Regency Scoundrels And Scandals. Louise Allen

himself wondering with a sense of detachment if she was going to deal with his chest with such aplomb. It seemed she would. For some reason a woman who baulked at sharing his bedchamber could cope quite easily with his half-naked body provided there was an injury to deal with.

      Eva moved round, tipping the bottle on to the lint again to re-dampen it. She paused to survey the darkening bruise, then caught his eye. ‘What is it?’ Damn the woman, can she read minds? His ability to keep a straight, unreadable, face was one of his most valuable professional assets. So he had believed.

      ‘I was wondering why you do not appear to find this embarrassing,’ he answered frankly. ‘We are both half-dressed and in a bedchamber, and earlier that appeared to be a major obstacle to a good night’s sleep.’

      She looked down her nose, suddenly every inch the Grand Duchess, despite her makeshift nightshirt and bare feet. ‘You are injured; that is something that must be dealt with, whatever the situation. On the other hand, finding myself constrained to share a bed with a strange man was something I would hope to avoid if at all possible.’

      ‘So modest behaviour depends on circumstance? Ouch!’

      ‘Sorry.’ She peered close to see why he had jumped, then carried on dabbing. Her breath fanned warmly over his collarbone, playing havoc with his pulse rate. ‘Of course it depends. If I was in my bath and the place was burning down, I would not expect you to wait politely outside the door until I got dressed before breaking in to rescue me.’

      Jack fought with himself, biting the inside of his cheek in an effort not to laugh, then he caught Eva’s eye and watched while she imagined the scene she had just described. Her lips twitched, the corners of her eyes crinkled and she burst out laughing. He had never seen her laugh before; he hadn’t known whether she had a sense of humour. The only smiles he had seen were polite social expressions, but this was another woman. One hand pressed to her lips, she hurried to put the bottle down safely, then collapsed on the bed in a paroxysm of giggles.

      ‘Oh, Lord! I can just imagine our chamberlain doing just that! “I regret to inform your Serene Highness that the castle is on fire. Might I suggest you complete your coiffure at your earliest convenience, ma’am, as the flames are licking around my feet, ma’am…”’

      She looks eighteen, a girl, so fresh, so natural, so sweet. The laughter drained out of Jack as he stared at her. Eva sat up at last, hiccupping faintly and mopping her eyes with the cuff of the shirt.

      ‘I am sorry, it must be the strain.’ She smiled at him hazily. ‘I can’t remember the last time I laughed out loud, or even found something silly enough to laugh about.’

      Jack put out a hand towards her, not knowing what he wanted, only knowing he needed to touch her. Eva put her hand in his, her eyes questioning. He did not speak—there was nothing to say, nothing that he could articulate. For a moment she held his gaze, then awareness of who she was and where they were became clear from her expression and she looked away, chin up. Jack freed her hand and stood up.

      ‘Back to bed, we will need to be up in a couple of hours. You require your sleep.’

      She nodded haughtily, very much on her dignity and got up, skirting carefully around him to slide under the covers on her side. ‘Good night.’

      ‘Good night.’ He stoppered the bottle of witch hazel, grateful for the way its heavy odour blanked out the feminine scent of her, and pulled the covers up firmly over his shoulders.

      It was no part of his plans to be attracted to a woman, least of all a grand duchess. He had not thought himself so susceptible, nor so unprofessional. It was not as though he was short of feminine comfort for his physical needs—a succession of highly skilled barques of frailty made quite certain of that—for he had long since recognised that his chosen path was not one a wife could be expected to tolerate.

      Not that the examples of marital life about him had made him eager to commit himself to such a relationship, so it was not such a deprivation. His recently widowed sister, Bel, had once confided that her husband was so dull she could hardly stay awake in his presence, his father had been a serial adulterer, and his friends, one after another, appeared to be sacrificing themselves on the altar of respectability by marrying simpering misses straight from the portals of Almack’s.

      Flirting with young ladies of good breeding was boring and risked raised expectations and broken hearts. Flighty matrons and dashing widows required more emotional commitment than he was prepared to invest—which left the professionals, with whom one could at least be assured there was no hypocrisy involved.

      So why was this woman making him hard with desire? Why did he want to shelter her to an extent that went way beyond his brief to bring her back safely to England? She was hurt, anxious and vulnerable despite her efforts not to betray that and she had got under his skin in a totally unexpected way.

      It was the novelty, obviously, Jack decided, stopping himself turning over restlessly for the third time. He was unlikely to find himself on such intimate terms with a member of a royal family again, that was all it was. Satisfied he had put that anxiety to rights, he closed his eyes, willed himself to sleep, and forbade himself to dream.

      On the other side of the bolster Eva was wrestling with her emotions, her body’s reactions and her sense of decorum and duty. She had woken, roused by instinct—for she was certain Jack had made no sound—and had lain for a moment looking at the silhouette of his head and torso against the pale frame of the window. His body was a beautiful shape, the classic male outline of inverted triangle over a narrow waist, enhanced by a musculature in the peak of fitness—hard, sculpted and wickedly exciting to a woman who had lived a life of celibate respectability for over twenty months.

      Then the sleep had cleared from her mind and she forgot erotic considerations in anxiety about what he was looking at. That anxiety had carried her across the room to his side without self-consciousness, or any modest concern for how she was dressed, and no sooner had she recollected these things than she had been distracted again by the realisation that he was hurt.

      Small boys with scraped knees were a matter of routine for a mother; grown men needing bandaging and nursing were part of a wife’s duties, and somehow that had carried over into caring for her brother-in-law, and now Jack. She simply had not thought of him as anything but a body to be mended until he had looked into her eyes and held out his hand to her.

      What was he asking? What did he want? After the skill of that kiss in the alleyway she had no doubt he could make a fine attempt at seducing her, if that was what he desired. She would find him hard to resist, she acknowledged that. Eva had long since abandoned self-deception as a method of dealing with her situation in life, and she was not going to risk everything by pretending she did not know temptation when she saw it. For years she had been able to turn away flirtation, thinly veiled offers and outright attempts at seduction without the slightest quickening of her pulse rate, not a moment’s sleep lost. Now she felt as unsteady as a young girl in the throes of her first infatuation.

      Was it simply friendship she had seen in Jack’s gaze, in his outstretched hand? Or was it the first move of a skilled seducer? She could afford neither, for if friendship brought her closer to him she feared her own need would betray her, and if he was intent on seduction, then only a rigorously maintained distance and discipline would save her from herself.

      Eva closed her eyes and made herself lie patiently waiting for sleep.

      There was no virtue in remaining chaste while there was no temptation, she told herself severely. The morning would bring new resolution and greater strength, she had to believe that.

       Chapter Six

      The sound of booted feet on the floorboards brought Eva awake with a start of alarm. Sunlight was flooding through the window, morning had broken and she was still abed while pursuit could be at the door. She sat bolt upright. ‘What time is it?’ How could she have slept so soundly? ‘How are your bruises?’