“I haven’t been alone with you in nearly two days, and I was feeling the loss. Come now, admit it, you are glad to see me.”
She was profoundly glad but knew better than to confess her weakness for him, for he would take advantage of her admission in a heartbeat. “Why are you even here?”
“We need to talk.”
“What about?”
He fished in the cloth pouch tied to the waistband of his breeches and pulled out a small book. “This is my great-uncle
Philip Wilde’s journal. You know, the villain who shot your great-grandfather, Gideon Fortin, Baron Harbage, and then decamped to America with the lady. It proves Philip was not to blame for the feud, as your father believes. You should read it.”
At her hesitation, Lord Jack pressed his case. “I’ll be gone before morning.”
“You will be gone within the hour.”
“An hour is sufficient for you to peruse the pertinent pages and discuss how to proceed.”
“Very well then, you may stay for that short while.”
He glanced around the room, noting the lamp sitting on her dressing table and the hairbrush lying beside it.
“Do you need assistance preparing for bed? I make a superior lady’s maid. I am entirely at your service.” His eyes held laughter and were full of deviltry.
“You are impossible,” Sophie muttered. “And highly reckless.”
He looked unabashed and unashamed. “That is a large part of my charm.”
At the humor edging his tone, Sophie responded with an exasperated oath, and yet when she met his irreverent laughing eyes, she couldn’t remain wholly angry with him. His audacious, blatant male charm was as addictive as it was exhilarating.
No doubt his allure was heightened by their clandestine dance. Plotting secret meetings, trying to steal moments together, the threat of being discovered, all added a delicious excitement to their illicit romance.
Lord Jack took advantage of her capitulation to fetch the lamp from her dressing table and carry it to the night table beside her bed.
To her amazement, he rearranged the pillows, then sat on the bed with his back to the headboard, his long legs stretched out before him. Then he patted the mattress beside him. “Come join me, Sophie.”
“You want me to climb into bed with you?”
“You need to sit next to me in order to read the journal.”
When she hesitated again, he shook his head. “You have misplaced your spine again, love. You remind me of a dormouse I once had as a pet, fearful of your own shadow. Fortunately I happen to like dormouses, or is it dormice?”
He was riling her to get a response, just the way he did his cousin. “Lord Jack …” she warned.
“We needn’t stand on formality. Plain Jack will do.”
“Plain Jack, I am not a dormouse or a jellyfish.”
“Then prove it and come sit beside me. I give you my word I won’t ravish you.”
“Hah! I don’t believe you. You have been bent on my seduction since the moment we met.”
He just smiled that charming, wicked smile of his. The kind of smile a woman would die for, drat him.
He was waiting for her surrender, Sophie knew, shaking her head inwardly. He brought out the worst in her, encouraging her to defy her upbringing and her principles. Yet she did badly want to know what the journal said. And she truly didn’t want him to leave just yet.
“You are determined to cause trouble for me, aren’t you?” she groused as she crossed to the bed.
“Most definitely. You need to let your hair down a little. Which is extremely attractive, by the way,” he added as he surveyed her coiling tresses hanging loose down her back.