Page 44 of The Devil in Her Bed
What a relief. Summoning her last reserves of will, Francesca sat up and waited for the strike and flare of the match in order to assess her surroundings.
He’d lit the first lamp as she found the sideboard with four separate decanters upon it. She went to it, pouring them both a glass of whiskey, and anointing his with a healthy dose of the sleeping draught.
When she turned around, he’d lit two lamps on the mantel and one on the nightstand.
The bedroom was so perfunctory. So utilitarian. Large, masculine furniture in various shades of boring. The bed was nice, though, likely carved back when the Scots and the English were considered enemies.
He whipped the match in the air a few times to extinguish it and set it aside before stalking toward her with the grace of a rawboned jungle cat.
The lamplight gleamed from the striations in his eyes, turning them a wicked sort of amber. Almost the very color of the liquid in the glass she extended to him.
“Fortify yourself, Marquess,” she said playfully. “I don’t intend to be gentle.”
His eyes flared as he took it and tapped the rim of hers with his own. “I wish I could say ye’d surprised me, my lady.”
Francesca paused and watched him toss back his entire drink in one swift motion.
A bleak note had underscored the heat in his words.
Francesca—the real Francesca—had been a gentle girl… Were they both thinking it?
He didn’t give her time to ponder, as he nudged her glass. “Drink up, Countess. Ye’ll need it to melt yer own fortifications.”
She studied him over a sip before setting the glass down on the nightstand. Advancing on him, she pressed her hand against the mound of muscle on his chest and pushed until the bed caught the backs of his knees, forcing him to sit.
Lifting her skirt, she climbed atop him, careful to keep the pocket with her pistol out of his reach. Settling back on his lap, she wished like hell she didn’t feel as though this was the exact place she should be. With him. Over, beneath, or around him.
Belying her words, she pressed her mouth gently to his, bracketing his jaw with the palms of her hands. It’d been so smooth at the beginning of the night, and was now stubbled with a dark shadow.
One with very little auburn.
She kissed him with protracted intimacy, wondering if she’d ever again get the chance. If this was goodbye to a pleasant fantasy before she found out what kind of monster he really was.
It was bliss, this. The not knowing. Bliss and torture.
Slowly, his muscles uncorded one by one, his mouth becoming less coordinated, his hands falling to his sides onto the bed.
“What…” He pulled away, looking at her with an amused sort of surprise. “What did you…?”
Francesca slid her hands to his neck, cradling it as he gently leaned back, his heavy body rolling vertebra by vertebra onto the mattress until he was completely prone, his knees still hanging off the side.
Unconscious.
Francesca looked down at him from where she straddled his lean hips and felt a pang of remorse. Orperhaps something as strong as regret. Lord, she hoped her instincts were right about him, because if he was any kind of innocent, she was the villain here.
Best she find out sooner than later.
Francesca dismounted him as one would a horse, fully aware that her entire body protested. The roomwasrather chilly without the heat of his skin, summer or no.
It took her no time to tear through his house, and she learned more from what she didn’t find than what she did.
Which was next to nothing.
The library was full of untouched books, and she wandered through kitchens that weren’t just tidy, but empty. Unused. The larder bereft of food. She searched beneath furniture covers for bodies and in closets for skeletons.
Nothing. Nothing but mothballs and the faint scent of desolation.
By the time Francesca reached the study, she was certain of one thing: Drake might own this place, but he certainly didn’t live here. She supposed some bachelor gentlemen, and even nobles, preferred to sleep at their clubs when in town, making use of club staff instead of bringing their own.
