Page 60 of A Wicked Kind of Husband

“I am an excellent influence. And?” he demanded. “What did she say? About my sugar stick.”

“Your…? Oh. You are so vain.”

“If ladies discuss me in such intimate terms, I have a right to know what they are saying.”

She drew a breath to compose herself and gamely looked him in the eye. “She said it looked like all the others she’d ever seen.”

“How many is she comparing it to?”

“I forbore to ask.”

She was trying to look prim, and failing, for she had a glint in her eye and a smile playing around her lips.

“What did you say to that?” he asked.

“What could I say? Yours is the only one I’ve ever seen and that only fleetingly.”

“Then let me tell you: She’s wrong. Mine is better than all the others. It’s bigger and stronger, and more handsome and more noble.”

“All that!” She opened her eyes wide. “Magical too, I suppose?”

“It can do tricks.”

“For example?”

“It can sit up and beg.”

She groaned with what sounded like amused horror. A moment later, she broke: She covered her face with her hands and laughed, her shoulders shaking. He was half out of his seat to cross the carriage to pull her into his arms and kiss her until she had stopped laughing and was breathless with desire instead.

But he couldn’t do that, so he settled back in his seat and enjoyed watching her. Enjoyed the way her laughter washed over him, rippled all the way to his groin. It took him by surprise, that desire could flare up, so hot and intense, simply from the pleasure of her company.

Chapter 13

By the time they were inside and peeling off their outerwear, Cassandra was once more the polite, well-behaved lady. Joshua could not decide if he was irritated that she hid her playful, bawdy side, or thrilled that he alone knew her secret.

Either way, it was irrelevant. It had been an entertaining interlude, and now he had work to do.

He turned to tell her precisely that, only to see her hand off her bonnet and gloves to the waiting footman and take hold of the fat tassels fastening her pelisse.

“You called me ‘darling’,” he said instead.

“He was annoying me.”

“You kissed him, I suppose.”

Her head jerked up. She glanced at the footman, who disappeared so quickly he almost sprained something.

“Bolderwood,” he clarified.

“Not today I didn’t.”

“But before.”

“We were engaged. So yes.”

She tugged at the tassels, untied the bow. As he anticipated, the pelisse fell open and she briskly slid it off her shoulders.

As for kissing Bolderwood, she apparently felt no need to elaborate. Fair enough: Nothing to elaborate on. The whole matter was settled and of no interest whatsoever. He had work to do.

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