A different Adelaide. One she did not know. One fashioned by pleasure.

  One who was not on her own.

  And in the realization, Adelaide was consumed simultaneously by fear and by something far worse. Something like hope. Something that made her wonder what it would be to believe him when he ended the kiss and caught her face in both palms, staring down at her as though she were something to be looked at. Something to notice. Something to treasure.

  As though there was more between them than this moment. This place. This night.

  Which there wasn’t.

  She was Adelaide Frampton, baseborn thief from the wrong side of the river, more comfortable in dark alleys than in gilded ballrooms. And he was a damn duke.

  Get your head on right, gel. The voice that whispered came with the clipped accent of the South Bank—the one she had worked so hard to hide in the last few years.

  She resolved to listen, reaching for him, pulling him close for a kiss of her own, claiming him in the hopes that she might regain control of herself. Of the situation. Of whatever was to come. Telling herself that the straight shot of pleasure she got when he gave himself over to her was about that—control—and not about the joy that came with knowing she could affect him as he had her.

  She had to get control of the situation. And there was one certain way she could do that.

  Adelaide kissed across his cheek, over the rough stubble of his day-long beard, and whispered, “Are you sure?”

  He stroked over her bare breast, his thumb circling her nipple until it tightened into a stiff bud. “Sure about what?”

  “That you won’t take me tonight?”

  He stilled, setting his hands to the bed and pushing himself up to look at her, searching her gaze, deep and searing. As though he could see it all—her uncertainty, her desire for control. As though he knew the request was about more than pleasure—about gaining power. “No, love. Not tonight.” She didn’t like what she saw there, in his blue eyes. Something that might have been disappointment but seemed more like understanding, as though he heard her thoughts and was already a dozen moves ahead in this game they played.

  It made her want to hide.

  She pushed at his chest, and he rolled to his back. Disappointment coursed through her. It was over—which should not have disappointed. It was expected, was it not? She knew there was nothing more for Adelaide Frampton and the Duke of Clayborn—nothing but this quiet room at the back of the Hungry Hen. Nothing but this night.

  Was it wrong that she’d hoped the night would not end quite so quickly?

  He interrupted her thoughts by pulling her to him, wrapping his long, sinewy arms around her, and tucking her against his side. And though she meant to resist—to pull away and wrap herself in fabric and hide from him until morning—she couldn’t find the will for it. Not when he was so warm and firm and welcome. Not when his fingertips stroked over her shoulder, painting it with his touch.

  Not when he turned and pressed a kiss to her temple, holding her so close she could hear his heart beneath her ear.

  They lay in silence for long moments, the tavern quiet below, the world forgotten outside. Adelaide wondered at the feel of him and the way she had come apart in his arms, and the way this place, this night, this man somehow felt out of time, as though they were not in competition to get to his brother, to save Lady Helene, to evade her father and his men. As though she were not Adelaide Frampton, girl from the streets, and he were not the Duke of Clayborn.

  As though they had a future.

  As though they had all the time in the world, when they didn’t.

  When they only had that night.

  Less than a night, when he whispered, “I should—”

  He stopped, but she finished the sentence in a dozen ways. I should not have done that. I should never have kissed you. Should never have followed you. Should never have thrown my lot in with you.

  I should leave.

  “Henry,” she whispered to his chest at long last, her fingers playing over the dark hair there. She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t risk the embarrassment of his refusal—embarrassment that already threatened. That had been there, at the edge of her consciousness all evening—the embarrassment that came of being a woman alone, taking up too much space. Asking for too much. “Sleep with me.”

  When his fingers stilled on her shoulder, the embarrassment became a living thing, pacing its cage, licking its chops, as though it had been waiting for this exact moment to attack. Silly Adelaide, baseborn girl from the wrong side of the river, propositioning a duke.

  He would refuse the request, of course, and return to his role as responsible, proper gentleman. Move back to the chair—the one where she had come apart for him—set it by the door, and contort himself uncomfortably into sleep. And she would be left to the bed—to be devoured whole.

  But somehow, even in the face of that embarrassment, Adelaide could not resist adding to the request—a quiet, winsome, “I would like it.”

  And he answered with a low, pained, “Adelaide.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Awful. Absolute horror.

  She should move. Leave him before he left her. Get in her carriage and head for Lady Helene, who was that very moment in bed with a man who wished never to leave her.

  But before Adelaide could do just that, his palm went flat on her skin, warm and heavy, pulling her tight to him as he pulled the coverlet on the bed up over them. Answering her request.

  They were silent for a long time, hearts slowing, breath coming less harshly, and Adelaide knew she should close her eyes and try to sleep. She absolutely should not speak to this man—this man who wielded pretty words like temptation. She shouldn’t get used to conversation with him.

  She shouldn’t get used to anything about him.

  “Tell me a story.”

  She lifted her head. “What kind of story?”

  He raised a brow. “A lewd one.”

  She grinned. “There was a duke in a roadside inn once.”

  His laugh was a low rumble from his warm chest. “I like that one.”

  “Me, too,” she agreed, leaning up to kiss him, slow and soft.

