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She bent her head again "Oh, stop looking so s facts Privateering was not your only profitable course of action You ht have , you see I didn’t wish to"
She picked up a brush and tapped it against her palette "No, you didn’t You wished to be at sea You wished to go adventuring, to seize sixty ships in the name of the Crown and pursue countless women on four continents That’s why you sold your land, Mr Grayson Because it’s what you wanted to do The profit was incidental"
Gray tugged at the cuff of his coat sleeve It unnerved him, how easily she stared down these truths he’d avoided looking in the eye for years So noorse than a thief He was a selfish, lying thief And still she sat with hih"
How irl need to uncover before she finally turned away?
"And what about you, Miss Turner?" He leaned forward in his chair "Why are you here, bound for the West Indies to work as a governess? You, too, ht have married You come from quality; so much is clear And even if you’d no dowry, sweetheart …" He waited for her to look up "Yours is the kind of beauty that brings ave a dismissive wave of her paintbrush Still, her cheeks darkened, and she dabbed her broith the back of her wrist
"Now, don’t actfacts"
He leaned back in his chair "So why haven’t you e was no longer an option for me I was compromised"
Gray folded his hands on his chest "Ah, yes The French painting hed dramatically "Ah, but the pleasure he showed me orth any cost I’d never felt so alive as I did in his arms Every moment we shared was a minute stolen froirl was trying toWhy should soirl’s tutor enjoy the pleasures Gray was denied? He hadn’t aided the war effort just so England’s most beautiful an ment with oil on her palette "Once, he pulledthe bins of potatoes and turnips He held ainst the shelves while we--"
"May I read my book now?" Lord, he couldn’t take much more of this She smiled and reached for another brush "If you wish"
Gray opened his book and stared at it, unable to muster the concentration to read Every so often, he turned a page Vivid, erotic iroin
As the sun inched higher in the sky, the crosshatched shadow of the grated skylight crept down the wall of the cabin and began its slol across the floor Soon the sun was directly overhead, painting the table with a checkerboard of shadows
Feeling drowsy and sluggish, Gray hooked a finger under his sweat-dalance at Miss Turner over his book Her paleto her forwith a lithe, sensual grace
"Is there any more tea?" Gray asked
"No" She took up a handkerchief and pressed it to her brow, then her glistening, flushed décolletage
He shifted uncoroin
"I’ll get after Stubb to bring water In a minute" He bent his head and closed his eyes and tried to think of anything cool Those pretty flavored ices all the fashion in Mayfair, the ones he’d be certain to take Bel to sample The trout stream in Wiltshire where he’d spent that summer between years at Oxford Ale, fresh froe of Miss Turner standing in an English winterscape, dressed in rich velvet and dusted with powdery white snowflakes Tiny crystals of ice clinging to her fur-trie of eyelashes Her pale skin contrasting with pluelic apparition
Except that he couldn’t do to an angel what Gray saw hiined hiue curled around the sharp burst of cold In his mind’s eye he tasted another, and another--and they were sweet She was a rose-flavored ice, a delicacy beyond anything he’d ever tasted, and he was devouring her, taste by impossibly tiny taste Snowflake by snowflake Until he tumbled her back into the snow and bared the creamy mounds of her breasts, the plump berries of her nipples, the juicy curves of her delicious body--and feasted
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sophia counted six clangs of the bell before Mr Grayson jolted fully awake He looked up at her, startled and flushed As though he’d been caught doing so his eyes, he rose to his feet "Will I shock you, Miss Turner, if I ree of disappoint her with this forced politesse,this distance between them? How many tales of passionate encounters must she spin before he finally understood that she was no less wicked than he, only less experienced?
Perhaps it was tiressive measures
"By all means, remove your coat" She tilted her eyes to cast hiirl You will have to try harder than that to shock me"
His lips curved in a subtle smile "I’ll take that under advisement" She watched as he shook the heavy topcoat from his shoulders and peeled it down his ar back down The da to his shoulders and arms A pleasant shiver rippled down to Sophia’s toes
"It doesn’t suit you anyway," she said, loading her brush with paint He gave her a bemused look as he unknotted his cravat and pulled it loose She inwardly rejoiced Now, if only she could convince him to do aith his waistcoat …
"The coat," she explained, when his eyebrows remained raised "It doesn