For some reason the thought of lying to Miss Parker-Roth sat like a rock in his belly.
He glanced back at her. She looked so pure, so beautiful sitting there staring at…her eyes were…
Good God! Miss Parker-Roth was studying his arse.
He turned to light some more candles. He could almost feel her gaze on his breeches.
She was going to have something else to study when he turned to face her if he didn’t pull his wandering thoughts back to the subject at hand—which was…what?
Ah, right. Widmore’s supposed sketch.
He lit the last candle and sat down quickly, leaning forward to shield his lap and any suspicious protuberance that might be apparent there. “I’m not trying to pull the wool over your eyes—I really do know next to nothing. The Earl of Ardley cornered me at White’s this afternoon and told me Widmore had been a French spy—”
“Clarence?” Miss Parker-Roth gawped at him. “A spy?”
“I grant you, it does seem unlikely.” He’d had almost the same reaction when Ardley had told him. Widmore had been fat and loud and…colorful. He’d wager the man was constitutionally incapable of moving unobtrusively. If Widmore had been a spy, he’d been a master of concealment. “But sometimes the best spies are those who seem the least likely.”
“Oh.” Miss Parker-Roth narrowed her eyes. “Are you a spy?”
“No, of course not.” It was true. He’d never considered himself a spy, but if he’d ever been one, he wasn’t one any longer.
Her expression did not change.
“Well, I may have done a little skulking about on occasion and a spot of listening here and there.”
“Hmm. I don’t suppose you’d tell me if you are a spy.”
“I don’t suppose I would, but I’m not.”
“You’re here.”
“Merely on an errand for a”—no, he couldn’t call Ardley a friend—“an acquaintance.”
“Why isn’t Lord Ardley doing his own skulking?”
He snorted. “Ardley?” The earl was fatter than Widmore had been.
Miss Parker-Roth laughed. “True, I can no more see Lord Ardley as a spy than I can Clarence Widmore.” She shook her head and echoed his own thoughts. “If Clarence was a spy, why would Lord Ardley care about his activities now? The war is long over and Clarence is dead.”
“Yes, but according to Ardley, Clarence sketched some of his fellow spies. That’s what he wants me to look for. Such a drawing, if it exists, could be very useful in rooting out any traitors still lingering in positions of power.” That was what had finally convinced him to take on this ridiculous mission. He wished to see all traitors brought to justice.
Yet something about Ardley, something in his manner or his voice had made him suspicious. Ardley wanted something, yes, but Motton would wager it wasn’t a drawing of French spies.
Surely the man couldn’t be stupid enough to think he wouldn’t examine anything he found?
He leaned closer to Miss Parker-Roth. “Did you know Widmore well?”
“No. Mama knows his sister, Cleopatra. They are both painters, though Cleopatra paints flowers and fruit, while Mama paints”—Miss Parker-Roth suddenly turned red and cleared her throat—“other things.”
“Ah.” If the painting Stephen had hanging in his rooms was an indication of the bulk of Mrs. Parker-Roth’s work, he understood Jane’s embarrassment. Mrs. Parker-Roth appeared to have a fascination with nudes. “I see.”
His eyes dropped to her nightgown. It was primly buttoned to her chin, but if he loosened that line of buttons…
He would like to see Jane nude, sprawled across his bed—
Damn it, he could not be entertaining salacious thoughts about this particular young woman. Such fantasies were totally inappropriate—and he had a job to accomplish before the servants or Mrs. Parker-Roth discovered him here. Mrs. Parker-Roth might be an artist, but she was also a mother. She would not look favorably on a man having a tête-à-tête with her nightgown-clad daughter.
“Are you familiar with the house, then? Do you have any idea where Widmore would have hidden a drawing?”
Miss Parker-Roth shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. We usually stay at the Pulteney Hotel when we come up for the Season. We’re only here this year because Cleopatra is on her honeymoon and offered us the use of her house.”
“I see.” It had been too much to hope she would hold the answer to this puzzle. He looked at the crowded bookshelves. Zeus, he did not relish going through each one of those tomes. And Widmore could easily have hidden the paper elsewhere. Almost anything—the desk, a chair, a bed—
No. No thinking of beds with Miss Parker-Roth in the room. It would be…entertaining to search her bedchamber—
No bedchambers.
The truth was, anything could conceal something as slim as a sheet of paper.
“Didn’t Lord Ardley have some suggestions as to where Clarence might have hidden the sketch?” Jane asked.
“Unfortunately, no.”
She stood, which put his eyes on level with…gave him an excellent view of…
He shot to his feet.
“It sounds to me as if you are forced to look for the proverbial needle in a haystack,” she was saying. “So I shall help you.”
Help him? He caught a whiff of lemon and woman—which went directly to his groin. Blast. The only way she could help him was to lie down on the carpet and spread her legs.
He needed to haul his mind out of the gutter.
He’d have her lie on his bed instead—
Bloody hell! His imagination had never been this unruly before. He took what the women of easy virtue offered and left the other females—women like Miss Jane Parker-Roth—alone.
Miss Parker-Roth had pulled a book off the shelf. She opened it, turned it upside down, and shook it.
“What are you doing?”
She looked over her shoulder at him as she pulled out another book. “Helping you. You’ll be here all night if I don’t.” Nothing fell out of this book either. “You’ll probably be here all night even if I do.”
She was standing in front of the fire again. He could clearly see the curve of her breasts, the shadow of her nipples. If he looked lower, he knew he would see—
No, he would not look lower. He wrenched his gaze up to study the mantel. “You are not helping me.”
“Of course I am—don’t be so pigheaded. And why are you looking up there? Do you see something—ack!”
He’d grabbed her arm. He couldn’t stand it any longer. “I said you are not helping me. You are going back upstairs to bed—”
Blast! She whirled to give him a piece of her mind, no doubt, and he stepped forward at the same time. Their bodies collided. Her soft, sweet body—her breasts and hips and belly against his hard…his rock hard, painfully hard—
Her tart, sweet scent enveloped him. She had tasted so good before. Her lips were just inches from his now. What harm could one small kiss do?
He bent his head. Just a small kiss. Just a brushing of lips. No tongues.