Regency Rogues: Wicked Seduction. Virginia Heath

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       Chapter Nine

      Aaron had never seen quite so much magnificent hair in all of his life. Unbound, it hung all the way down to her waist in sensual, copper waves that positively glowed in the firelight as if they were burning from within like the hot embers crackling in the hearth. In places it was still slightly damp, he noticed, making some of the heavy tendrils appear almost chestnut brown in a sea of swirling red. Her skin was rosy from her bath and he found himself wondering exactly what lay beneath that chaste and proper nightgown.

      ‘What do you want?’

      Her initial smile had been replaced by a look of bewilderment. Aaron watched her eyes flick towards the cut-crystal balloon glasses he held in one hand, then to the brandy decanter he held in the other. It occurred to him that her hair and the brandy were much the same colour and both were enhanced by the firelight.

      ‘If I am trying to pretend to my father that I am impregnating you, I cannot do that from down the hall. Besides, my father will be kept informed of our nocturnal habits by the servants. You are going to have to put up with my company every evening from now on. Just to put on a convincing show, of course.’ In an attempt to divert his attention away from the alluring sight of her sat by the hearth and the embarrassing topic of the conversation, he set the two glasses on the small table near the sofa and began to pour a healthy amount of the amber liquid into them. Bizarrely, his hand shook slightly.

      ‘Yes, of course. That does make sense.’

      Aaron made the mistake of turning towards her as she slowly rose from her low position on the footstool. Fortunately, she was unaware of the fact that, with the firelight behind her, the gauzy material of the voluminous nightgown became more translucent. It no longer took his imagination to wonder what lay beneath. The dark silhouette of her lithe body was illuminated like a cameo. Aaron could make out the gentle mounds of her shadowed breasts, the trim waist and the seductive curve of her hip. His eyes moved lower, taking in the unbelievably long, shapely legs and felt his breath quicken. Unwanted images of those legs wrapped around him filled his mind and the memory of the silky feel of the skin on her thigh came back to haunt him, forcing him to take a large gulp of his brandy to cover his reaction. A little startled, he turned away from her and pretended to take in the room.

      He sensed when she came up alongside him. The fragrance of her perfume wafted under his nose, exactly the same heady fragrance he had first smelled that fateful night in the library where they had lost their heads. The sultry undertones of rose were more intoxicating than the alcohol he held clenched his hand. Quite why she was having such an effect on him, he could not say. His body had shown no interest in any woman in the better part of a year. Apart from her. That one time. But now, apparently, it had decided to reawaken. Aaron hastily sat in one of the large armchairs to disguise the fact that half of the blood in his body had suddenly just rushed to his groin.

      How inconvenient. For the sake of appearances, he would have to visit her here almost every evening for as long as was necessary to maintain the ruse. Was he now doomed to suffer through these visits in a state of complete and unwelcome arousal as well? He had promised the girl an annulment so he could hardly take her to bed. But he wanted to.

      That came as a shock. He wanted to bed his wife and he couldn’t. Fate certainly had a warped sense of humour.