Cards shifted from table to hands, hands to table. His stockings came off, then his kerchief came from his pocket, followed by his watch.

She studied the timepiece on the table.

“You are not playing fairly, my lord. What shall it be next, a snuffbox?”

“A dinna tak snuff.” Perhaps she only wished to make a fool of him, but her eyes remained lit, her beautiful lips irrepressibly twitching. “Yer fixing to have me in ma drawers and ye still laced up tight, aren’t ye?’

“I am not fixing anything. I am simply playing cards and you are losing.”

“A’ve been letting ye win, lass.”

“I doubt it.”

“Deal the cards.”

He won the jewels in her ears. Watching her remove them was like watching art at its creation, the tilt of her fine jaw, the ivory curve of her throat, the deft movement of her graceful fingers. She laid the ear bobs on the table.

“You have had your impressive sequence, my lord. But no more.” She spoke with only a hint of unevenness in her voice, but she did not now meet his gaze.

Her shoes and shawl went next. He could see no more of her than before, but as she discarded each item her cheeks grew pinker, her hands less steady.

“My trick,” he murmured, setting down a king to stop her run of hearts.

“Hm. I should ask you to look away, but that seems absurdly prim given the circumstances.”

Leam averted his gaze.

A minute later she said, “All right.”

On the pile of shoes and shawl rested a pair of stockings. Of fine woven wool and modest hue, they seemed suitable for traveling. Leam had seen silk stockings thin as water; he had removed them from feminine legs they had barely covered. But these practical scraps of fabric did to him what no stockings on or off a woman had before.

Beneath Kitty Savege’s skirts, her legs were now bared.

He must have those skirts.

He set to his strategy afresh.

She won his coat. As he pulled it off and laid it aside, she took a quick, deep breath.

“I told you I would win.” Her sweet voice had lost all smoothness. “You mustn’t play against opponents you do not know, Lord Blackwood. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that before?”

“Whit if A want ye tae win, lass?”

“You don’t.”

He didn’t. And he did. He could see the same in her eyes, reluctance yet eagerness. The day had felt like an eternity, the evening endless waiting. But her slightly hesitant surrender now was undoing him like nothing ever had. The mix of innocence and confidence intoxicated. Entranced. Watching her was to witness the most elegant of carriages slowly, surely crash of its own will, as though crashing were to be desired.

“Nine,” she said. “You cannot have better. Your waistcoat, my lord?”

He removed it. She stared. Leam locked his grip around the chair arm, holding himself in his seat.

How she finally won the hand with her gaze glued to his shirtfront he hadn’t any idea, unless it was that he wasn’t looking at his cards at all any longer. Her thundercloud eyes widened yet further as he unbuttoned the linen and tugged it off.

Her face snapped away. Her knuckles and fingertips showed white about the cards. His heart beat so hard he suspected she might see the flinching of flesh. But since she now seemed to be studying the waning fire across the chamber with great interest, he did nothing to hide. The cool air slipped over his shoulders. He leaned back in the chair and took up the cards to shuffle.

“I daresay this is not a very wise idea.” Her words were breathless. “What with Lady Emily and the gentlemen just upstairs, and Mr. and Mrs. Milch only on the other side of the kitchen.”

It was not wise for many more reasons than that. It hadn’t been since they’d started this.

“They’re all abed, lass. But if ye’ve had eneuch o cards…”

Finally she turned to him, and her eyes were clouds of confusion. Her gaze slipped across his chest and he felt it as though she touched him. He wanted to feel her hands on him. He must feel her hands on him.

“My lord,” she whispered, “I believe it is your deal.”

Chapter 10

He dealt, his hands not entirely steady, but her gaze was as skittish as a filly’s. Idiot that he was, when the set presented itself, Leam could not lay it down.

“My lord, you hold an ace.”

“Be ye shuir, lass?”

“Fairly. But—” She blinked rapidly several times.

“But?”

“But if you lead the trick as I imagine you will now, I shall be at something of a loss.”

“Aye.”

“I don’t mean the gown, which I have already told you I intend to recover.” Her cheeks were afire.

“I mean that I cannot remove it by myself. A number of the buttons are beyond my reach.”

