Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners)(11)

She had been a wife for six years, and although Jeremy had been the most amiable of husbands, he too had different ways of ensuring he avoided listening to something he had no wish to hear. Unfortunately, Dante had made the mistake of reintroducing the subject of the bedchamber in the inn.

Not that Bella intended making any further protest on the subject. Being a wife for all those years had also ensured she had learned ways of circumventing any decision Jeremy made with which she did not agree.

She turned to pull her cloak back on as she answered Dante. “I am ready to go inside now.”

Dante opened the door himself, waiting until Bella had stepped down onto the cobbles before doing so himself, delaying slightly to adjust his clothing over the throb of his engorged cock. By the time Dante emerged from the carriage, Bella had already entered the inn, and he quickly followed her. He had only meant to silence Bella when he kissed her, and instead it had made his cock ache all the more, after he had already suffered several hours of torture watching her as she slept.

Dante saw Bella was already in conversation with the landlord by the time he entered the building. It was also obvious that portly gentleman was completely enamored of her as he chuckled at something she had murmured in his ear.

“Might I be allowed to share the joke?” Dante prompted stiffly as he joined them in the hallway.

Bella looked at him with wide and innocent eyes. “I do not believe you would appreciate it.”

“Nevertheless…”

She linked her arm with his. “I was just explaining to Mr. Rogers why we have a need for two bedchambers rather than one.”

Dante stiffened. “We do not need to put him to that bother.” Damn the woman. Give her an inch—or, in this case, a few seconds alone with the landlord—and she took the whole bloody mile.

“It’s no bother, Your Grace.” Rogers, usually taciturn to say the least, was still smiling from ear to ear as he picked up two lit candles to light the way up the stairs. “Granted, we are very busy tonight, with seven of the ten bedchambers in use, but I am in total sympathy with her ladyship’s dilemma.”

Dante eyed the other man warily. “You are?”

“Oh yes, the late Mrs. Rogers was a terrible one for snoring too.” The landlord threw open the door to a bedchamber, placing one of the candles on a table inside the room before moving along the hallway to the room next door and throwing open that door too.

Snoring.

What the—

Rogers chuckled. “I used to say as how she could wake the dead in the next county with the noise she made.”

“I asked you not to mention it to His Grace, Mr. Rogers.” Bella laughed as she chided the landlord. “He insists he does not snore.”

“The missus used to say the same.” The older man nodded sagely as he placed the second candle inside the room. “Them as snores never hear themselves, only us poor beggars kept awake all night by it.”

Dante had been rendered speechless by the realization Bella had not told this man she couldn’t share a bedchamber with him because he had kidnapped her but because he snored.

“There’s a door here conveniently connecting these two bedchambers,” the landlord added with a wink as he took a key from one of his pockets and unlocked it. “So neither of you need have a sleepless night.”

Perhaps not because of Dante’s snoring, but he had every intention of administering some form of punishment on Bella for that particular lie.



“I do not snore.”

Bella turned from taking her nightclothes from one of the bags that been brought up to her to look at Dante as he stood in the doorway connecting her bedchamber to his.

Her bedchamber. Because despite Dante’s decree in the carriage, she had managed, as she had hoped to do, to attain a bedchamber for herself. After the snoring comment, she had done so without any further argument from Dante.

Now it was time for her to be graceful in her triumph. “I thought you would prefer that to my telling him you had kidnapped me for your own nefarious purposes.”

Well, yes, Dante did prefer that, and he could not say he was not relieved Bella had refrained from making that accusation. Otherwise he might be having a very embarrassing conversation with the landlord right now. It was impossible not to admire the way this little witch had manipulated the situation to her advantage.

The same manipulation and charm Bella used when gathering information to pass on for Napoleon’s benefit?

She looked so innocent and lovely, her bonnet removed, her dark blue traveling gown fitted over the swell of her breasts. Nor had she made any complaint, once her bags were brought up to her room, about her lack of a maid to help her undress.

Dante was willing, more than willing when the time came, to perform that service for her himself.

“The food and brandy are both in my bedchamber,” he informed her huskily.

“Mr. Rogers is arranging for food, wine, along with hot water for bathing, to be brought to me in here.” Bella continued to take things from the bag sitting on top of the bed.

Of course he was; the dour Mr. Rogers had become a complete slave to Bella’s every whim within moments of meeting her.

Dante was willing to become a slave to her whims in quite a different way.

He stepped further into the bedchamber. “You have bewitched the poor man.”

Bella kept a wary eye on him. “At least his partiality toward me is sincere.”