Free Ripe for Pleasure by Isobel Carr Page A

gravel path.
    The gravel bit into the tender flesh of her feet, causing her to walk slowly and take each step with deliberate care. The
     rain continued unabated. Her wrapper seemed to have tripled in weight, its heavy folds making every step a struggle.
    Once inside, they hurried up the servants’ stairs and into her room. Water dripping from his hair and pooling beneath him,
     Leo heaped coal into the grate. Viola left to rummage through the linen press. She returned with herarms loaded with towels to find Leo stripping off his wet shirt before a crackling fire.
    Her mouth went dry even as her hands shook. Firelight washed one side of him with ruddy warmth. The creeping dawn eased through
     the window, limning the other side with a soft, radiant glow.
    He caught her watching, and his eyes crinkled with merriment. One large hand snatched a towel from her grasp. He disappeared
     behind a curtain of white Turkish cotton, emerging with his dark hair in dramatic disarray.
    Heat flushed through her, driving back the cold of the wet cloth that still clung to her. If she shrugged it off and reached
     for him, would he resist? How much humiliation was she willing to accept in a single night?
    He toed off his shoes and turned to drape his shirt over the fire screen. A powerful ripple of muscle moved beneath his skin
     with every gesture. Viola clutched the towels to her chest.
    It wasn’t fair that one man could be that perfect. That she could desire him as much as she did. It was frightening and exhilarating
     all at the same time, like being driven too fast in a high-perch phaeton. The thrill made it hard to breathe, hard to think,
     and it made her long for more.
    Leo glanced over his shoulder. Viola was still rooted to the same spot, towels clutched to her chest as though they were some
     kind of shield. He stepped toward her. Her eyes widened, pupils spiraling out, obscuring the vivid blue. With an unmistakably
     wanton sigh, her lips parted. The soft lining of her lower lip called out for a kiss, for his mouth to meet hers, damp heat
     to damp heat.
    His hand closed over her upper arm just as the door burst open and her housekeeper erupted into the room. “Water’s heating
     for a bath, ma’am.” She completely ignored him, gaze avoiding him with practiced perfection. “The fire in the mews is out,
     and I’ve sent one of his lordship’s men off to fetch him dry things. In the meantime, I’ve got one of poor Ned’s nightshirts
     for him so he doesn’t catch his death.”
    Quick, efficient hands deposited the promised nightshirt on the bed and plucked up wet clothing and the other detritus of
     their evening’s adventures. Viola’s eyes met his, bewilderment evident in the slight pucker of her brows.
    “Tha-uh-thank you, Mrs. Draper. Can you fetch my green banyan? And then, yes, I think a bath is more than called for, for
     both of us.”
    A sharp stab of lust shot from groin to throat at visions of Viola smiling up from a tub, rosy and wet, her hair swirling
     out in the water like a mermaid’s. But the tub in question wasn’t some small wooden affair or a dainty tin slipper tub.
    No, he wanted to see her naked in the bathhouse at Dyrham. Surrounded by a Roman-inspired sea of stone and a deep tub of hot
     water most commonly found only in London’s bagnios.
    “I’ll not put your staff to the trouble, my dear. I can easily take myself home for my own ablutions.”
    Viola turned to leave, throwing him one last rueful smile, bedraggled hair falling from its knot as she did so. Her housekeeper
     swept out after her, tutting and fussing like a hen.
    Leo shucked off the last of his wet clothing, pulled on the deceased footman’s too-small nightshirt, and settled in to wait
     for his own clothes to arrive. From soup to nuts,his evening had not gone as planned. His seduction had been interrupted, and so had his subsequent explorations.
    Unable to sleep, he’d been quietly searching for a loose floorboard or a