The Impostor's Kiss. Tanya Crosby Anne

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СКАЧАТЬ didn’t drop the covers at once, she would witness, firsthand, the erection of a tent.

      As a matter of self-preservation, he spoke. He couldn’t keep himself from baiting her. “Enjoying the view?”

      She dropped the coverlet with a startled gasp.

      He watched as a flush crept from the valley of her breasts and then tinted her face. Her lips deepened to rose, and he wondered if they would be warm to the touch…hot and soft.

      Not for the first time, he had the overwhelming urge to kiss her.

      Recovering her composure quickly, she tossed the cloth she held over his face, as though to escape his gaze. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “You’re awake!” Though her color betrayed her, her tone was full of pique.

      “I am,” Merrick assured her, removing the cloth. He smiled disarmingly—at least he thought it should be, but she seemed entirely unaffected.

      “More’s the pity,” she lamented. “It appears not even the devil wants you, my lord.”

      Her contemptuous tone didn’t escape him.

      Grimacing, Merrick adjusted himself in the bed to give her better access. “What,” he taunted her, “no welcome-home kiss for your darling husband?” He had no idea where the question came from, only that it spilled far too easily from his lips.

      She gasped, as though offended by his quip, and took an appalled step backward. “How dare you speak to me as you would one of your strumpets! The fall must have addled your brain!”

      But she didn’t answer his real question: who was she, dammit?

      And then she added much too glibly, “I shall inform your mother that you’ve awakened, my lord—just in time for company! The constable will be quite pleased not to have to wait, after all,” she told him, and hurried to leave.

      “Rusty lied,” he said before she could abandon him. “It wasn’t a fall.”

      She stopped abruptly at the door, her curiosity piqued.

      That waist—so tiny he thought his hands could easily span it. She turned slowly to face him.

      Merrick weighed his words; he was hoping for an ally, but wasn’t certain how much to reveal. “The horse didn’t throw me,” he admitted.

      One delicate brow arched. “Really?”

      “I was, in fact, robbed,” he said.

      Both her brows lifted now. “Really!” she said again, her face suddenly losing its animosity. In truth, she appeared even hopeful.

      Merrick nodded, watching her closely. “Indeed.”

      She took a step closer. “Hawk?” she asked, and the tone of her voice was suddenly awestruck.

      Merrick stared at her, dumbfounded.

      She lived with the rotten thief and didn’t realize who he was?

      “Yes,” he said tersely, deciding that Hawk had obviously never shared his secret with his lovely wife.

      She was somebody else’s woman.

      He was struck, on the heels of that revelation, with a wave of envy as foreign to him as the bed in which he lay.

      Chrissake, when in his life had he ever envied anyone anything?

      His entire life he’d had everything at his disposal simply for the taking.

      She straightened to her full height and seemed to be assessing him. “I don’t believe you,” she declared suddenly.

      “Why not?”

      “Because.” Her expression was smug now. “You should be so fortunate to exchange mere glances with the man. You aren’t fit to wipe his boots. That you breathe the same air is a blasphemy in itself.”

      Merrick blinked at her declarations.

      Two things struck him in that instant. One, she had absolutely no notion of her connection with Hawk. And two, she didn’t seem to like her husband very much.

      In fact, he’d like to have agreed with her assessment of Lindale, but her accusations seemed somewhat more personal than they should have, considering that she wasn’t even talking about him. She was talking about Lindale—who was, in fact, Hawk. Be damned if the inanity of the situation didn’t amuse him, despite that her vehemence was directed, for the moment, squarely at him. “Is that so?” he asked her wryly.

      “Yes, of course. Hawk is everything you are not.”

      He sat, not bothering to cover his bare chest. Why trouble himself? She’d already had an eyeful.

      She gasped, and turned to go, suddenly and conveniently embarrassed by the sight of him.

      “And just what is it that I am?” he asked, baiting her. He didn’t want her to leave just yet.

      She turned to face him, lifting a hand to her face, covering her eyes as she spoke to him. The flush in her breast returned, followed by the one in her cheeks. But she didn’t cow. Her mettle brought a smile to Merrick’s lips. “I shall be most pleased to make you a list,” she told him, and then added, “After you do me the courtesy of covering yourself, my lord.”

      He ignored her request. “Make me a list, then.”

      “Are you decent?”

      More so than he’d like to be. “No.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because I warrant it’s nothing you haven’t seen numerous times before,” he told her pointedly, and waited for her to deny it.

      She parted two fingers slightly to peek through and closed them again with a soft gasp. “You are so crude!”

      “Crude?” But she didn’t deny his allegation.

      “And rude!” she added, but she didn’t turn to go, he noticed. In fact, he thought he saw her peeking again through those long, delicate fingers.

      “Go on,” he encouraged. As a test to see if she was looking, he let the coverlet drape further.

      She gasped softly and his smile deepened. “You are selfish, arrogant, spoiled, ungrateful, vulgar—shall I continue, my lord?”

      “I think I get the idea,” he relented, though with a half smile.

      “Yes, well, then…I am leaving now,” she informed him tersely. “Because I cannot bear to remain in your presence another instant, my lord!”

      “What about Hawk?” he prompted, his lips curving slightly upward when she made no move to go.

      “Hawk?” She sighed. “He, of course, is beloved, kind, compassionate, generous, charitable, noble, brave—” With every endearing adjective, she lost a note of shrewishness; her tone became even wistful.

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