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Riverdale and King were sharing a look that suggested they didn’t believe a thing Rhys said.

Before he could tell either of them to go to the devil, the door to the salon opened and Richford stalked over the threshold, resembling nothing so much as a thundercloud brazening his way across an otherwise faultless blue sky.

“Is something wrong?” he bit out.

Clearly, his mood had not improved since the day before. Rhys found himself wondering whatever or whoever it was that had Richford in such high dudgeon. But that discovery would have to wait.

“We’re going to beat Lord Roberts to a pulp and then send him out of here,” he informed his friend. “He threatened a woman in the gardens last night.”

Richford nodded. “I never did like him.”

King grinned. “If there is one thing I can approve of before half past ten, it’s spilling the blood of arseholes.”

The four of them set off in search of the unfortunate Lord Roberts.

The hour was late by the time Miranda returned to her bedchamber that evening.

Intentionally so.

She had kept herself from the temptation of Rhys by throwing herself headlong into dinner’s intricate dessert preparations.

Of course, keeping her hands busy had not prevented her mind from wandering inevitably to thoughts of him.

To thoughts of what had happened between them the night before, and thoughts of what must never, ever happen again.

With a heavy sigh, she stepped over the threshold into her darkened chamber. As they had the night before, her feet and back ached. She had spent a great many hours in her preparations for the delicate mushrooms she had created.

The door closed at her back, and she found herself grateful for a low light that Green must have kept lit for her. But when she noticed a male form sitting in the shadows by the hearth, she let out a squeal of alarm. Until recognition hit her in the next moment.

“Hush.” Rhys was on his feet, moving toward her. “It’s only me, darling.”

“Oh, heavens.” She pressed a hand over her pounding heart. “You gave me a fright.”

He reached her, and she noted he was dressed formally, as if he had fled dinner to be here with her. “Forgive me. That wasn’t my intention.”

Goodness, he was handsome. She knew he was, of course, as surely as she knew the sky was blue.

And yet, it seemed that each time she saw him, whether in shadows or moonlight, by dawn or full sun, she took note of new facets, rather like a terrain she was learning day by day.

The strength of his jaw, the sharpness of his cheekbones, the stubborn tilt of his sensual lips, the golden lashes framing his stormy eyes, the hues of amber glinting in his hair, the breadth of his chest, the strength of his shoulders.

Her reaction to him was infallibly visceral, potent as a warm embrace or a knowing kiss.

She wanted him here in her territory, in her private space, the same way she wanted him inside her again.

But despite those irreverent yearnings, her rational mind was aware of the consequences should she simply fling herself into his arms and bed yet again.

He could not be here. He should not be here.

And she should not want him.

Miranda forced her countenance into stern admonishment. “You are forgiven for startling me, but not for your presence in my bedchamber. What are you doing here?”

He raised a brow, near enough to touch, to be perilous to her ability to resist him. “Waiting for you.”

He said it as if his presence were obvious, as if she ought to have expected him to be awaiting her on a chair by the hearth in the dim recesses of her bedroom. Something deep within, something forbidden and sinful, sparked into a flame that no amount of reason could douse.

“Why?” she asked, locking her hands together at her waist in a pose that was meant to mimic that of her most fearsome girlhood governess, Miss Biddle.

In truth, she braided her fingers to keep from reaching for him.

To keep from cupping his face in her hands and testing the prickle of his gilt stubble on her palms. He was more intoxicating than any wine she had ever consumed.

She longed to bask in him. To savor him.

To seduce him and make her mark upon him just as surely as he had done to her.

“Because I have yet to see you all day,” he said, reaching for her linked hands and folding them in his.

“That seems a woefully insufficient reason.” She swallowed hard as he lifted her hands to his lips to skate warm, affectionate kisses over her reddened knuckles.

She winced when his mouth discovered a particularly painful patch of raw skin.

He took note and froze, lifting his head, a ferocious frown replacing the tenderness that had just been lining his face. “Are you hurt?”

“It is nothing,” she insisted, for she had injured herself in many kitchens. Cookery was, at its worst, grueling, dirty, dangerous work.

