He made a soothing noise and palmed her thigh, up and over her backside, finding the slit in her drawers from behind, and help, he was touching her. He was touching her there, with slick, knowing fingertips . . . It had only been minutes since the corridor; how could it come to this within minutes? Because they had been needing it for weeks. He stroked harder, and she melted around him as bliss curled through her, curled her toes . . . A finger slid inside her, and her spine arched as she gave a little cry.

They weren’t equal in this at all—he was leading her headlong into frantic oblivion.

Trapped between his thigh and his sliding fingers, devastating pleasure gathered and knotted, and she gripped his arm to stay him, but his muscles flexed so wonderfully as he was pleasuring her, steadily, relentlessly, the tension burst in a white-hot blaze, pulsing in her lips, her toes, her fingertips. Her next cry was muffled against his shoulder, Montgomery’s other hand clasping the back of her head.

She clung to him, her knees like water, the sound of her breathing a roar in her ears.

The fine wool of his coat was rough against her cheek.

He withdrew from her gently.

Behind closed eyelids, white dots flashed and faded like stars.

The haze cleared when his foot pushed at her instep. He was widening her stance, making a space for himself. His hand moved between them, and she knew then that he was working on the fastenings of his trousers.

He wanted her. Right here, standing up against the door.

Her fingers clenched in his shirt. “I . . . I don’t . . .”

Oh, she did. And then she didn’t. She couldn’t. This hadn’t been the plan—there had been no plan.

His hand stilled. “You wish to stop?” He sounded fairly calm, for a man aching to take his pleasure.

Help. She had recklessly unleashed him, and now female instincts battled, the urge to assuage his need, and deeper fears, and then, the obvious—to not look like a complete trollop.

“I can’t,” she whispered, the beginnings of a panic washing over her. “Not . . . like this.”

Not up against a door. Not in any location, had she been thinking at all.

Montgomery’s chest tensed beneath her palms. “Of course,” he murmured. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” A frisson of foreboding raised the hair on her nape.

“I will have put everything in writing, whatever your terms,” he said. “You have my word.”

Terms?

He made to kiss her again. Something in her expression stopped him. He eased back, adjusting the front of his trousers, his lips twisting with discomfort. “Well, I won’t get a hold of my solicitor now,” he said.

Her blood ran cold. So she had understood him right. He thought she wanted to negotiate an arrangement.

“You thought I meant to negotiate an arrangement,” she said out loud.

He frowned at the flat tone of her voice. “You did not?”

He was still breathing hard. He looked oddly boyish, with his cravat rumpled and his hair mussed from her greedy hands, and God knew what she looked like.

Who would try to talk terms on the brink of lovemaking, when a man was half crazed and prone to promise anything? A calculating courtesan, that’s who.

Nausea welled in her stomach.

“And you’d sign whatever my terms?” she heard herself say. “How about a yacht, Your Grace?”

He tilted his head. “If you need one.”

She gave a small, ugly laugh.

He had not seen her at all.

Never mind their talks and walks and breathless kisses, all along, he had clearly never stopped thinking of her as a woman who’d bargain her favors for money. He’d have hardly propositioned a respectable woman for a knee-trembler in his library in the first place.

She smoothed her hands over her skirts. “I told you that I wasn’t in the market for such a thing.”

There was a pause. When he spoke next, his voice was cool. “What do you want, Annabelle?”

You.

At some point, she must have begun feeling, wanting, impossible things. “I don’t want to be your mistress.”

His eyes raked over her, his incredulity palpable, and she knew what he saw, a disheveled female who had brazenly put her hand on his cock.

Her heart crumpled. She felt naked, and utterly foolish.

She was as deluded and impulsive at twenty-and-five as when she’d been a girl.

She turned abruptly and felt for the key in the door lock.

A beat later, he was behind her, his hand staying her frantic efforts.

“Annabelle.”

She shook her head.

“I feel I have offended you, which was never my intention,” he said.

“Please,” she said, “I gave you the wrong impression, which I regret. But I won’t be your mistress. I won’t.”

He hesitated, for two heartbeats, perhaps three. Then his hand fell away and he stepped back, taking the warmth of his body with him. “As you wish.”

His tone was formal. Impersonal, even. Not unlike how he had sounded during their very first meeting in this library.

She unlocked the door and hurried into the night. From afar, she heard the pops and explosions of yet another firework display she didn’t see.

Chapter 19

Dawn had barely dragged itself over the horizon, but the coach to his weekly London appointment was ready for departure.

Sebastian halted in the entrance hall halfway to the doors. “Bonville,” he barked.

The man seemed to materialize from thin air. “Your Grace?”

“Something is wrong with the lighting.”

The butler cast a quick assessing glance around, at the plaster work above, the chandelier, the French seating arrangement before the fireplace, and a touch of panic rose in his eyes. Clearly, Bonville did not find anything wrong with the lighting situation.

“The lamps,” Sebastian said impatiently, starting for the entrance again. “They seem to have dimmed. I reckon the circuit has been overburdened during the house party.”

Granted. It was a subtle thing, but it made the house feel unacceptably dull.

Bonville was all business now. “I will have the gas specialists called in to examine the pipes and every single bulb, Your Grace.”

Sebastian gave a curt nod.

The footmen swung open the double doors for him, and a blast of cold morning air made his eyes water. He briskly stamped down the slippery stairs to the carriage. The light cover of snow that had made Claremont look pristine and enchanted had turned into sludge during the past couple of days. Not that it mattered. The weather was always the same in his study.

London was slowly but steadily soaked by gray drizzle. By the time he entered Buckingham Palace, his leather shoes were glistening wet despite the black umbrella hovering above him.

He did not expect a warm welcome in the royal apartment today. Neither the queen nor Disraeli would be keen on his latest recommendations. He’d push his strategy through regardless. He just knew when a plan was right, like his farmers had a sixth sense for how the weather would change. What niggled at the back of his mind as he took his seat was whether Victoria already knew that his heir presumptive had absconded. That would open a can of worms he’d prefer to keep firmly closed.

The queen and the prime minister sat in their usual spots, she in her thronelike armchair by the window, he right next to the fireplace, as if he suffered from a perpetual chill. Sebastian’s briefing was laid out neatly on the low table.

The queen’s eyes were as opaque as her onyx earbobs. “I was very pleased to hear that your New Year’s Eve party was a success,” she said.