Page 22 of Doxy for the Ton
“I see we understand each other,” he said. “I’ll not take you with me if I visit Brighton.”
“Brighton?” Her voice tightened. “I-I said nothing about Brighton.”
“It’s in Sussex, yes?” he replied. “But I have no reason to visit the south coast. My estate’s a day’s ride north of London.”
“O-of course,” she said. “I presume you’ll prefer it if I stayed in London for the duration of our arrangement.”
Her air of nonchalance didn’t fool him. But though he yearned to press her, to discover what distressed her, he refrained.
He wasn’t a complete bastard, no matter what she believed.
The clock on the mantelshelf began to whir, then seven notes rang out. Like an echo, the clocks dotted about his townhouse responded, as if calling to each other.
She turned toward the mantel clock, a soft smile on her lips, as if reliving a memory, and Alexander was overwhelmed by the desire to take her in his arms and kiss her. Then she turned away.
“It’s time I got dressed,” he said. “Can you dress yourself, or should I send someone?”
She responded with a harsh laugh, and he withdrew, slipping through the adjoining door into his dressing room.
His valet wasn’t due yet. Alexander had to distance himself from the alluring woman in the bedchamber.
He glanced about the room. He’d never dressed himself before—but it couldn’t be that hard, could it?
A wicked thought crossed his mind. Perhaps he should instructherto dress him—make her kneel before him while she rolled his stockings onto his legs, his cock at her eye level, before she pleasured him with that pretty mouth of hers…
Or would she laugh at him for not even knowing how to put his stockings on? He didn’t even know where Larry kept his damned stockings.
He approached a chest of drawers. Larry kept his cravats in the top drawer and the shirts in the middle drawer. Logic would suggest the stockings were in the bottom.
On top of the chest was a neatly folded cravat. Alexander tutted under his breath. Larry was such a stickler for neatness—why the devil hadn’t he tidied it away?
He picked it up, then lifted it to his face, inhaling the soft scent of wood and spices. Had it been clean, he’d have expected the faint undertone of vinegar that Larry insisted kept the moths at bay. So it must have been the cravat he’d worn last night.
Only your necktie managed to emerge unsoiled.
She’dsaid that. Perhaps she’d ventured in here after undressing him. In which case, where were the rest of his clothes?
A watch had been placed next to the cravat. He picked it up and flipped it open, reading the inscription.
John Arnold & Son, London.
It was his pocket watch—the one those ruffians had taken from him. She must have put it there. Which meant only one thing.
She was in league with them and had played him for a fool.
Swallowing his anger, Alexander strode into the bedroom.
She stood by the window, still holding the bedsheet around her body. As he entered, she turned to face him, her eyes glistening in the sunlight.
But he was no longer fooled by her pretense. He held out the watch.
“What the devil isthis?”
“Your pocket watch,” she said. “I put it in your dressing room.”
“I can see that. I meant—how did you come by it? Which of your accomplices gave it to you?”
“Accomplices? You believe I was with the men who attacked you? Or, that I manipulated myself into your bed at the request of a pimper?” She let out a snort and turned to face the window.
