Ah, a sir. He must have suitably nettled her into formality.
Good. Because there was nothing formal about her nipples poking through that damned night rail. Where was a damned pelisse when he needed one? And when had he ever, in all his life since becoming a man, wished to hide a woman’s body in togs that fastened up to the throat?
“Then you should have stayed where I left you,” he told her.
“I needed to speak with you,” she countered, unapologetic.
The longer they lingered in the hall, quibbling over nonsense, the more his need to see her without that stupid mask grew. So, too, the longing. Despite the voice of reason, the allegiance to Loge and finding out what had become of him, he could not seem to evade the lust coursing through his veins.
Because she is mine.
No. She was not. She was very much not his. He had bought one week with her for a vastly different reason than quenching the mighty thirst of his lust.
“Come,” he said at last, battling his inner demons as he guided her down the hall to the narrow stairway leading to the private rooms above.
While he was careful to keep his hold on her gentle enough, he was not about to allow her to offer opposition. She must have sensed it, for the fight seemed to have fled her. They moved in silence through the shadowed halls, approaching Daniel, who was slumped on the floor, softly snoring.
Hart ground his molars and delivered a none-too-gentle kick to the younger man’s posterior.
Daniel’s aborted snore turned into a snort as he struggled into an upright position, blinking blearily. “What the Christ was—Mr. Sutton!” He rose to his feet, tugging at his forelock in a show of respect. “Good evening, sir.”
Mr. Sutton.So much for his attempt at anonymity. Lady Emma would have heard his surname now, not that a fine lady like her would have cause to know his family’s name and reputation. But he hadn’t wanted to risk the complication.
“It is morning,” he drawled coolly, giving the guard his least impressed look.
“Good morning, sir.” Daniel rubbed his backside, still blinking the sleep from his eyes.
“It ain’t a good morning, Daniel,” he ground out. “Do you know why?”
“No, Mr. Sutton, sir.” The lad swallowed. He was eighteen if he was a day, and on account of his brutish frame had recently been plucked from the mews to work inside The Sinner’s Palace as a guard. “Why ain’t it a good one, yournabs?”
“Because you were meant to be watching the door to my room, and you were snoring instead,” he explained, keeping his grip on Lady Emma even as he took care to stand between her and Daniel, shielding her and her bleeding glorious nipples from the lad’s view.
Daniel’s expression turned crestfallen.
He hung his head. “I’m sorry, sir.”
Despite his size, the lad had a gentle disposition. Hart relented.
“Next time I ask you to watch a damned door, Daniel, you watch the door,” he said sternly. “No sleeping. No snoring. Or it’ll be back in the mews with you, hauling muck and horse shite. Understood?”
Daniel nodded. “Understood, sir. Apologies, Mr. Sutton.”
Hart nodded toward the far end of the hall, where the stairs he had so recently ascended with Lady Emma dwelled. “Be gone with you now. Get some rest in your bed.”
Another tug at his forelock, and Daniel was practically tripping over his own feet to scramble from the hall. Hart would have felt some sympathy for him, but he was too damned tired and irked, and he wanted the woman behind him too bleeding much to care about anything or anyone else.
He turned back to her when Daniel had disappeared down the stairs.
She was watching him from behind that silken mask, those bright eyes assessing and curious. He wondered, for a moment, what she must think of him. And then he reminded himself he didn’t give a goddamn. Her opinion of him was of little use to him, much like her breasts, regardless of how luscious and tempting they were.
“You were harsh with him,” she said. “He seems but a lad.”
“He is a lad, but one I’m paying, and I ain’t paying him to sleep,” he grumbled.
“Perhaps he was tired.”
“And perhaps if I wish to hear your bleeding opinion, I’ll ask it.” He tugged at her arm and began hauling her to his door.
Was she lusting after bleeding Daniel? The notion made everything in him rebel, his gut twisting viciously with something that felt suspiciously like envy. But that was ridiculous. Why should he feel anything at all, aside from irritation?
Yes, irritation. That was all it was. He was exhausted. He needed sleep.
She offered no protest as he hauled her over the threshold and into his familiar quarters, which seemed somehow changed now that he knew she had been within them these last few hours. Trespassing. A stranger. A woman he needed to use in every way but the way he wanted.
The fire was low in the hearth, the sole source of light in the room. The sconces in the hall were kept refreshed through the night by the guards on patrol, but he had never cared for candles when he found his way to his bed. All he had wanted to do there was sleep. He wished he had a brace now, however, to light the room. To illuminate her. But then, perhaps keeping them both shrouded in darkness was better. It was certainly safer.
This way, he could not see her hard nipples begging to be sucked.
Hart cleared his throat. “You’ll take the bed.”
But she did not move toward it as he had expected. Instead, she lingered. Near enough for that intoxicating scent to wind around him like a damned vine.
“Mr. Sutton,” Lady Emma said. “That is your name, then?”