Chapter Eleven
Alyssia stuffed two valises full of belongings until they were almost bursting at the seams. They’d sent word to her maid, Ginny, and the girl had met them at the servants’ entrance.
No fuss and no problem. She had, however, forced Giles to don her cloak to cover his head, and she’d taken his top hat.
It must have looked absurd, the cloak was far too short for him, but no one had so much as blinked.
She cast a glance at the man, who was curiously inspecting her room, one of his fingers dragging over her writing desk. He’d removed her cloak, laying it on the bed beside his hat.
“Never been in a girl’s room before?” she asked, amused.
He smiled at her. “Never been in yours.”
Ah, lawd. There went her pulse again.
“I’ve never been in your yours either.”
His finger poked at her quill. “I doubt anything is as I left it.”
Alyssia instantly regretted her comment. “We don’t have to return once you cast your uncle out, you know. We could stay here.”
“In the same house as your father?”
She set the second valise beside the bed and crossed her arms. “Is there a problem with my father?”
He faced her and mimicked her stance. “There is nothing wrong with your father but the word father itself.”
Amusement curled in her belly. “Don’t tell me you are scared?”
“I’m not scared,” he said, stepping closer, voice dropping to that low, hoarse drawl that always threatened her poise. “However, two men in one house?”
“Have you forgotten about my little brother?”
“I should say,” he murmured, eyes glinting, “two dukes in one house.”
“Ah,” she said, lips twitching, “so this is a dominance thing? Two dukes cannot live in the same house? Well, you seem intent on asserting it wherever you go.”
“Dominance?” His lips curved higher. “Is that we’re calling it now? Not charm?”
“You call it charm. I call it provocation.”
“Even so, luck is on your side,” he said, taking another step, close enough that the air seemed to shift between them. “You married the one man who’ll never let you fight alone.”
Stop attempting to seduce my heart, you rogue!
“I can hold my own,” Alyssia declared. “I’ve been doing so for years.”
“I know.” He cocked his head to the side. “What did your parents say about you wishing to become a spinster?”
She blinked at the question. “Not much. They must have believed it to be a phase. Come to think about it, do you think they’ve received my letter?”
“It’s only been a few days, it might take a few more to receive word back. Are you worried?”
“Annabelle said he might try to annul our marriage,” she admitted offhandedly. That, however, wasn’t what she was worried about. She was also worried about her mother’s health and how the news might—
“I won’t allow it.” All humor left his face. “No annulment, Liss.”
“I . . .” Lord! So serious. “I didn’t say I would agree with it.”
He stepped closer, and she had to tilt her chin to keep his gaze. “Then promise me right now.”
What on earth had gotten into the man? “I promise. No annulment.” She didn’t have to even think about it. She had no intention of ending her marriage. Lawd, she’d married to dispel Rafferty’s rumors. She had no intention of creating new ones with an annulment.
Giles, on the other hand, seemed to have different thoughts. However, the moment she spoke those four words, his whole body relaxed, and the tension left his face.
“Good.”
“Your confidence in me is heart-wrenching,” she said drily.
“Alyssia . . .”
“Oh? So you do know how to say my name.” He shot her a pleading look, and she scoffed. “Very well, I have packed all I need. You can carry the luggage.” She strode over to the door and reached for the knob.
A hand slammed down before she could open the door, and Giles caged her.
His chest was a whisper from her back, heat radiating through the thin layers between them.
Her pulse didn’t just race—it stumbled, tripped, tangled in itself until she all but forgot how to breathe.
She could feel the faint brush of his breath against her neck, the steady strength behind her, and for one wild second, she wanted to lean back against him.
“Giles.”
“Shh, princess. Listen.”
Only then did she hear the chitter and footsteps passing her chamber. Servants. They’d agreed, while they couldn’t entirely avoid the household, they also wouldn’t actively place themselves in their sight.
Getting all weak-kneed for nothing, you dunce!
He nuzzled her neck and inhaled deeply. “I love your smell.”
“Giles! What’s wrong with you?”
“I think I might have been bewitched by your chamber.” His chest brushed up against her back. “You said you were blissfully unkissed.”
