Page 12 of Buon Natale, My Wicked Rogue
Yes.
With a deep inhalation, she pushed the notion down and forced herself to smile.
“What is it, Mrs. Berry?”
She shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“Like last night, you are smiling at me, but it isn’t genuine. A lovely smile, to be sure, but it doesn’t reach your beautiful hazel eyes.”
A tingling roiled through her belly. A roil of dismay, not pleasure. It wasn’t pleasant to be read so clearly by him. Mrs. Wyndam said that the Earl of Ashington had much experience entertaining and pleasing women. That likely included a skill for reading their expressions and emotions.
Well, didn’t that show that he at least cared more about people’s feelings than Jacob had?
Perhaps.
“Sorry, Lord Ashington. I am simply disturbed that those men are still at large.”
That wasn’t a lie. She was troubled about that.
“Please call me Evan.”
She inhaled sharply at that. So, they were already on a first names basis? And he was a nobleman. A curl of pleasure blossomed in her chest. All right, there was something about him being a nobleman that pleased her. Her heart began to hammer against her ribs. All right, she could also admit that it excited her that he was a nobleman. Quite a conquest for her first affair.
Her first affair? Were there to be others?
Let’s just see about this one first.
Her gaze fell to his mouth, noting again the sensual fullness of the well-shaped lips and then sweeping over his shoulders, his midsection, and downward.
Everything about him pleased her. He’d been created to be a sheer delight to a woman’s eye.
When she returned her attention to his face, his gaze bore into hers, knowing and hot. Heat blossomed in her stomach and slid lower. Her nipples tingled. She didn’t look away or attempt to hide her flushing cheeks or her growing arousal.
If he were to ask, in the nicest, most romantic way, to be her lover, she was sure she would say yes.
Oh, please don’t let him do or say anything crude or distasteful.
She couldn’t bear any further disappointment.
He placed his hand on her flaming cheek. She hadn’t noticed that he’d removed his gloves. Maybe he’d done that beforeentering the chamber. The shock of his bare, warm flesh against hers made her already tingling nipples draw into points and ache.
Such a pleasurable ache. Her mouth went dry with the excitement of the moment.
“Bellissima.”
He had decent pronunciation for an Englishman. That showed a thoroughness for details, did it not?
“My first genuine smile from you.” Warmth filled his voice.
She felt her mouth stretch wider, involuntarily responding to him as every other part of her seemed to be doing.
“And what a beautiful smile.” He removed his hand from her cheek and traced a fingertip along the edge of her jawline, then down along her neck to rest in the hollow of her collarbone. “Do you have any jewelry with you here in England?”
“I have a string of pearls.” She had left her wedding rings at home in America.
“Hmm.” He caressed his fingertip back and forth along her collarbone. “A string of pearls just as modest and drab as the rest of your wardrobe?”
“Pearls cannot be called drab, no, my lord.”
