The Lady Who Broke the Rules by Marguerite Kaye Page B

father’s goodwill, and he can be very ruthless when he wants to be. I intend to ensure she has her own legal advisors. It’s the least I can do.’
    ‘So she will have at least one friend who is not feline,’ Virgil said with a faint smile.
    ‘I sincerely hope that she does not have cause to have to rely on me, however,’ Kate replied. ‘I would not like to wager on her success should the might of the Montagues be brought down upon her head.’
    * * *
    They made their way back into the Dower House and ascended to the first floor. It was darker here, with only the light from the landing window to guide them. Kate’s arm brushed against Virgil’s coat sleeve as they turned into the long corridor, where doors stood closed on either side. The largest of the six bedrooms contained a fantastically carved bed, the four posts a mishmash of gryphons and dragons and other strange fairy-tale beasts.
    ‘It was meant for the main house,’ Kate said, laughing at Virgil’s expression, which was a mixture of astonishment and horror as he traced the form of a voluptuous siren-like creature, ‘but even for my grandfather, it was a step too far. Cousin Frederica thought it profane and would not sleep in it, despite the fact that this is the best bedroom.’
    ‘What are the carvings supposed to represent?’
    ‘A confused mind?’ Kate replied flippantly. ‘Actually, the key is in the central carving up there in the support for the canopy.’
    She leant over the mattress to peer up, explaining the various myths which the artist had chosen to entwine. The bed was high. Though he tried not to notice, Virgil couldn’t take his eyes off the way her bending over brought attention to the roundness of Kate’s rear, the indent of her waist, the length of her legs. She wore riding boots. Did they stop at her calves, or were they longer? Perhaps the leather fitted snugly all the way up to her thighs. Though the skirts of her habit were full, he had already noted that her long, graceful stride seemed to be unimpeded by layers of petticoats. He realised he had no idea what ladies such as Kate wore for undergarments. It hadn’t occurred to him to wonder, until now. Lace and silk? Practical cotton?
    He was hard again. He had already, in his imagination, taken the short leap from underwear to skin, from looking at her curves to imagining his shaft sinking into the pink, moist heat of her. He had taken a step towards her in the process, ready to cup and to mould and to stroke. So long it had been since he had shared such intimacies. He thought he had forgotten, but looking at Kate, he discovered he knew in astoundingly lurid detail exactly what and where and how he wanted to touch her. She had stopped talking, was looking at him, lips parted. Just looking at him, as if she could read the turn his mind had taken.
    She was not shocked, that was what he thought first. There was something, a heat in her eyes, a recognition or a reflection of what he was thinking. That was his second thought. That it was wish fulfilment was his third. Just because no one else would ever guess, just because it was so outrageous it could not be anything other than fleeting, did not mean that he planned to indulge in this attraction which sparked between them.
    Virgil stepped to one side of the tempting display of curves, careful to keep a distance between them, and leaned over on the mattress, looking up at the carving as if that, and not touching her, stroking her, sheathing himself in her, had been his intention all along. ‘Charybdis, the daughter of Poseidon, you were saying,’ he said.
    ‘You were listening?’
    ‘“Zeus turned her into a monster because she ate some sheep she stole,”’ Virgil repeated, relieved to discover that he had, on some other level, been taking in what she’d said, after all. He wasn’t touching her, but he was a breath away from doing so. They were on a mattress. On a bed. His body was very well aware of this, though Virgil