Page 126 of For a Scot's Heart Only

Moonlight splashed Thomas. He was stark shades of light and dark.

“You said earlier, no secrets.” She stalled, her mouth open until she forced herself to finish. “After you fellasleep in the Red Rose room, I went to Ranleigh’s house.”

“To meet him?”

“No. To look for the last of the Jacobite gold.” Buttons and cloth felt loose in her hands while she gave her awkward confessional. “We’re trying to purchase a small herd of sheep—Cheviots, excellent wool, sturdy creatures,” she murmured.

“You are a woman of many talents.”

“Not really. Ranleigh was there. It was a trap and I walked right into it.”

Thomas watched her. It was getting harder to breathe even though he was being quite reasonable as though men and women throughout the realm carried on sensible conversations about treasure and sheep and dark lords.

“We don’t have to talk about him,” Thomas said.

“We must.” She slipped the waistcoat off his shoulders, her gaze glued to his chest. “He asked me to work for him.”

Thomas put firm hands on her shoulders. His eyes were anvil-hard.

“To do what?”

“Spying, I think.”

Thomas’s hands dropped from her shoulders, his relief palpable. “Because you’re smart. And you’re beautiful. You could be anywhere and do anything. It’s very possible that you could snag a baron and become a baroness. But you’re here with me.”

“You’re infinitely better,” she said in a rush. “Better than any man I’ve ever met.”

Thomas reached up and freed a pin from her hair and a curl flopped in her side vision. He smiled.

“You just like me because of my cat.”

His spoonful of humor was perfect. What followed was intimate and dear. Lovely Mr. Fisk. She hoped the cat found a cozy spot to sleep.

She climbed into bed with Thomas, drifting in and out of conversation. He closed the bed curtains and rubbed her soreness from standing at her worktable all day. His talented hands massaged her calves and skimmed the backs of her knees. Her shift’s hem climbed higher. To her thighs, her hips, her navel. Thomas kissed the small dip in the middle of her belly, and he kissed the small dip at the base of her neck.

And he kissed and he kissed and he kissed, finding astonishing places to put his mouth.

She explored the texture of his skin. His crinkling masculine hairs, the slope of muscles, the abrupt lines of scars. He’d led a hard life. She had too. But this, their connection, ran deeper than the seas. There was an alchemy to it. No conjurer could explain it. For once in her practical workaday life, she’d let it be. No thinking, no wondering.

Her bed became a storm of sheets and bodies. Cloth twisting, kisses burning, fingers seeking. A slow discovery. An indolent pleasure. Conversation dwindled to grunts and cries. Tears pricked her eyes privately. This was giving and taking in perfect measure.

Nothing could break this. Nothing at all.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Morning with Thomas and Mr. Fisk was a quiet affair. She’d bathed behind her screen; Thomas had bathed naked by her washstand. It was startling, coming out from her screen and finding a man splashing water on his body, his bare feet shifting from the cold. They’d forgotten to tend the fire before slipping into bed.

“I could heat some water for you.”

He grinned and lathered soap to shave with. “No, thanks. Chilly water wakes me up. Reminds me I’m alive.”

She eyed her rumpled bed. “After last night, I feel plenty alive.”

Which was the kind of quip Cecelia would say. While making the bed, she felt new kinship for the woman. A shirtless Thomas could make a woman forget where she was going. Little tufts of brown hair encircled his nipples. Taut skin covered slabs of muscle on his back. He was breathtaking in daylight, scraping a blade over his jaw. He flashed a smile in the mirror. She smiled back, fluffing a pillow, and almost clunked her head on a bedpost.

Mr. Fisk favored the new arrangement. He jumped up on the freshly smoothed counterpane and licked his paw. He purred when she came round and petted him.

She wanted to bottle this contentment.