What? “What are you talking . . . about?” Oh. She had said something to that effect.
His lips grazed against her ear. “I think we need to change that.”
“I’d rather hold onto that blissfully.”
He chuckled, his breath grazing the gooseflesh of her skin. “I’d rather change your definition of bliss.”
Enough of this!
She turned, slowly, careful not to let him see just how unsteady her hands had become. The motion brought her face dangerously close to his chest. Her chin lifted on instinct, meeting his gaze head-on.
Big mistake.
He was already watching her, eyes dark, unreadable, the kind of look that made words scatter like startled birds. For a heartbeat, neither spoke. The distance between them became the whole of the world.
His head inched closer to hers. “What say you?”
If she could have spoken, she might have hissed a “no.” But the sound never made it past her lips. Even her thoughts refused to form it, leaving her to stare at him in stunned disbelief.
He advanced another inch.
Why didn’t she stop it?
Because some foolish, treacherous part of her didn’t want to.
His hand lifted, brushing a curl from her cheek, fingers grazing the shell of her jaw.
The touch sent a shiver darting down her spine, different from all the others.
He lingered there, thumb resting just beneath her chin as though giving her time to retreat.
She didn’t. Couldn’t. Her breath caught when his forehead dipped to hers, the faintest touch, soft, hesitant.
Then his mouth found hers.
Her fingers twitched at her sides, then gave up and curled against the front of his shirt, clutching him. He groaned, and he drew her closer, his free hand sliding to the back of her neck.
This was madness. Beautiful, ruinous madness.
He drew back, eyes meeting hers, searching. “You’ll be the death of me, Alyssia.”
“Then you’ll die a fool.”
He smiled, soft, rueful, devastating. “Gladly.”
Before she could find an answer, he turned, retrieved her luggage, and in that maddeningly calm voice of his, said, “We should go before I forget why we came.”
That was it?
Her lips pulsed with the imprint of his kiss, and her composure was in absolute revolt. “That might be a good idea.”
But deep down, she knew it was far too late.
You are a deuced crazy fool, Bishop.
What could he say?
The fear had been instant.
Annulment?
That would never bloody happen. Even if he had to turn the villain and kidnap his wife away to a remote castle, he would never annul this marriage.
Never.
He hadn’t, thank God, been barred from his wife’s good graces for the kiss, chaste as though it had been.
And Christ, the more he said wife, even in his head, the more he wanted to say it out loud.
That would bar him. For today, at least. A man had only so many chances he could take, he suspected he was running low on them.
And he still meant to sleep in the same bed as her tonight.
As soon as they were back in Knox’s carriage, he asked, unable to take the silence any longer. “Are you sure about the masquerade ball?”
Her eyes lifted to meet his, and she seemed relieved about the diversion. “Of course. Are you not?”
“I am, and I am not. Mostly not.”
“We must venture out at some point.”
“Yes, the pests are just annoying.”
“It takes a pest to know a pest,” she countered flatly.
He laughed. “Is this how you see your husband?” Christ, he’d kill to hear that one word from her lips.
“You’re like a chameleon,” she murmured. “Ever changing depending on the company you keep.”
“It’s only your company I care about.”
She studied him. “Tell me, would that still have been the case if I had married someone else?”
Swift coldness spread through his body. “That didn’t happen.”
“No, but had you been a few hours, mere hours, later, you and I would never have reunited.”
“Annulment seems to be all the rage.”
She arched a brow.
“Just not for us.” Never them. That awful feeling returned again. He’d have to have a good conversation with her father when they met again.
Her lips curved upward, and Bishop was once again reminded how his mood could rise and fall just with her lips.
“Are you saying you’d have forced an annulment if I’d married some other man?”
Yes? Bishop had spent every moment since they met again not thinking about what he’d have done had he been too late.
If he had not entered the Lyon’s Den at that point in time.
There wasn’t any use either. It hadn’t happened.
But since the moment that one venomous word, annulment, had dropped, his mind had spun.
It still raged with it.
“I’d have done my best to seduce you back to my side.
