Reaver’s blood did not begin to cool until he turned over the reins of Colonel Smoots to the groom rushing out of the club’s stable.
By God, that woman chafed his temper like a rasp on wood.
His house was not empty. He’d left some of the rooms unfurnished because he was busy. He had accounts to reconcile. He had desperate lordlings to intimidate into paying what they owed. He had an expansion to manage. A club to run.
Taking the steps up to the back entrance in one long stride, he yanked open the door, ignoring Duff’s greeting.
She’d stood in his drawing room, looking as though snow wouldn’t melt upon her skin, while she rendered judgment on his deficiencies. She’d calmly informed him of how she planned to spend his money. And all the while, she’d taunted him with her prim smirks and presumptuous airs and properly fitted gown.
He stalked now through the dark passages to the service staircase and took the stairs three at a time. A maid yelped as he charged past. He didn’t bother with reassurances.
Augusta Widmore was bloody maddening. Assuming command of his household. Behaving as though she’d no expectations of actually being his mistress.
Actually permitting him to kiss her.
He ran a hand over his shorn hair as he stalked the corridor to his office.
God, did he want to kiss her?
His mind rebelled against the thought, but his body issued a vehement confirmation, going tight and hard.
Aye, he wanted to kiss her. But not merely that. He wanted to take her. Over and over. And not in some gentle, careful way as he’d always done with women. No, she made his lust the raging sort. She provoked his worst instincts—to grip her thighs hard and tear her skirts away from her legs and devour those wide lips until the only sounds that emerged were pleas for more.
He ripped open the door to Frelling’s office, startling the bespectacled man.
“Mr. Reaver! I didn’t anticipate your return until tomorrow morning.”
“Plans change.” He continued through the chamber to his office door.
“Ah, I see. Have you spoken with Mr. Shaw—”
The slamming door cut off his secretary’s blather. He shrugged off his greatcoat and tossed it over a wooden chair. The blasted thing made him itch.
Bloody hell, it wasn’t the coat. She made him itch. She made him heat and swell and burn.
And he could not have her.
She was his mistress, yet he could not kiss her presumptuous mouth or touch her soft thighs or suckle those sumptuously full breasts. Because to do so would make him the thing he despised most—a man who preyed upon the weak and desperate.
He moved to the window and stared down at rain pattering on cobblestones. Listened to the tick of the clock on the shelf beside him until his heart slowed its battering slam.
His proposition should have driven her away. It would have done with any other female. But not Miss Augusta Widmore. Everything he demanded, she accepted with a sniff and a seemingly rational reply. He suspected she knew his intention to drive her away—clearly the reason she hadn’t balked. Or blushed. Or run like a herd of draft horses was bearing down upon her.
Instead, she’d stood in his drawing room, red hair glowing like wine in the light, gloved hands primly folded, and announced she intended to hire a staff on his behalf.
Perhaps someone should inform her that mistresses were not charged with issuing edicts or interviewing servants. Nor were they the chief inspectors of chimneys.
He shook his head, nearly laughing aloud at the memory.
Good God. The woman was a lunatic.
Which did nothing to explain his lust for her.
Work was what he needed. Aye. A bit of hammering and hauling would burn away this tension. He would work and sweat and labor until he could not even remember her name. Or the sight of her bending forward and presenting him with her delectable backside. Or those breasts, so round and—
No! He would cease this torturous mooning. He would work. On the expansion. Now.
Decided, he pivoted to gather his greatcoat. Just then, the door opened and Shaw entered, his black hair standing in spikes.
“Reaver,” he said, striding into the room with unusual urgency. “Thank God.”
“First time anybody connected my name to that sentiment.”
Shaw dismissed his grumbled quip with a wave. “When were you going to tell me you’d taken Augusta Widmore as your mistress?”
“I haven’t,” he said. “Not really.”
“Her sister claims otherwise.”
Reaver frowned. “Her sister? She came here?”
“Bloody hell, man! When I said you should acquire a mistress, I assumed you would know better than to proposition a baronet’s on-the-shelf daughter.”
His frown deepened into a glower. “I was removing a nuisance. My aim was to make her cry off.”
“Her sister claims you’ve moved Miss Widmore into your house. Was that also intended to remove the ‘nuisance’?” The snap in his voice, the outrage flaring his eyes, surprised Reaver.
Shaw often said he’d seen everything once. Some of it lived in his nightmares. Much he’d forgotten. He’d left India at fifteen, a half-English orphan with no possessions, no coin—just fierce intelligence and determination to flee his father’s homeland and find fortune in his mother’s. The man who had seen everything did not boil easily, even when he’d been beaten by a piece of filth Reaver had later pummeled into paste. Or when he’d been poisoned to the edge of death by a vicious, elusive enemy.
No, indeed. Provoking Adam Shaw beyond a low simmer was generally impossible.
Generally.
Reaver sighed. “I meant to drive her to disgust, to reject my proposition and never return. She’s so bloody-minded about it. Fixed on acquiring Glassington’s markers and blind to all else. Even her own safety.”
“You’ve ensconced her in your house, Reaver.” The words sliced like a blade.
“Aye,” Reaver growled back. “Now she intends to spend my money to furnish my house.”
Shaw blinked and shook his head.
“And she’s hirin’ a staff. Housekeeper. Butler. Footmen. A whole bloody army.”
“What the devil?”
Reaver ran a hand over his too-short hair and released a frustrated gust. “No help for it. I must take her for a dress fitting.”
Shaw’s face tightened, his eyes squinting as though he could not see Reaver clearly. Which was absurd. Shaw had fine vision, and they stood only a few feet apart.
The other man opened his mouth once. Closed it. Then said, “If this is your attempt at a jest, I must tell you, it is a dreadful one. Had you more practice with humor, perhaps you would find greater success in its application.”
“Would that I were joking.” In seconds, he calculated the total cost of the gowns and the furniture and the staff. “Getting rid of her is going to be damned expensive.”