His cock ached as he rubbed his thumb and fingertip together compulsively. She’d been so wet and silky last night. Exquisitely responsive. Right there with him. No grim, tight, resisting miss she. No bitter disappointment to him after the promise of her beauty.
A familiar cloud nudged its way into his consciousness, but he shook his head, dislodging it. He would not think of that now—or of her—just when Beatrice Weatherly was about to appear. The only woman of his recent acquaintance who could truly make him forget.
As if answering his prayers, the doorknob rattled as it turned, and he spun around.
“Good morning, Mr. Ritchie. I didn’t anticipate seeing you again quite so soon.”
She was a vision, everything he remembered from last night, and much, much more.
“Good morning, Miss Weatherly.” Moving swiftly amongst the furniture, he strode toward her and snatched up her hand. The touch of her skin, so smooth and warm, expunged all darkness. “And why wouldn’t you expect me? Didn’t I say I’d have an offer for you this morning?” Like a voracious schoolboy let loose in a sweet shop, he let his eyes rove over her, unable to hide his sudden, surging desire.
Beatrice Weatherly took his breath away just as easily as she stiffened his cock.
His mouth pressed to the fingertips of her raised hand, Ritchie stared at her over her knuckles. Her brilliant hair was unbound save for a few constraining strands caught in a white ribbon at the back of her head, and she looked a fair demoiselle or an enchanted queen in a painting from the hand of Mr. Rossetti. Her magical curls tumbled and drifted like flame, heating his blood.
“Gentlemen … and those not quite so gentle … say a lot of things, Mr. Ritchie. And regrettably or otherwise, they don’t often mean them.”
At another moment, he might have frowned over her words and demanded to know who’d misled her—whether it be Lloyd or some other fellow—in order to thrash the living daylights out of him. But right now, his mental processes were too derailed by the need to catalogue her beauty, from head to toe, every dreamlike inch.
Daringly, Beatrice was wearing her dressing gown rather than her day clothes, and she was clearly uncorseted. Fabric of a rich blue shade lay closely against her delicate curves, hinting at the glorious form enclosed and compelling Ritchie to speculate on what was underneath the robe.
Was she wearing undergarments? Or a nightgown? Maybe a chemise? Or perhaps stockings only, with lacy froufrou garters and a flower garland embroidered down the seam?
Or perhaps she was naked, warm and velvety, his for the taking.
“Mr. Ritchie, may I have my hand back, please?”
Ritchie straightened in surprise, then laughed as he released her. She’d bewitched him so completely he’d fallen into a lust-drenched stupor of speculation, just from kissing the tips of her fingers.
“Of course, Miss Weatherly … or may I call you Beatrice, now we’re to be close? I see that we’ve dispensed with the customary chaperone for an unmarried lady.”
She stood away from him, gripping her fingertips at the exact place he’d kissed her. For a moment, he saw an image of feminine hands, nervous and agitated, attempting to rub away his touch, but Beatrice didn’t do that. Instead, it was as if she was folding her fingers around the kiss to seal it in.
“After last night, I’d say that the issue of my chaperon-age where you’re concerned has become redundant, Mr. Ritchie.” Her eyes flashed, and he couldn’t tell whether it was from anger or from desire. Perhaps it was both. “But even so, that doesn’t automatically indicate our continued closeness. I haven’t agreed to your proposal yet.”
Beatrice was a woman of medium height, but she had a towering quality about her as she stared at him. Her sharp eyes surveyed him as if he were a petitioning worm wriggling on the carpet at her slipper-clad feet. Fresh desire gouged Ritchie’s belly so hard he felt the urge to double over.
“But my friends call me Bea, so I suppose you can too.”
The concession came out of the blue, rocking him harder than the lust did.
“Bea,” he murmured. “I like that. Does it mean we might be friends?”
“It’s hard to know that yet, Mr. Ritchie. Or should I call you Edmund?”
“My friends generally just call me Ritchie …” He paused, watching patterns of assessment cross her face, sharp and wary, but bizarrely stimulating too. “So I suppose you can too.”
Then she laughed—a free, rich sound—and the tension between them snapped like an India rubber band. It didn’t dissipate entirely. No, there was still an edge in the air. But the atmosphere in the room was distinctly lighter.
“Touché, Mr … touché, Ritchie. So shall we sit down and discuss this ridiculous proposition of yours?” With a graceful gesture, she indicated the damask-covered chair he’d been sitting in, and its mate, facing it before the small, cheerful fire set against the early morning chill. “That is when you’ve first explained to me why you’ve arrived in this rather unorthodox manner. Sneaking around the tradesman’s entrance and dressing like a bookmaker or a pieman, rather than wealthy man of business.”
“I wanted you to see another side of me.” He plucked at the lapels of his commonplace houndstooth-checked suit. “See the blunt, plain man rather than the facade of Savile Row tailoring and society manners.”
She gave him a wry look, as if she did indeed see straight through him and any manner of subterfuge he chose to erect. “It must be a very peculiar society that encourages manners like yours, Ritchie.” She acknowledged his shrug with one of her own. “And I still consider your offer quite absurd.”
“Why so?”
Though he took care not to show it, Ritchie felt irrational disappointment. He understood her qualms, but still, the idea of not having her after all hit him like a rabbit punch. “I believe that it’s a generous offer, Bea, but I daresay I could be persuaded to parlay it a little further if you decree it insufficient.”
He watched as she slid her hand into a pocket in her dressing gown and pulled out both his letter, and another envelope, presumably her reply. It was a simple, artless, everyday action, completely without airs, but still his cock throbbed harder at the sight of it. In his imagination, he saw that same pale, beautiful hand sliding elsewhere; slipping inside the unbuttoned fly of his trousers, seeking his flesh.
What would her fingers feel like on his cock? Would they be cool and soothing? Or warm and tantalizingly heated?
Lord, I don’t care! I just want her to touch me!
“It’s absurd simply because it is so generous. Twenty thousand guineas is a disproportionate sum. Not to mention the debts covered, and the annual payment thereafter.” She looked away, sideways, a soft blush gathering on the apples of her cheeks. “I have no illusions as to my own value, Ritchie. I consider myself a gentlewoman, and I’m quite pretty, I think. But I’m just a woman like any other woman, when it comes down to it, with face and limbs and shape … and other parts—” the roses deepened “—and a month of my time is worth far less than twenty thousand.”
Was she toying with him? Angling like a practiced courtesan in a game of advance and retreat? Somehow, he thought not. Despite her recent notoriety and her avid response last night, the impression came again that the Siren of South Mulberry Street was relatively inexperienced. Was that the root of his obsession with her? A yearning to educate an eager acolyte into a new world of exotic bedroom games?
And she had been willing. It hadn’t been a mask, worn as some did, until