye can,” he said.
“How?”
His hands slid down her shoulders, skimming her ribs. Spanning her waist. Francesca remained utterly still.
“She was injured when we met,” he recalled aloud. “She’d fallen on something sharp.” He’d begun to gather her skirts, the hem sliding past her ankle, then her calf. “A knife in the kitchens had sliced into young Francesca’s thigh deep enough to require stitching, and I remember hearing her crying through the whole of the east wing.”
His words conjured the memory from deep in her childhood. Francesca had been eight, Pippa only six, and the young girls had used the distraction of their parents’ important guests to raid the kitchens for sweets. Had those guests been from Scotland? She couldn’t remember.
The slide of her hem over her knee dumped her into the present moment. This was something she’d forgotten, a scar of Francesca’s she didn’t yet possess.
He continued, “The cook was a bit of a scatterbrain, I was told—”
Francesca lifted her knee with as much speed and power as she could muster, aiming for the impressive flesh between his legs.
She’d never met a man who could dodge her agile movements, until now. The blow landed on his inner thigh, and he did little more than wince.
Lord Drake, it appeared, was a man used to pain.
Francesca didn’t give him time to answer her attack with one of his own; she followed up with a blow to the solar plexus that should have doubled him over.
Should have.
He released her with a grunt and staggered back a few steps, but other than that the marquess seemed unfazed.
“Mrs. Hargrave was an angel, you pompous twat!” Francesca balled up her fists, dropping into a fighting stance, ready to deflect or absorb any retaliation he could muster.
If this man hit her, she would be in trouble. His fists would land like hammers, and she wasn’t certain her bones cold take it.
“That ‘scatterbrained’ woman is the reason I’m alive,” she spat, palming the knife in her pocket. “So you will keep a civil tongue in your head about her or I’ll relieve you of it.”
“Forgive me.” The Scot held up a hand as if to ward her off, the other rubbing at where her knee had connected with his thigh as though trying to erase the pain. “Forgive me. I forgot myself.”
“Yes, well…” Well, she hadn’t expected him toapologize, not after what she’d just done. “I made certain you will remember in the future.”
She turned to leave, but he caught her elbow. “Countess… Have I ruined this beyond repair?
“Ruined what, I ask you?”
“Us?”
She gaped at the sheer impudent absurdity of the question. “What makes you think thereisan us? You don’t even believe I am who I am. And I’ve only just met you!”
“You just kissed me—”
“I categorically did not!You, sir, kissedme.” She jabbed his chest with an accusatory finger.
“And I doona think ye wanted me to stop.” His voice deepened once more, and he stepped closer. “I think, Countess, ye wanted more than just a kiss.”
He thought right, but she’d die before she’d admit it. “If youthinkI’m letting you inspect my leg for your own perverse curiosity, you canthinkagain.” She wrenched herself away, turning back toward the door.
He was behind her in an instant, moving with that improbable agility of his. His hands shackled her arms, his chest pressed against her shoulder blades, reminding her what a powerful beast he was.
His voice was velvet, though his grip iron. “I find my perverse curiosity has less and less to do with what is on your leg, and more to do with what is between them.” His warm breath carried the hot words to her ear, and they landed in her blood like molten fire. The wickedness of them, the abject, unrepentant desire. “I vow not to take one single look at yer legs, my lady, if ye open them for me.” His fingers curled aroundher arms, his desire evident in the latent wildness, the barely leashed restraint.
“Why should I?” she asked huskily, unable, in this tenuous moment, to think of the many,manyreasons she shouldn’t.
“Ye’re fond of lovers, I’m told. I hear that the closest a man can come to touching heaven is to be inside ye.”