  When the kiss stopped, she sighed, and he said, “Tell me about your first kiss.”

  She hesitated. A girl born in the heart of Lambeth lost her innocence young—even if her father was a king there. Perhaps because her father was a king there. Innocence was for girls from Mayfair. Not for girls like her.

  “Are you looking for a comparison?”

  She’d never seen anyone look so arrogant. “I think I can top it.”

  She had no doubt about that. But she stacked her hands on his chest and set her chin atop them. “Jamie Buck lived down the road. His father worked for mine.”

  “Ah. The girl in the tower.”

  There was no tower, but Adelaide didn’t tell him that. She couldn’t change where she’d come from, and it would do them both well to remember that hers had been a very different world than his.

  Except she didn’t want him to think about that. Not right now. Now she wanted him to know the girl she’d once been, and so she told him more than he needed to know.

  Ridiculous.

  “I like Westminster Bridge.” Surprise flashed on his handsome face at the change in topic. “I know it’s odd, but I do. I suppose I could simply like bridges—and I do like bridges, generally—but there’s something about that one. There’s a poem about it; Wordsworth, I think? About looking at the City from it. The City now doth, like a garment, wear the beauty of the morning. Do you know that one?”

  “I don’t,” he said, and she feared she’d gone too far in her storytelling—there was nothing interesting about poems written about bridges. “But I’d like to see you wearing the beauty of the morning.”

  The words tumbled through her, making her pulse race, and it occurred to her that there might, in fact, be something fascinating about poems written about bridges, after all. “That’s sweet.”

  “You are sweet,” he replied, his eyes still firmly closed. “Go on. What does Westminster have to do with Jamie Buck?”

  “There is a turret about halfway across that gives you a glorious look at the Houses of Parliament. You’d think the whole bridge would provide such a thing, but it’s not true. It’s a particular turret, fourth from the Westminster side, at the perfect angle, where you can see directly into the little rooms in Parliament, and if you are there at precisely the right moment, it feels like . . . magic,” she said simply, wishing she could explain it more clearly. “I would linger in that little turret for hours, wishing . . .” She trailed off.

  “Wishing what?”

  She should have known he wouldn’t let her stop. “Wishing there were someone there, with me,” she said softly. “I was alone a great deal of the time. I didn’t dislike it, mind you—but my father . . . he scared people, and boys especially. And those he did not scare were willing to do anything to gain access to him—including pretend to be friends with his daughter.”

  His eyes were open now, watching her as though he didn’t wish to miss a single word, and she worried her lip, feeling embarrassed and strange, like she shouldn’t give parts of herself away to this man, who was so different from her—so far beyond her—that when he left she’d have no hope of getting them back.

  “I used to stand in the turret and wish for a friend,” she admitted softly. “For something beyond the world I had—someone who didn’t feign interest in me because they feared my father, or wished access to him. Someone who did not see me as a path to something greater. I wanted someone who might be . . . a partner. Who would like me for me. Who would love me for me, I suppose.”

  He tightened his grip on her. “Go on.”

  She swallowed, suddenly wishing there was distance between them. “One afternoon . . . I was fourteen? Maybe fifteen? . . . and there, in my turret. Jamie walked by, with a group of other boys—clearly set out for trouble. But he saw me first.” She closed her eyes. “He heard me first.”

  “What were you saying?”

  She immediately regretted telling him the story, but was too far down the road to stop. “Please keep in mind that I was a young girl with a head full of dreams. I am no longer this impressionable.”

  “I am already disappointed to hear it.”

  The laughter helped with the embarrassment. Barely. “I was talking to myself.”

  “About what?”

  “Well, not really myself, I suppose. I was talking to someone else. Someone who was not there. Pretending I had the partner I’d been dreaming of. And Jamie Buck heard it. He laughed and laughed . . .”

  Henry’s eyes narrowed. “And?”

  “And he threatened to tell everyone. Which now seems so silly—who would care? But at the time, it was a terrifying proposition. He knew my . . .” She hesitated, not wanting to reveal her past in this moment, when they were quiet and he was close.

  It was only a matter of time before he would know everything. But Adelaide was ever the thief, and now, she looked to steal time.

  “My father would have loathed it,” she said. “He would have made certain I never visited that turret again. Jamie said he’d keep my secret if I kissed him.”

  Henry sucked in a breath, and her gaze flew to his to find fury in his eyes. “You were fourteen. This would have been, what, eleven years ago?”

  She nodded.

  “I might have been there. I might have been in Parliament. I might have been walking by at that exact moment. I could have tossed young Jamie right off the damn turret.”

  She grinned at that. “That does seem a bit overmuch.”

  A growl sounded deep in his chest. “I am not amused, Adelaide.”

  “Does it help to know that he was encouraged by a half-dozen boys who were watching from round the corner?”

  “It does not.” He looked positively furious, and she confessed she rather liked it.

  “Does it help to hear that he kissed like a codfish and smelled like pickled herring? Two facts I made sure the wide world heard?”

  “Well. I was going to suggest you divulge young Jamie’s current address, but I don’t imagine he was able to escape that particular review for a good amount of time.” He paused. “Still, I intend to take you to that turret and kiss you like you deserve.”

