Page 40 of The Lady is Trouble

“Myknowledge.” He expelled a sound somewhere between a laugh and groan. “Like we’re beside the stream on the earl’s estate, discussing essays from one of my textbooks. How do you even—” He flinched, and her stocking slipped from its cradle in his palm. She wondered what vision the thin wisp of silk had pushed into his mind.

“One of your textbooks,” she repeated, the memory of those days distressing when she considered how much had changed. “What chapter?”

His eyes when they met hers shimmered like a rainy mist just before dawn. His hair was longer than she’d ever seen it, dusting his collar in dark twists. And his face…

At this moment, sheloathedthat she found him so beautiful.

“Chapter?” he asked.

Jealousy scorched a white-hot hole through her belly. “You completed the entire book with Lady Coswell. What chapter did we make it to?”

He went back to his study of her stockings. “I’m as likely to answer that as I am to grab a lit fuse and shove it between my teeth.”

She wrenched the door open and slammed it behind her. It was only when she was to the cart, blasting by a disconcerted Humphrey and a wide-eyed Minnie, that she realized she’d left her boots on Julian’s paint-splattered floor and her stockings like a shamefaced witness in his hand.

Chapter 11

Who walks the fastest, but walks astray, is only furthest from his way.

~Matthew Prior

Julian traversedthe uneven footpath leading to the stables, the saddlebag in his hand a sound reminder of his imprudence. His mood was foul, best left to fester alone, although Henry trailed at his heel, sensing his master needed him most this day—the morning after Julian had made a grievous error in judgment and turned his world, his soul, upside down.

The wildflowers edging the trail brought his disposition even lower because he knew Piper would have taken joy in the sight. Joy in the crisp scent of pollen and earth riding the air.

Joy ineverything.

He shoved the stable door aside with a grunt, his shoulder wound stretching to an intolerably painful degree.

The stitches were as uneven as expected.

And the scar was never going away, a Piper Scott brand burned in his flesh.

As if his fevered dreams since that kiss on her nineteenth birthday had not been enough, he’d decided making love to her on the floor of his art studio might better the situation.

Bloody, bloody hell.

If only his disgrace would jettison the memory of her teeth marking his neck, her sigh of pleasure as he finally touched her as he’d yearned to. When he’d lowered his body to hers, her eyes had gone this extraordinary bottle-green, blurred and wispy around the edges, just as they would, he imagined, if he slid inside her.

She was an angel in his arms and a determined, independent fury out of them.

With a curse, he tossed the saddlebag to the floor. He was angry that she’d chosen to bring him back from the otherworld in such a manner, but mostly, he was angry with himself for wanting her so desperately.

And for so long.

At its base, greater need than any he had known existed. A primal compulsion to ease his hunger was his only excuse.

He was just a simple, stupid man, after all.

Besides, she’d goaded him. Teasing touches, the daring glint in her eyes. As if he needed encouragement to misbehave. He’d misbehaved with any number of women, and it had not mattered one whit, which Piper had pointed out as bluntly as a man.

As if anything he’d experienced without her compared to anything he’d experiencedwith.

Pipermeantsomething.

No easy tangling of limbs, this situation.

If he were honest with himself, he’d been fascinated from the start. In his book, no matter the page, Piper was penciled in the margins.