” He meant it. God help him, he meant every blasted word.
He didn’t care if that made him a bad man.
Even now, if she slipped from his reach again, he wasn’t sure what he’d become.
The thought alone hollowed him out. He wasn’t a poet or a saint, but he refused to lose her.
Not after he’d found her. “What about you? Would you have come?”
“And caused another scandal?” She scoffed. “No.”
Minx.
“And if it could be done without a scandal?” Probably impossible.
“I’m not certain.” Her gaze dipped over him. “If there is no offense taken, there would be no harm done.”
“Then I’d have made the impossible possible.”
“It’s a moot point now.”
Moot indeed. Yet why did people persist in turning over such thoughts, unlived moments, paths never taken, words never spoken?
Perhaps it was the mind’s way of steadying itself when the heart had gone to war.
A man must at least appear to be master of his thoughts, even when he could not master circumstance.
He knew it. Still, he was not immune to it.
“You are right.” Bishop dragged a hand over his face. “It feels like I’ve lost control over my whole life the moment I stepped foot back in London. It’s rather disconcerting.”
“I know how you feel,” she said softly. “I suppose that happens when one comes face to face with one’s past. We cannot outrun what we were, only choose differently at each point.”
“Then let’s choose better,” he murmured, curving his lips lightly.
One of her brows flicked upward. “Haven’t we done that already?”
“I don’t know.” He nudged her knee with his. “There are still some better decisions to be made.”
She yanked her legs to the side. “Hah, you rogue!”
“I accept that gladly,” Bishop said, leaning back. “I’d rather be your rogue than your saint. I’ve no other plans anyway.”
“Except to make up for your roguish behavior?”
He grinned. “Exactly.”
Her eyes narrowed and she suddenly shifted.
Before he could puzzle out what that meant, her legs captured his—decisive, firm, unmistakable.
The same way he’d done to her at Hyde Park.
Bishop froze, half because the movement had stolen every coherent thought, and half because, for once, he didn’t know what in the devil’s name to do, surprise flashing through him before it gave way to something else entirely—heat, swift and consuming.
And straight to his cock.
The little temptress. She was doing this on purpose.
She grinned at him, her left knee rubbing against his.
His mind went blank. Entirely blank.
“Nothing to say?” She leaned forward, closing half the distance between their bodies and looked at him with those maddening green eyes that made a man forget every vow to behave like a gentleman.
“You are quite tolerable when you are silent,” she said sweetly, as though she weren’t upending his, his, ahem, world, in the most deliberate way imaginable.
Bishop cleared his throat. “Is this revenge of the wife? You’ve quite the flair for revenge, Liss.”
“You should have expected nothing less.”
“No,” he agreed. “I shouldn’t have. Are you going to kiss me next?”
“Kiss you? How will that be revenge? Not kissing you would be much more punishing.”
Bishop groaned. “Where was this saucy wench hiding?”
“Saucy wench?” She batted her lashes like a woman who knew precisely what she was about. “I thought you liked a challenge.”
Challenge was one word for it. Torment was another. “I’m not against you punishing me for insolence.”
“Even if that means I barricade the doors to my chamber?”
“I hate punishment. Please don’t punish me.”
She uncaged his legs and settled back into her seat like she hadn’t just caused every one of his wits to rush to the painful hardness throbbing below. “Then I suppose I’ve succeeded.”
He met her gaze, and for one perilous instant, neither of them moved. The air thickened again, just as it had in her room earlier. A single heartbeat, another, and everything inside him bellowed to yank her onto his lap, to see if she’d still look so calm with his mouth on hers.
“Should I consider us even, then?”
She snorted. “Not even close.”
He chuckled, shifting in the seat, but no amount brought any relief. It would be so much better if she would flush red at his state, but she obstinately refused to allow her gaze to drop even the slightest of bits.
“How diabolical,” he muttered.
Her lips twitched. “Perhaps I’ve learned from the best.”
Confound it, he loved her like this. Teasing him back. It was the first time she touched him first, was it not? He’d cherish this memory forever.
And forever was the plan.