“Your reaction suggests otherwise,” he told her grimly, releasing her hands and taking her lightly by the arm instead. “Come.”

She knew where he was guiding her, of course. Across the chamber to the door connecting their rooms, like Hades leading Persephone to the underworld.

Miranda dug in her heels, forcing him to stop. “No.”

He huffed out an irritated sigh. “Miranda.”

She stood firm. “Not in your bedchamber. As I said, it is nothing. A commonplace burn.”

The wrong thing to say, she realized as he continued hauling her across the Axminster.

“You’ve been burned? By God, who is responsible for this? I’ll hang him by his ballocks.”

Her tired feet rushed after him, her sensible boots pinching her toes and rubbing her heels. All at once, her entire body felt as if it were aflame, and not just from lust, but from weariness and pain. She hadn’t the energy to fight him. Perhaps not even the will.

His bedroom was lit with blazing gas lamps, and she blinked at the sudden change as he pulled her into the light. “Tell me, damn it.” He held her hands in his oh-so gently, his head bowed over as if in prayer. “Which irresponsible wretch burned you?”

“I did,” she admitted. “I spilled boiled sugar over my hand when I was constructing the nougat paste baskets. I ought to have taken greater care, but I was in a hurry. I had a great many baskets to make, and I feared they would be lacking in the proper time to set.”

“My God, kitten. This looks as if it hurts dreadfully.”

The concern in his voice and touch reached a part of her she hadn’t thought existed any longer, and she found herself blinking furiously to keep the unwanted tears pricking her eyes from falling. Not tears of pain, but tears that were far more humiliating. Tears because he cared.

She cleared her throat, willing the unwanted emotion away. “I have experienced far worse.”

“Let me wash your hands. I have some ointment my valet keeps on hand for the rare occasions when he knicks my jaw with his razor. A feat which he loves to assure me only occurs when I stubbornly insist upon talking whilst he attempts to shave me.”

The wry humor in his voice softened the resistance within her. “Do you?”

“I am a man of endless wisdom,” he said. “I have a great many things to impart. Why must I be stopped by a mere shave?”

His bombastic proclamation won a reluctant laugh from her.

The man was deadly when he chose to be charming.

Look at how easily he had lured her into his lair, and now she was allowing him to lead her to a pitcher and basin on the opposite end of the room despite her insistence that the burn was a minor one.

“You needn’t tend to me,” she protested lightly, though in truth, she liked his touch. His concern too.

It made her feel… things .

Complicated, wondrous, utterly stupid things.

Things she would be better never, ever feeling, especially not for a dazzling rakehell like the Duke of Whitby, who presided over a licentious club and hosted orgies without a hint of contrition.

“On the contrary, I fear I must.” He guided her injured hand over the basin and, lifting the pitcher, sluiced cool, clean water over it.

She hissed in a breath as the water washed over the burn. The cook had wished to treat it with butter, but she had refused, knowing from experience that an application of butter only served to make burns worse.

“I’m sorry, darling,” he said softly, lathering soap on a small cloth before gently dabbing at her burn. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know.” She forced a smile, still struggling with the new and unwanted emotions churning through her. “But truly, I have experienced far worse, and I shall again.”

He rinsed the suds from her skin with care. “Why do you toil like this? You make the finest creations I’ve ever tasted, but surely not even your divine confections are sufficient reason for subjecting yourself to injury.”

She was grateful for the root of his concern, which was for her and her welfare, not for the fact that her culinary aspirations were beneath her station.

Ammondale had been disgusted by her “propensity toward being a servant,” as he had so disdainfully phrased her dream of running her own cookery school.

“Because I enjoy it,” she explained, permitting Rhys to delicately towel her hand dry.

“I’ve always been entranced by the art of cookery, for as long as I can remember.

When I was a girl, I would steal into the kitchens and watch our cook, Mrs. Simpson, begging her to share her recipes with me.

My nursemaid didn’t mind having one less child to look after, so she never breathed a word of where I spent so much time.

But as I grew older and had a governess, she told my mother where I was.

My mother was horrified that any daughter of hers should have spent so much time in the kitchens, a place that, in her mind, belonged to servants alone. ”