Slightly Wicked by Mary Balogh Page B

think of that later.
    It had been a glorious night indeed. His belief that she was an actress and an experienced courtesan had spurred her on into role-playing as nothing ever had before. Those four glasses of wine had helped too, no doubt. She could hardly believe the things she had done, the things he had done to her, the things they had done together, the sheer fun of it all. And the exquisite sensual delights.
    She had never suspected that Judith Law was capable of overcoming a lifetime of strict moral training to become a wanton. She listened to the rain and willed it not to stop. Not yet.
    Ralph sighed against her ear and then stretched lazily without untwining himself from her.
    “Mmm,” he said. “I am delighted to discover that all that was not just a delectable dream.”
    “Good morning.” She turned her face to him and then flushed at the absurd formality of her words.
    “Good indeed.” He regarded her with lazy blue eyes. “Is that rain I hear against the glass?”
    “I daresay,” she said, “no coach will dare attempt travel on the open highway while it continues. Will you risk your horse’s safety or your own?”
    “Neither.” His eyes smiled. “I suppose that means we are stranded here for today and probably tonight again, Claire. Can you imagine a more dreadful fate?”
    “If I tried very hard I might,” she said and watched the smile spread to his lips.
    “We are going to be killed by boredom,” he said. “However are we going to fill in the time?”
    “We will have to set our minds to the problem,” she told him, her voice deliberately grave. “Perhaps together we will find a solution.”
    “If nothing else occurs to us,” he said with a sigh, “we will have no choice but to remain in bed and while away the weary hours here until the rain stops and the roads begin to dry.”
    “How very boring,” she said.
    His eyes held hers.
“Boring,”
he said, his voice pitched low. “Yes, indeed.”
    She understood his meaning suddenly, flushed, and then laughed. “The pun was unintentional,” she told him.
    “What pun?”
    She laughed again.
    “However,” he said, drawing his arm from beneath her head and rolling away from her to sit up on the side of the bed, “the boring part of the day is going to have to be delayed. I am for my breakfast. I could eat an ox. Are you hungry?”
    She was. Very. She wished she had more money. He had paid for the room and their dinner and was presumably prepared to do the same tonight. She could not expect him to continue footing the bill for her all day long.
    “A cup of tea will do for me,” she said.
    He got out of bed and turned to look down at her, stretching as he did so, apparently quite unself-conscious about his nakedness. But then, why would he be? He was splendidly formed. She could not stop herself from feasting her eyes on him.
    “That is not very flattering,” he said, looking down at her with his rather mocking smile. “Good sex is supposed to make one ravenous. But all you want is a cup of tea?”
    That word—
sex
—had never been spoken aloud at the rectory or in any company of which she had been a part. It was a word she had always skirted around even in her thoughts, choosing euphemisms instead. He spoke the word as if it were part of his everyday vocabulary—as it probably was.
    “It
was
good.” She sat up, careful to keep the blankets over her bosom and beneath her arms, and clasped her knees. “You know that.”
    He looked closely at her for a few moments. “How empty
is
your purse?” he asked her.
    She could feel herself flushing again. “I did not expect to have to stop on the road, you see,” she explained. “I brought only what I thought I would need for a nonstop journey. There is always the danger of highwaymen.”
    “How can an actress of your caliber be out of work for three months?” he asked her.
    “Oh, I was not out of work,” she assured him. “I took time off deliberately because I was—because