To Love a Wicked Lord by Edith Layton Page A

Lady Carstairs demanded her own room, and you were playing the Cavalier. You granted it to her. Miss Phillipa got her own room too. Other travelers hogged the rest. We are stuck with each other.
    â€œYou aren’t the most charming bedmate I could have found,” Whit went on, “but if I can bear it, so can you. In fact, this mattress tick is so overstuffed that if you get into bed, you’ll discover it’s difficult to get out of, much less roll about. So we won’t disturb each other. Enough. Out with it. Are you compromised? Or did you compromise her?”
    â€œIt was too dark to see my hand in front of my face,” Montrose complained. “How could you see her?”
    â€œAs easily as you did.”
    â€œI was whispering to her.”
    â€œAh. She has ears on her lips. Talented lady.”
    Montrose rubbed the smile from his own lips, stripped off his neckcloth, and threw it to the side. “I suppose you wouldn’t believe she had something in her eye?”
    â€œOh, that I do. It was you.”
    â€œShe didn’t cry foul,” Montrose said, peeling off his jacket. “Neither do I. It was an impulse. A moment.”
    â€œYours or hers?”
    Montrose ignored him and pulled his shirt over his head.
    â€œTo frighten her away?” his friend asked as Montrose’s head emerged again. “To chase her back home?”
    â€œTo comfort her. To comfort me. Who knows?” Montrose said, shrugging. “It was, as you so nicely noted, a huge mistake.”
    â€œUnpleasant, eh?” Whit said, removing the rest of his clothes except for his breeches.
    â€œNo, damn your so observant eyes, but it wasn’t,” Montrose said with a snarl. “Quite the opposite. Oh, well. I’ll admit it. It was temptation and I succumbed, which surprised me as much as it does you.”
    â€œNo surprise. I like her,” his friend said, crawling into the huge bed.
    â€œThen why aren’t you courting her?”
    â€œBecause I noticed how you look at her,” Whit said, “and the way you don’t speak about her. Because she’s a lady in distress, and that was always your weakness. Because she doesn’t seem to have a protector or a real friend in the world, and she’s intelligent, well spoken, and well bred. She’s made for you.”
    There was no answer for a moment as Montrose stripped off his hose.
    â€œWould you mind if I courted her?” his friend persisted. “I failed to mention that she is also rarely lovely. And though neither of us needs it, rarely wealthy too, I’d guess. Or will be. She’s old Carstairs’s only chick.”
    â€œShe’ll be wealthy if his slightly dotty wife doesn’t up and marry one of the footmen if the old fellow passes first,” Montrose commented sourly. “And yes, I’d mind. It would be interference. She wants to find her damned Noel.”
    â€œAnd so she kisses you?”
    Montrose ignored that. His eyes having adjusted to the scant moonlight, he stalked over to the nightstand nearby.
    â€œAnd if she doesn’t find her Noel?” Whit persisted.
    â€œShe’ll find another in time. She needs that time. As for me? She’s charming and bright, and nevertheless I shouldn’t have acted on impulse. I can’t. I’m not ready to wed,” Montrose said as he poured water from a pitcher on the nightstand into the basin there.
    â€œAnd as for me?”
    â€œYou aren’t serious.”
    â€œNeither are you.”
    Montrose cupped his hands and filled them with water, then splashed his face. “Brr. The least you could have done was to have the water reheated, Nanny,” he complained.
    He didn’t say anything more until he’d scrubbed his face, bathed his bare chest, taken up a towel and was drying himself. “I said I’m not ready for marriage, not dead,” he finally said.
    Then, clad only in his breeches, he