Vixen in Velvet by Loretta Chase

woman in a pet, by no means an unfamiliar sight. All the same, he had to take a moment to slow his breathing to normal and drag his wits out from the dark seas into which they were sinking.
    “I sent Swanton up to White’s, but I thought it best to wait,” he said, his voice a shade hoarser than it ought to be.
    She took up the little watch at her waist and opened the case. “An hour and twenty minutes,” she said.
    “But I was waiting for you ,” he said. “The time was as nothing. And it allowed me to perform deeds of mercy without much trouble.”
    “Deeds of mercy,” she said. “Have you been helping my employees lose their wits? Or were you mercifully wafting sal volatile at the customers after you made them swoon?”
    He adopted a hurt expression. “I helped somebody’s great-grandmother choose ribbons.”
    “You ought to be careful, plying your ‘mercy’ upon elderly persons,” she said. “Their constitutions may not withstand the onslaught of so much manly beauty and charm. You may not realize how bad it is for business when ladies go off into apoplexies in our showroom.” She put the watch away, folded her arms, and donned a blankly amiable expression.
    As though he were any other customer.
    He squelched the prickle of irritation and told himself not to act like an oversensitive schoolboy. Careful to keep his voice smooth, he said, “Thank you for the reminder, madame. In future, I’ll take care to inflict my beauty and charm only on big, strong wenches.”
    “I know you can’t help it,” she said. “You were born that way. But some of my best customers are the older ladies, and I don’t wish to send them off before their time.”
    “I promise to try not to murder any elderly ladies by accident,” he said.
    “Strictly speaking, it isn’t murder if it’s an accident,” she said. “Or if it looks like one,” she added, as though to herself. He saw her gaze shift to the desk . . . where she kept her penknife and probably other instruments of mayhem, like sharp scissors. Dressmakers always had sharp things about them—scissors, needles, pins. He had an odd sensation of having wandered inadvertently into danger. No doubt because the atmosphere seemed to vibrate with the passion she was having so much trouble suppressing.
    He was very badly tempted to push, to see—experience—what happened when her control slipped.
    “I have customers waiting, my lord,” she said. “I believe Parmenter said that you and Lord Swanton had come on business .”
    He caught the note of impatience. What next? Would she throw things?
    “So we did,” he said. He put two fingers to his right temple and pretended to think.
    The air about him throbbed harder yet. “Perhaps it would be best for you to join Lord Swanton at White’s. Perhaps if the two of you put your heads together, you’ll remember what it was that was so desperately urgent.”
    She started toward the door.
    “Oh, yes, now I remember,” he said. “It’s to do with the girls you’ve taken under your wing. Swanton and I want to help.”
    She paused. “My girls,” she said.
    Her girls.
    “The Milliners’ Society,” he said. “The poetic genius and I came to tell you about our brilliant idea for raising funds.”
    She wanted him to go to the devil. She wanted funds for her girls. The struggle between these opposing desires was so well concealed that he would have missed it had he not been watching her so closely.
    She couldn’t altogether calm herself, but she mastered the impatience.
    “I shouldn’t have plagued you today, especially when it’s clear you’re so extremely busy ,” he said. “The trouble is, we need to do it quickly, and I wasn’t sure I could get an appointment soon enough.”
    She folded her hands at her waist. “It was very good of you and Lord Swanton to think of the Milliners’ Society,” she said.
    “I should like to know how we could avoid doing so, when I brought home the shop’s entire