Lady Be Reckless (Duke's Daughters #2)(78)
“It’s complicated,” she said, giving in to this moment, whatever this moment was. She tilted her head back and looked at him straight on. Yes, definitely overwhelmingly gorgeous. It was too dark to discern what color his eyes were, but she’d have to imagine they were some sort of beguiling color. If colors beguiled.
She could say with certainty that they did. If they belonged to him.
“I believe Hercules was supposed to marry someone who was in love with someone else, and his wife tried to win him back, only he wasn’t in love with her, so she decided to make the best of it and gave the new wife something to ensure constancy, only it had poison on it and he died.” And that was why she was not trusted with explaining anything. She just made it sound like a muddle.
He shrugged. “Remind me never to get married.”
Married. What was she still doing on the floor?
She did scramble up then, grasping his shoulder without realizing she had to help her upright. He made a noise of protest, but then leaned back, long, long legs—how tall was he, anyway?—stretched out on the floor in front of him.
“I must go,” she said in a hurried voice, pushing her hair away from her face, tucking her spectacles back in her bag, then rubbing her hands together to rid her palms of the dust. Or perhaps wipe off how it felt to touch the paper, put her finger on that picture, that scene that was so—well, so whatever it was, just that it wasn’t proper for her to have seen, nor was he proper for her to have seen, what with her feeling breathless and tight in her clothing and awkward and melting and hot all at the same time.
Because of him. Or the fall, more likely, she assured herself. Even though he had braced the impact with his body so she’d felt not much more than a sharp bounce. It had to be the fall. It couldn’t be him and that picture and the way he’d asked if she’d seen anything of interest, as though she were selecting a piece of cake or something.
It couldn’t. Even though it absolutely was.
“But we were just getting acquainted,” he said, his tone faintly amused.
“Yours is not an acquaintance I wish to pursue,” Eleanor replied. She felt uncomfortable with how cold she sounded. At least until he laughed. Then she just felt embarrassed.
“Unfortunate. It seems we share a passion”—and he paused, letting the impact of the word roll through her—“for Greek mythology.”
That couldn’t be why he was looking at that picture. Nor could she accuse him of being interested for any other reason, because she had already done what no young lady in her position—whether literally on the floor or as a duke’s daughter—would do, given that she hadn’t immediately raised herself up and given him a haughty set-down.
Instead she’d stayed because she was intrigued.
By him, by the picture, by being alone in a dark room with a man who was overwhelmingly gorgeous.
And she definitely hadn’t even thought to put that on the list.
She was Lady Eleanor Howlett, she wasn’t supposed to be intrigued by anything. She was supposed to be proper, correct, respectable, and every other word that meant she was supposed to do precisely what she was supposed to and rescue her family’s reputation at the same time.
Not be intrigued by anything. Or anyone.
Lord Alexander Raybourn stayed on the floor for a few moments after the lady had left, his gaze idling on the spot where she’d been. Feeling the impact of her body on his as they fell, hearing the curiosity in her voice, even though he doubted she’d recognize it herself. But she’d been interested, despite what she’d presumably been told her entire life. He could recognize she was a lady, not just because of her appearance, which was exceedingly ladylike, but also because she spoke in the cultured tones of only the best females in society. He wished it weren’t his society, but it was.
He’d come to frequent Avery and Sons Booksellers because he’d discovered the shop sold items of a less respectable nature than most booksellers. The collection in the back room had books from a variety of traditions, from texts created by frustrated monks in ancient times to more recent books detailing just what types of positions people could get themselves into in pursuit of the height of ecstasy. He and the owner of the shop (not named Avery, oddly enough, but Woodson) had come to an agreement where Mr. Woodson would set aside any books that might hold particular interest to Alex.
Alex glanced down at the picture that had made the lady’s breath quicken and her words emerge equally breathlessly. It really was quite impressive how Hercules was holding his lady—his wife, she’d said—up pinioned on his cock, his arms her only support.
His mind immediately went, of course, to what it would look like if he were to try such a thing. With the lady who’d just been here. Unlike Hercules’s wife, the lady was wearing a voluminous amount of clothing, so the fabric would drape over the inappropriate parts. If anyone were to chance across them, it might appear that they were just standing together. Awfully close, to be sure, but just standing.
Of course when they started moving—or rather, when he started moving, thrusting into her—well, then everybody would be able to tell.
She had landed forcefully on him, but most of her parts were soft. Warm. And very womanly.
It was unfortunate she was a lady; if she had been a woman not of his class, perhaps he could have pursued the conversation into even more intriguing depths. Inquired as to her desire to attempt Hercules’s pose.