Delectably Undone! Read Online Free PDF

at his elegant evening clothes. “You must be.”
    He shrugged. “There’s a ball later. It won’t signify if I’m late.”
    She forced back the whirling panic. There had to be a way out of this, if she could only think of it. Somehow she had miscalculated. He was angry. Angry with Lionel for supposedly leaving her here alone too much…. She let out a breath.
    “Very well. I’ll…I’ll need to leave a note so he doesn’t worry.”
    Evelyn bit back the obvious retort; that if Lionel was worried about her he wouldn’t have rented rooms in this area, let alone left her unguarded in them. God! If he had ignored Lionel’s request for the commission… His gut churned.
    “Good idea,” he said.
    It had to be safer to take her out. If they remained here alone… His body hardened. Six years had not quenched his desire for Loveday Trehearne. Once, he had taken advantage of her innocence. She should hate him for that, yet it appeared she was still vulnerable to him.
    He watched as she hurried around, found a scrap of drawing paper and wrote a brief note. Despite her assurances, he couldn’t rid himself of the idea that there was something wrong between Loveday and Lionel. Something was eating at her. In the growing gloom she looked pale, hesitating over the note, as though choosing her words carefully. Her gaze skittered to his face, then she wrote hastily and propped the paper against a candle near the tinder box.
    “It’s easy to see there,” she said, her gaze not quite meeting his.
    “Very easy. Are you ready?”
    She bit her lip. “Is there time for me to change?”
    He swallowed. “Of course.” There was probably time for him to go insane, too. He repressed the instinct to follow as she vanished behind a curtain into the other room.
    He tried to ignore the soft, intimate sounds that spoke of a woman undressing, the trickle of water, the faint splashing that told him she was washing. His imagination painted the images for him: Loveday in her chemise, naked; the washcloth caressing her pale, delicate curves, stroking over her breasts; cool water peaking the dusky pink nipples. He remembered their satin softness, remembered their taste…the sweet scent of apple and cinnamon that had always been a part of her…
    The memories flooded him, dissolving the years…Loveday, shy before him in her stays and shift. Her skin like peach silk under his touch, flushed to rose in the lamplight. Loveday, naked in his arms, so sweet and generous. And his. All his, yielded beneath him. A madness he regretted more than he could say. All very well to assure himself that he would have stopped if she had asked. She shouldn’t have needed to ask; he should have damn well stopped, anyway. Better, he should never have let it start. Instead, selfishness had won. Even now he remembered her soft cry spilling into his mouth, her body stiffening in shock….
    His foot caught against a painting, sending it clattering to the floor. Shaken, he realized that he had taken several steps toward the curtain dividing them.
    “Evelyn? Is something wrong?”
    Blood pounding, he forced himself to stop. “It’s nothing. Caught my foot.”
    No matter how much he wanted to, he wasn’t going to seduce Loveday again. He breathed deeply, trying to steady his hammering pulse and shaking hands. He turned his back on the useless blasted curtain and let out a pent-up breath. His gaze fell on the note against the candlestick.
    He strode over and picked it up:
    Evelyn came by to collect the paintings. I have gone out for a meal with him. I won’t be late. L.
    Brief. To the point. And so unlike the way she would have once written to Lionel. Lionel, who had once savagely demanded to know what Evelyn’s intentions were toward Loveday. He remembered with shame his wordless reaction, his shock at the thought of marrying so far beneath him, his horror at the thought of his family’s likely response…. Lionel had read his answer in his face, dropped him with