A Match Made in Bed (Spinster Heiresses #2)(17)

The reading room was dark, the door partly ajar. Cassandra took a moment to light her candle off a wall sconce. She expected the room to be full of books. Why else call it a reading room?

So she was a bit surprised when she saw empty bookshelves.

However, the room was set up for reading. In front of the cold hearth were tall, upholstered chairs and a rug. Deeper in the room was another chair, larger than the fireside ones. On a small table beside it was a book. One lone book . . . with all of these bookshelves.

Cassandra could weep. If there had been other books in this room, they had apparently been sold off.

Curious about what that remaining book was titled, Cassandra quietly closed the door and crossed to it. She set the candle down and picked up the book. Plutarch’s Lives. If someone was going to hold fast to a book, this was a good one to keep. It would also help her sleep.

She picked up her candle and was about to leave when a weight or a body slammed against the door from the outside. A woman giggled—and, in a panic because Cassandra had no desire to be caught in her nightclothes walking about, she blew out her candle, plunging the room into darkness.

Barely a beat later, the door burst open. Lady Bainhurst and the Duke of Camberly, wrapped in an amorous embrace, tumbled into the room.





Chapter 5




Cassandra wasn’t certain what to do. She was too stunned to make her presence known, and then it quickly became obvious the moment to do so had passed.

Not only that, but the duke and Lady Bainhurst were too involved in themselves to politely interrupt.

She lowered herself back into the chair, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. She thanked the Lord she was wearing forest green. Perhaps she could blend into the room’s deep shadows.

There was moaning, fervent promises, puckering and kissing. Camberly, the poet of her dreams, kicked the door closed behind him, or so he thought. It hit the frame and then bounced open, the light from the hall highlighting his mouth on Her Ladyship’s ear and his hand cupping her rear as her fingers tore at his neck cloth.

“You didn’t close it,” Lady Bainhurst chided between wet-sounding kisses.

“I don’t care,” he answered, his voice guttural and demanding. He carried her down to the floor. “No one is up anyway. There is just you and me . . .”

And me, Cassandra could have added, if she’d had the nerve.

She sat in the haven of the chair and put her hands over her ears. She wasn’t that much out of sight. If they weren’t so preoccupied with each other, they could see her. She looked toward the door for escape. It was not that far away. Should she risk sneaking by them?

The sounds coming from the rug evaded her best efforts to shut them out. Lady Bainhurst was making small giggling, yipping noises. Camberly was growling. He sounded much like a rooting pig.

Cassandra didn’t want to peek to see what they were doing, but she found she must. Curiosity had always been a besetting sin.

Lady Bainhurst was on the floor. She lay on her back, her arms flung out over her head. Her hair was loose from its pins, her bodice undone, and her skirts pulled up well above her waist.

The duke was nowhere to be seen.

Cassandra could hear him but couldn’t place where he was—until she realized he was partially hidden by one of the chairs and that he was busy kissing parts of Lady Bainhurst’s body that Cassandra had never thought anyone would kiss.

And Her Ladyship actually liked what he was doing.

Why, she was gasping and sighing and cooing as if in the throes of some great satisfaction—until the moment when her voice took on a keening filled with desire. She brought her hands down as if to reach for Camberly, confirming he was where Cassandra thought he was. Frantically, she whispered, “Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.”

Cassandra didn’t know what to do or think. She now understood what it meant to be paralyzed. She couldn’t even breathe—and then Lady Bainhurst turned her head in Cassandra’s direction and their gazes locked.

Horrified to be caught spying, Cassandra didn’t know why Her Ladyship didn’t shriek or shout a warning.

Instead, she smiled at Cassandra, the expression reminiscent of the cat caught in the cream. Her voice turned silky. “Take me, Matt. Have me. I’m yours.”

Shock moved Cassandra’s feet. She no longer worried about being discovered. She ran to the door. She didn’t dare look back. She didn’t need to. The image of the two lovers was burned in her mind. She hoped to slip away and she was almost successful. No cry went up, until she made the mistake of shutting the door behind her.

She always shut doors. It was good manners to do so, but this time, her reflexive politeness did not serve her well.

On the other side of the door, Camberly said, “What was that?”

Cassandra didn’t wait for Lady Bainhurst’s answer. Instead, she lifted her hems and began running for her room. She was halfway there when from around the corner at the far end of the hall, she heard the march of boots.

“This way?” a male voice boomed in the stillness.

“Yes, Lord Bainhurst,” came the answer. “They were seen in this hallway.” Someone had tattled to His Lordship about his wife. There was about to be a scene.

Cassandra’s panic doubled.

She did not want to be a witness to the duke being caught with his pants down. Nor did she want Camberly to piece together that she had been the person in the room when he was doing unmentionable things to Lady Bainhurst. She didn’t even wish to be discovered roaming about in her dressing gown.