Regency Romance: The Lady's Masquerade (A Historical Romance Book) (COMPLETED)

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She scowled at him. "You nearly scared the life out of me."

"Would you prefer I go the Gothic route and creep up on you in the darkness? I could wrap my arms around you from behind and whisper some dire prophecy in your ear before I disappear into the mists."

"No, I would certainly not rather you do that! And if you are going to be reading Gothics, please do not mention them around Alice. She has a vivid enough imagination without having you fill it full of ghosts and monsters."

"If I promise I won't, will you come and sit with me for a moment?"

She hesitated. He could almost see her consulting some inner catalog of proper governess behavior, and he guessed that the answer should absolutely be a no when the lord of the manor asked her in for a private audience in the middle of the night. To his surprised pleasure, she nodded and stepped into the study.

"You're wearing a wrap tonight over your shift. Did you decide that our last meeting here was too chilly?"

"I decided that I had apparently better protect my virtue when I was going to get some water in the middle of the night, yes."

Kieran laughed at her arch words. "Believe me, if I had designs on your virtue, that wrap would not be a sufficient barrier to much of anything."

Delia turned even redder, but she lifted her chin in what was certainly a very un-governess-like defiance. "I am not here to discuss virtue, Kieran. What was it you wanted?"

Kieran clutched his heart as if she had wounded him to the core. "Harsh, Delia. I suppose I just wanted to ask after you to see how you are doing. You have been at this posting for some few weeks now. Is it what you were hoping it would be?"

Delia hesitated. At that moment, he felt from her a kind of reticence, a kind of inward thought that felt oddly clouded to him. It could simply be a servant's reluctance to speak truthfully to her master, but he wondered if that was all there was.

"It is... surprisingly good. I feel as if I fit here at Brixby Hall, and I did not expect that. Alice is charming and surely the sweetest child I have ever had the opportunity to teach."

"But still something troubles you?"

She lifted her head, her gray eyes flashing to silver behind her spectacles. "The only thing that troubles me is this."

"This?"

"You and me. Like this. Surely, this is closer than a servant and her lord should be."

"And yet you came into my study of your own free will, didn't you?"

He had no idea what he would do if she said no, die of shame most likely.

Instead, she lowered her eyes.

"I did."

Kieran laid his port aside and leaned back against his desk, his long legs spread in front of him and braced on the floor. "Will you come here, Delia?"

At that moment, he would wager Brixby Hall itself that there was no coercion there. Delia came of her own free will, and when she hesitated just a little beyond him, he gestured her closer until she was standing between his legs.

"If you need me to stop, tell me so. But Delia, until you do, I will not."

She opened her mouth, perhaps to protest, perhaps to question, but then she was pulled against his body, her hands coming up to his shoulders to pull him closer, her head thrown back.

She might have been wearing a wrap, but he could feel her warmth right through the fabric, as warm and soft as a summer night, and he had no idea where they might stop if she didn't halt things. All that mattered was the sweetness of her lips, the softness of her body, the quiet and incredibly needy sounds she made as she pressed against him for more.

There were no words there, nothing necessary beyond their mouths so hungry for each other. Delia made a soft sound as his mouth moved from hers to the point of her jaw and then to the soft tender skin of her throat. Kieran pressed his lips against the vein there that throbbed with life and heat.

She's so beautiful. So perfectly alive and here with me.

The thought sent a kind of warmth through him that had absolutely nothing to do with the sensuality of the moment.

Delia made a soft broken sound that seemed to go straight through him, but instead of pulling away as he thought she might, she pressed closer. He knew that she could feel the arousal of his body now, feel how much he wanted her, how much he needed her, but at the bottom of it all, there was this incredible feeling of care and sweetness.

It wasn't until his mouth pulled from her throat, seeking the sensitive skin of her ear, that Delia gasped. She pulled back, and when she looked up at him, her eyes were wide.

"Delia..."

"We cannot do this. We should not do this."

Kieran knew he had said he would let her go if she asked to be released, but there was something in her voice that made him pause.

"Do you want me?"

Her eyes were stormy. "Of course, I do. But this cannot be. This will not be. I am going to my room now."

She turned on her heel and walked away, closing the door behind her with a final click.

Kieran let out a breath and a curse.

She was right. He knew she was right. That fact did not lessen the pain of it, however, nor did it quiet the passion that roared through him, wanting nothing more than Delia next to him again, so close to him that it seemed as if they must become one.

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