  He wouldn’t, but it was a lovely thought. She put a hand to his cheek, testing the roughness of his beard, reveling in the angle of his jaw and the way he inhaled at her touch. “Bridge or no, Your Grace, you are a far more memorable kiss than that one.”

  He proved it then, long and lush and delicious, filling her with the feel and taste and breath of him. And when he was done, he pressed soft kisses along her jaw and whispered beautiful at her ear, and she couldn’t stop herself from whispering the words that had been turning around and around in her mind, a puzzle she could not solve.

  “Why won’t you marry?”

  His touch stuttered over the skin of her shoulder, but he did not reply.

  She squeezed her eyes closed, grateful that he could not see her in the darkness. “I should not have asked. It is not my business.”

  He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Marriage should come with a full heart. Isn’t that what you said?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “I agree. It should come with every bit that is promised. Family and hope and a lifetime of being seen. True love, they call it. I think because it is the most honest a person ever is.” He paused, staring up at the ceiling. “I cannot love like that.”

  She wanted to scream in protest. If anyone deserved love, it was this man—noble beyond words. Honest to a fault. Instead, she said softly, “Why not?”

  He took a deep breath, and she reveled in the rich, warm sound beneath her ear. “Because, someday, she might discover something about me that she does not care for, and then where would we be? Me, out of my head with love, and her, desperate to be rid of me.”

  She understood instantly. “Secrets.”

  “I have seen what losing love does to a person. I don’t want it.”

  What could it be? What could this remarkable man really be hiding?

  His chest rose and fell beneath her ear. “My brother plans to marry a lovely woman, though. Indeed, I would wager they will be married by the week’s end, and well on their way to producing heirs to my title.”

  She lifted her head and met his eyes, offering him a soft smile. “You forget that I rarely fail when I set myself a task.”

  “Then our race continues,” he said, the words soft, without challenge.

  “A race no more—we are down a carriage.”

  “And so, you have won. And tomorrow? Will I wake to an empty room, a wrecked carriage, and a missing purse? Do you think Mary will give me work?”

  “It’s possible. You’d make an excellent bruiser to keep the peace.”

  “Six years of boxing at school,” he said, dryly.

  She laughed again, setting her cheek to his chest. “I believe there is room in my carriage for you,” she said, knowing she shouldn’t be so happy to offer it. Knowing that every moment they were together was a moment that threatened the life she’d so carefully built for herself.

  His hand slid over her shoulder, and he rumbled beneath her ear. “You are willing to share with me?”

  Perhaps it was the quiet of the room. The warmth of the bed. The roughness of his beard as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. But the question did not seem to be about carriages anymore. Not that it would matter, as Adelaide had a feeling the answer would be the same. “Yes. I would like that.”

  “Mmm.” That delicious sound, warm and wonderful. “Must we go tonight?”

  They should.

  But Jack and Helene were safe in their room an hour north, under the watchful eye of the Duchess’s scout. And an hour was not so far. Adelaide and Clayborn could leave early. Catch them by lunchtime. See them to Gretna. Keep them safe there and back.

  Stay away from London for a bit longer. Hidden from view.

  Together.

  “I suppose we could wait,” she said, softly, knowing she was thieving time. Knowing it was a risk.

  He tightened his arm around her in approval, tucking her close to him, running the tips of his fingers over her shoulder, back and forth in time to his slow, rhythmic heartbeat. She let her thoughts wander from Jack and Helene and the Belles and the Matchbreaker and Alfie Trumbull and Havistock . . . and finally, to Henry. And his secrets.

  To the idea that he wouldn’t marry—that he would simply . . . languish. That he would be alone . . . Something flared deep in her at the idea. It shouldn’t have bothered her. She was alone, was she not? Had been for a lifetime and expected to be for a lifetime more.

  But the idea of him alone . . . of them both alone . . .

  There was something there. Something . . . free.

  What had he done to her?

  “If you do not marry,” she whispered. His fingers stuttered over her skin as hers began a slow track over his chest, playing in the dark hair there. “If you find a girl who has no plans for it. Who knows what she likes . . .”

  Somehow, in the darkness, his plans for his future stretched out before them . . . Adelaide saw something more. Something like possibility.

  “I am listening.” His hand went flat on her shoulder, pressing her into his warmth.

  She breathed him in. “Marriage isn’t the only path.”

  “Shall I let her take me to mistress?”

  The question was low and dark and injected with more humor than Adelaide wished. Maybe. Maybe there was a middle way? An arrangement with her? One in which she continued her work, remained in her world, and simply . . . added nights like this? With him?

  They would have to be discreet, of course. He was one of the most recognizable faces in Parliament. A brilliant orator. A cunning mind. A powerful voice.

  But Adelaide had made a lifetime of going unnoticed. What if they could find a way to repeat this night? Why not take it?

  They lay in silence, the low rumble of the tavern below having given way to quiet so impossibly still that she could now hear nothing but her heart. Or was it his, beating in a steady rhythm beneath her ear, slowing as the rise and fall of his chest grew heavy and even, and he fell asleep, holding her in his arms.