She woke up nicely. Her hands were in his hair now, pulling him down to her. But she hadn't answered, so he said it again, "Was that your first time?" Then he started kissing down the line of her collarbone, heading to the next step.

"For goodness sake," she said, sounding like she was about to laugh, "of course it wasn't, you dunce. Now come here."

And just like that, before Rafe could even wrap his mind around the fact that Draven apparently had had a trick or two up his sleeve, she had him rolled on his back and all that luscious black hair was stroking his body like fire… or maybe it was a sweet tongue.

He tried to pull her up, but she pushed him down and what she was doing felt so good…

"What are you doing?"

"I'm tasting you," she said. "Like all those other bold women you've been with. And Gabriel… You taste good."

He should tell her that bold women were usually only so bold, and that this particular sort of generosity was usually paid for, but he couldn't find the words, and she was saying breathy little things that were enormously flattering, and all of which he saved up so that he could work out a very nice comparison of himself and Mait-land later.

At the moment, she'd trailed her mouth all the way below his belly, and she wasn't showing any signs of revulsion, but playing with him instead, so much that his hips member that he was a man who never, ever lost control. Even when drinking. Why he'd been drunk as a wheelbarrow and still kept plowing ahead until the woman he was with found satisfaction. He'd never embarrassed himself—

But perhaps there are women who are more potent than whiskey.

It's a powerful lesson, one designed to put a man like the Duke of Holbrook in his place.

Because Imogen was playing with him, touching him, and then all of a sudden a warm, wet mouth came on him. And it wasn't some lady of night, but Imogen… touching him, looking at him with those beautiful eyes, touching him, her hair wild and her eyes wilder, and—

There are some women who are more powerful than whiskey, more potent than wine, who take a man's self-control and shred it to the winds.

Chapter 28

In Which Delicate Decisions to Do With Class are Made

Loretta arrived in the evening at the back door of Holbrook Court, because that's where the hackney driver left her. It was a big house, bigger than a house had the right to be, and Loretta had to say that she didn't like the way there was nothing on either side. It looked naked, really, without other houses up against its walls. She left her trunk where it was in the dust and walked up to the back step. Even the door was a great deal grander than anything Jack Hawes and his daughter had ever walked through before. She had a moment's qualm when it swung open and a footman stood there, dressed in a fancy costume with some braid, as fine as the cap-tain's uniform that Blackbeard wore in that play written by a lady, the one she acted in last year.

But then she remembered that she was an actress, and all an actress ever needed was a role. Pretty Patsy would do. Pretty Patsy was the village maid who married a footman in The Loving Thief. It was a deplorably old-fashioned play, but a useful little role. She smiled up at the footman with Pretty Patsy's dimples. "Good evening. I'm here to see the Duke of Holbrook."

His eyebrows shot up so fast it was a wonder they stayed on his face. "Oh, so you wish to see the duke, do you?" he said. "And where are you from, then?"

Loretta wasn't worried anymore. "I'm nothing more than a maid from Larding," she said, dimpling at him and only just stopping herself from uttering Patsy's next line: "If you'll excuse me from begging your pardon."

He frowned again, and said, "Oh, that's what it's all about, is it? Follow me, miss."

Loretta sighed. Of course, the country was full of people who hadn't seen a play in a long time, perhaps even in months. But given that the The Loving Thief played for eighteen weeks—Loretta saw it fourteen times herself—she could have expected he would catch a line from it.

A moment later she found herself before a sturdy-looking individual who looked precisely like Harry Keysar when he was decked out as the butler of Buckingham Palace, and sure enough, that was precisely what this man was. Mr. Brinkley, butler of Holbrook Court.

It took a while to get everything straightened out, as the footman had formed the opinion that she had come to take the place of one of the upstairs maids, who had apparently left in disgrace after stealing two silver spoons, but finally Loretta made it known that she was a guest of the duke.

Then Mr. Brinkley said that he'd heard something of an actress coming to help with the play and went to ask what to do with her.

When he returned, Loretta was cozily seated at the kitchen table with all the kitchen staff gathered around her. "And then the horses smelled all those sheepskins," she was saying. "All four of the horses threw up their heads and took off running. The driver fell between the horses and the coach…"

The cook, Mrs. Redfern, gave a great sigh and crossed herself hastily. "Dead, I'll warrant."

"Dead," Loretta agreed, her curls bobbing. "The coach hit a post. There were two outside and five inside passengers."

"All dead?" Mrs. Redfern cried.

"You weren't one of them, were you, miss?" cried one of the upstairs maids.

"No, indeed, or I wouldn't be here to tell you about it," Loretta said. "But I saw it happen. There was only one woman on the mail at all, and that was a Miss Pipps."

"What happened to her?" the maid cried with fearful pleasure.

"Well, when they took her out of the carriage, she threw her hand up to her head like this." Loretta sprang to her feet and threw her hand across her forehead.

"Then she sank down to her knees." Loretta sank, slowly and with trembling emphasis.

"And then she died, didn't she?" Mrs. Redfern said. Even Mr. Brinkley, who'd missed the first part of the story, was waiting to hear.

"She cried to her mother," Loretta said, looking up at the ceiling. " 'Mama, take me to your breast, Mama.' " The quiver in her voice made Mrs. Redfern suddenly start blinking rapidly.

"And she was dead," the footman said.

"Actually, she lingered twelve hours," Loretta said, briskly getting to her feet.

"The good Lord decides these things," Mrs. Redfern said heavily. "When it's time to go, it's time to go."

" 'Tis I who will decide about your time, if you don't go about your chores," Mr. Brinkley told an upstairs maid, who was looking agreeably terrified. "You know that Lady Griselda will be wanting a fresh cup of tea."

He sat down at the table. "Now, young lady, we must decide what to do with you. In the old days, that would be the days of the duchess as was, the actors stayed in the house proper, if you follow me."

Loretta didn't, but she nodded anyway.

"Anyone can tell that you're a true actress," Mrs. Redfern put in. She sat down just next to Loretta. "Mr. Brinkley, she doesn't belong in the house proper. Miss Loretta—if you'll forgive me taking the liberty—should stay here with us."

Loretta nodded.

"Don't you have ambitions to stay in the house proper?" Mr. Brinkley said, watching her so closely that he could have been a constable sniffing out one of her pa's schemes.