who would betray and murder his friend.
She knew what she wanted the answer to be. She didn’t want this man to have taken everything from her. He was probably like every other aristocrat in London society, interested in women and wine and gaming and little else.
She unfastened his cravat, pulling it loose, then plucked the gold studs from his shirt, placing them on the table beside the bed. As she removed each one the white shirt fell away, exposing his chest, and she stared at it, momentarily mesmerized.
She’d occasionally glimpsed shirtless men—farmworkers at her father’s estate in Somerset. They’d been burly men, covered with hair.
Kilmartyn’s chest was different. His skin was smooth, a white gold, with just a faint tracing of hair. His nipples were dark, flat… and she flushed. Why was she doing this? She’d never even considered nipples before. She removed the last stud, then pulled the shirt free from his trousers. He needed to eat more, she told herself, trying to be professional. He was too thin.
But she could see why one of the most acclaimed beauties of the London season had married him. A woman would throw away almost anything for a man who looked like this, she thought. She found herself reaching out to touch the skin of his stomach, her hand seeming to have a will of its own. His flesh was smooth, warm, alive, and for a moment she let her fingers slide across the skin in an unthinking caress. And then she pulled her hand back as if burned.
Shoes, she told herself, practicality rearing its head. She was hardly going to be rhapsodizing about his toes. She yanked them off, dropping them on the floor, leaving his hose alone. There. He looked as comfortable as he was going to be.
She glanced around the room with a practical eye. The man was clearly drunk, and imbibing too much had certain well-known effects. There was a bowl of fruit, untouched, on a table near the fire. She dumped everything out of it and brought it back to the bed. If he were going to cast up his accounts at least he might manage to use the bowl. It would make cleaning up easier on the servants, and they had far too much to do right now while they were understaffed and trying to catch up with months or perhaps years of neglect.
She took one last look at him, trying to steel herself. He could be the man she hated most in the world, the author of all the pain and sorrow life had visited on her sisters. Instead he looked like a fallen angel, doomed and sad.
If she’d ever managed to conjure up a dream lover he would look like Kilmartyn, with the warm skin and the haunted eyes and beautiful, cynical face.
But she was never going to have a lover, conjured up or real. She was never going to feel the touch of a man’s lips against hers, never feel him cover her in the darkness, take the love and ease she could offer. She couldn’t move, staring down at him. He was drunk. Unconscious. He would never know if she gave in to temptation.
She had kissed her sisters, kissed her father. She had barely spoken to men, living in seclusion as she had. And she would go back into seclusion once she restored her father’s name and his fortune.
But she could take this. No one was watching, he’d said. No spies here. Take just this much, and no one would ever know.
The bed was high, but she was tall, and she pulled herself up to kneel on the mattress. He was breathing softly, steadily, in a drunken stupor, she reminded herself. And she leaned over and pressed her lips against his.
His lips were firm beneath hers, almost as if he wasn’t in a drunken stupor. It must be very close to what a real kiss felt like.
But she’d read more than her share of French novels over the years. She could let her lips trail down the side of his face, nibble at the edge of his mouth. She could taste the smoky flavor of the whiskey, feel the warmth of his breath against her, and she wanted to kiss him again, harder.
For a moment she almost imagined a