Your Wicked Heart by Meredith Duran Page A

bill you,” he muttered, and then yanked his trouser leg over his knee.
    Her smile, carefully formed in reply to his jest, faded. His poor knee! It looked swollen to painful dimensions. She placed the compress directly over it, then grimaced in sympathy as he sucked in a breath.
    “Sore, is it?” she asked. “Willow bark will help with that. Madam—that is, Mrs. Pennypacker—took it religiously. Thrice a day, dissolved in water.”
    “‘Madam,’” he said darkly. “Is that what you called her?”
    Standing so close to him, feeling the great warmth of his skin, she dared not look up at his face. “That is the common address for one’s employer.”
    “If you’re a servant,” he said curtly.
    “I was a servant.”
    His mouth twisted, as though the idea displeased him. “Far too good for the likes of her.”
    “She was a renowned personage. The position was highly prized.”
    “I suppose she didn’t openly advertise for a whipping girl.”
    Perhaps he did not mean to assault her pride, but it stung, regardless. “I competed against thirty or more well-qualified women for that post. I will thank you not to diminish my accomplishment in securing it. Why, if I’d managed a letter of reference from her . . .”
    The thought was too ludicrous, too sad. She swallowed her next words.
    “Then what?” His voice was gentle. She dared to look up and saw nothing but compassion in his face. “What would you have done with it?”
    She shrugged. “Found another position, I suppose.”
    “Is that what you hope for?” His gaze was steady and kind. “Adventure, you told me—a chance to see the world. But what else? What do you want for yourself after the adventure is over?”
    A wave of shyness fell over her. Nobody had ever asked such a question of her. But he seemed earnestly interested. “I . . . don’t know, exactly. I never thought that far. A solid living, I suppose? A permanent place in a respectable household.” No, that didn’t sound quite right, either. “A place where I belong,” she said quietly.
    “Not a husband?”
    She bit her lip. This conversation was growing too intimate. With a nod toward the compress, she said, “Here, you can take hold of it yourself.”
    His hand closed over hers before she could pull away. And then his fingers tightened, holding hers in place.
    His grip was strong, his palm callused. One did not expect an aristocrat to work with his hands. If she had had any remaining doubts about his claim to the viscountcy, she might have clung to this detail as proof that he lied.
    Instead, the sensation riveted her, becoming proof of mysteries, secrets, she could only begin to guess at. Mysteries that she desperately craved to know.
    God save her from her own foolishness! She tried to pull back, but his hold did not loosen.
    “I imagine you married,” he said softly. “That is why I ask.”
    She raised her eyes. The look on his face swam through her like a strong wine. How intently his dark eyes held hers.
    “With children,” he said. “Children with eyes as blue as yours. I see you laughing in a garden. Full of roses, and sunlit. Always sunlit. Those golden curls spilling to your waist, gleaming in the sunlight . . .”
    A sigh slipped from her. His lashes lowering, he took a deep breath, as though—strangest thought—to inhale the breath that had escaped her.
    “Miss Thomas,” he said very quietly. “You were right, of course.” His gaze rose to hers. “You told me a man would find much to value in you. I tell you now . . . I agree.”
    He lifted her hand then, raising it until she felt the heat of his breath on her knuckles. Slowly, softly, he kissed her palm.
    “Thank you,” he said into her skin, “for coming to look for me.”
    She could not catch her breath. He had such beautiful eyes. If she ever had children, she would wish them to have his eyes—eyes just like his, rather—
    He pulled her the last inch toward him. “Amanda,” he murmured. His