Leam laid down an ace, followed by a king, queen, jack, and ten. She had nothing to suffice.

“My concentration is somewhat off,” she mumbled. She stood and turned her back to him.

Leam was glued to the chair.

She glanced over her shoulder, slender brows arched. “I will not renege. I haven’t the courage for it.” The words seemed to slip from her lips like water and her shoulders dipped as though she released a sigh. She smiled, a smile of girlish delight and simple pleasure.

Great God in heaven, what was he doing?

He stood and moved to her.

Her hair, pinned into a thick satin twist, draped just above the gown’s neckline. Leam set his fingertips to the tantalizing arc of pale skin at the base of her head, a silken pulse resonating beneath, and allowed the thick tresses to lean heavy upon his palm.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“First things first.” He released one gem-studded comb, then another. Her shining hair fell like a wave over his hand.

She sucked in a breath. “I had not intended—”

“Whit did ye intend, lass?” Her fragrance tangled in his senses, wood smoke and ripe, dark cherries, and he leaned closer. Closer to divinity. Closer to the damnation of a soul already once damned. He breathed her in.

“I—Honestly I don’t know.” She spoke quickly. “But I think you should unhook my gown while you are here. Then you may go back to your seat.”

Leam grinned. This woman beguiled with her very breath.

“Ye think A’ll win the next trick?”

“Of course.”

“Whaur be the confidence in yer game nou?”

“In my shoes on that chair, I daresay. Unbutton me, please.”

He spread his hand across her back, then his other around her shoulder, and drew her to him, brushing his cheek against her satin hair.

“Or we coud say ye’ve already lost the trick.”

She seemed to hold her breath. “That would not be playing fairly. Again.”

He set his fingers to the top button and pried it loose. Then the next and the next. The gown gaped beneath her fall of hair. With all his might Leam resisted sweeping the tresses aside to touch her.

“That should be sufficient.” She spoke very quietly, standing still as a statue. “I can unfasten the remainder should I have need.”

He backed away from the woman with her gown hanging open and her hair tumbling in glorious abandon over her shoulders. He nearly fell over his chair.

He lowered himself gingerly. She sat down and took up her hand again. He produced another unbeatable card.

Watching her silently unfasten the remaining buttons, he dared not speak, or move, or breathe. She stood and peeled the sleeves down her arms without any attempt at seduction, seducing him beyond his imaginings. She pushed the gown over her sweetly curved hips, stepped out of it, and laid it on the chair.

“I am thoroughly weary of it anyway.”

His throat was tight. “’Tis a fine dress, lass.”

“I thought you didn’t like it.”

She was beyond exquisite, from her blushing cheeks to the delicately ruffled hem of the petticoat that revealed a hint of slender ankle.

“A’m a lout tae hae suggested it.”

She grinned and finally lifted her gaze to him.

Would that she had not.

Excitement animated her eyes, and hunger he had only dreamed. He dealt. She reached for her hand, but a glance at his cards told him he’d already won. He deposited them face up, stood, and moved around the table. Wrapping his hands around her shoulders he drew her against him. She sighed, her lashes fluttering.

“I can remove it myself.” The words barely sounded from her parted lips, lips that Leam could write ten odes to and another dozen sonnets. If she would but open her eyes again he could compose an epic in verse to their raincloud depths alone. She was hot against him, the soft touch of her silk undergarment on his skin like fire.

“As ye wish.” He brushed the backs of his fingers across the laces binding the thin silk across her breasts. Through the fabric the deep cleft between showed like an invitation to heaven. She inhaled, tightening the fabric.

“Or perhaps you can,” she whispered.

The laces came undone beneath his hands, the fabric gathered, the garment discarded. He held her arms above her head and brushed his body up hers, hearing her pull in breaths and feeling her fullness with his skin. Her head fell back.

“Tell me this is not real,” she whispered. “Tell me this is my imagination.”

He drew her arms down to her sides and buried his face in her hair.

“Aye. An mine.” He set his hands on her waist and the stiff barrier of stays between him and perfect woman. He squeezed. “Except for the whalebone.”

“You haven’t won it yet.”