Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

through the mattress beneath him.
    When the house was once again silent, he rolled onto his back and let out the breath he had been holding. His cock stood straight up, hot and unsatisfied. He gave it a mean thwack. But it only bobbed, more famished and demanding than ever.
    He let out a sigh, put his hand on it, and let his imagination run wild.
     
    Gigi burned, one moment with the fires of hell, one moment with the ecstasy of that other afterworld, but mostly with an earthly amalgam of mortification and raw ferment.
    She'd been a hairbreadth away from climbing back into bed with Lord Tremaine. The entire scenario had already unfolded in her mind: the ardor, the consummation, the dismay, and the consequences. In the end, he would marry her, because it was the honorable thing to do, despite his disgust for her and his relative blamelessness in the matter.
    Everything in her yearned for him. He would be the equal she had never known, the deliverance from her vast loneliness, the balm to any and all misery. If only she could have him. . . .
    But she had stopped herself. Because it was too craven a thing to do, too much beneath her dignity. And she wanted his good opinion, she craved it, she who had never cared what anyone else thought of her.
    An eternity passed before it was time to dress and head down for breakfast. She thought she would be alone, but he was already there in the breakfast parlor when she entered. Her face burned again.
    He set aside the ironed copy of Illustrated London News he'd been reading and rose. “Miss Rowland,” he said, all courtesy and impeccable breeding. “Good morning.”
    She didn't respond immediately. She couldn't. All she could think of was the way he'd shoved her under him, his arousal pressed fully against her, separated from her thigh by only the flannel of her nightgown.
    But he had slept through all of it. He had no recollection.
    “Lord Tremaine. Did you sleep well?”
    His gaze met hers, level, innocent. “Oh, yes, splendidly. I slept like a log.”
    While she suffered for the want of him. While she alternately berated herself and marveled at what she had done. While she went over each moment of their perilous encounter, recalling his topography, his texture, his scent, and his frightening yet delicious weight as he held her captive.
    He smiled at her. And it hit her like a mallet to the temple, the realization that she was in love with him. Stupidly, dreadfully in love with him.
    Overnight, she'd become a fool.
     
    Chapter Five

    9 May 1893
    P hilippa!” Freddie cried.
    Philippa. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since she'd last heard her name on Freddie's lips. She'd loved the sound of the spirant syllables, loved the slight catch in Freddie's voice that always accompanied their utterance, as if he still couldn't believe that she permitted him to address her so intimately.
    But all she could think now was that he didn't call her Gigi. He didn't even know that she was Gigi. No other living man thought of her as Gigi.
    Only Camden.
    “Are you all right, my love?”
    She smiled at the man she adored. With his fair complexion, rosy cheeks, and earnest eyes, Freddie was Gainsborough's Blue Boy all grown up. He had a wonderful head of sandy curls, blue eyes the color of Delft chinoiserie, and a gentle, unassuming nature as kind as the sun in May. Her very own Mr. Bingley—everything a young man ought to be.
    “I'm fine, darling, I'm fine.”
    He came forward to take her hands in his but stopped before he quite reached her, the concern in his eyes breaking her heart. “Can we be sure that Lord Tremaine has really left? What if it's a trap, and he returns to spy on you? He can . . . if he chooses to, he can make things unbearable for you.”
    How did she even begin to explain that Camden already had an armory of unbearable-making devices at his disposal? That he held her entire future in his not-so-tender mercy?
    “Tremaine has been quite civil,” she said. “He is not