Thief of Shadows (Maiden Lane #4)

But Isabel knows better and I completely agree with her assessment that “there was a volcano somewhere under that granite shell. And if it ever blew, she wanted to be there to witness the explosion.”

And what a magnificent explosion it was! Riveting in its sensuality, powerful in its sexual draw, heart wrenching as it pulled you into the tenderness of emotion, sweltering in the burning heat of a need that could no longer be denied. His utter seductiveness is palpable!

… “I live and work in the bleakest part of London, my lady. Here people beg steal, and prostitute themselves, trying to obtain the most basic human needs: food, water, shelter, and clothing. They have no time to lift their heads up from their toil, no time to live as human beings, graced with God’s gifts of laughter and love....That is what St. Giles is. That is what I live in.”

...I want them to care just as much about a poor child as they do a gentleman. I want them to make sure every child is fed and clothed and housed. I want them to see that London cannot continue this way with people dying in the gutter.”

Isabel glanced up for a moment and froze. His chest was delineated with lean muscles, his nipples brown against his pale skin, with black curling hair spreading between. His belly was hard and ridged, his navel entirely obscured by that same black, curling hair.

She blinked. She had seen a man-men, actually- naked, true, but Edmund had been in his sixth decade when he’d died and had certainly never looked like this.

Isabel swallowed and untied the garment, a little surprised by the tremble of her fingers, and drew them down his legs. His genitals were revealed, his cock thick and long, even at rest, his bollocks heavy. “Well,” Mrs. Butterman said, “he certainly seems healthy enough there.”

“Wear your social mask at your balls and parties and when you visit your friends out there, but when we are alone, just the two of us in here, promise me this: that you’ll show me only your true face, no matter how ugly you might think it. That’s our true intimacy, not sex, but the ability to be ourselves when we are together.”

She might think this was merely a physical joining, but he knew far better.

He was claiming her as his. He’d warned her once before what this physical act meant to him. This was a union. This was forever.

She might think this was merely a physical joining, but he knew far better.

He was claiming her as his. He’d warned her once before what this physical act meant to him. This was a union. This was forever.

...Winter talked to her as if she were as intelligent as he. As if she would be interested in some of the same things that engaged him. As if he might want to know what she thought about. He talked to her as if she mattered.

..."That’s our true intimacy, not sex, but the ability to be ourselves when we are together."

Isabel was as the sun to a candle compared to that girl so long ago. He wanted to touch her more than he wanted his next breath….She was a craving under his skin so great that even now he felt his body actually canting toward her. He wanted to take her, to consummate this hunger within himself. Bury his flesh inside her and conquer her as primitively as a Viking savage. And he could not. The children of the home…depended on him.

”If I wound you, madam, I am sorry,” he rasped. “But acquit me of stupidity. I am not a rag doll to be played with.”

She cocked her head, wishing he’d remove his mask so that she could truly see him. This man who had captured her interest as no other had in a very, very long time. He parried her flirtation with disconcertingly plainspoken answers. She simply wasn’t used to such frankness. All the gentlemen of her acquaintance knew to speak in elegant riddles that in the end meant nothing at all.


*********

He nodded, as somber as a judge. “Indeed. Let us look at the facts. You joined the Ladies’ Syndicate … and immediately began a campaign of taunting me.”

[…]

”Taunting?”

“Taunting.” He folded the shirt as well, the muscles in his arms rippling in a quite distracting manner. “The little quips, the sly looks letting me know you’d once again thought yourself quite clever as you shot a dart at me, the low, provocative bodices—“

Isabel involuntarily glanced down at her bosom. “My bodices aren’t provocative!” Well, not all the time, certainly.

He glanced at her sternly. “Provocative.” … “And that doesn’t even take into account the later double entendres, the lessons in flirtation, and the dancing lessons in which you took every opportunity to touch my buttocks.”

“I never, ever” – hardly ever— “touched your buttocks. On purpose.”