He scowled and threw his legs over the side of the chaise to sit properly. “You should have woken me.”
“You needed the rest. How long has it been since you allowed someone to take care of you?”
“I have a valet for that.”
“Has there not been someone else? Your India mistress, perhaps?”
He wiped his hand over his face suddenly. “You should return to the boy. I’ll join you as soon as I’m awake enough.”
Mercy allowed him to avoid her question, although his habit of trying to spare her discomfort was unnecessary. She wasn’t a fool. He’d had other lovers before her. Luckily, she got the benefit of his extensive experience now and would keep it if she could. Hiding a smile, she played with the folds of her gown. “There is no rush.”
He rubbed at his face again, and then speared her with a hard glance. “Are you avoiding your sister?”
“No. It’s just when she is around I have to behave like a proper duchess. I cannot be myself with you as I’d like.”
Leopold sat back in his seat. “Please don’t say such things. I will be leaving the abbey when the danger to the boy has passed. I will likely need to travel to retrieve my siblings.”
Mercy’s chest tightened at the idea of him leaving them behind. “I like to travel and Edwin has never left the estate. He will enjoy the adventure with you.”
He shook his head violently. “I don’t know where I’m going and the boy is safer here.”
Mercy fell to her knees and crawled awkwardly across the floor until she knelt at Leopold’s feet. “I won’t let you toss us aside so easily.”
Leopold’s mouth opened, to deny her no doubt, but she pulled his head forward and sealed her lips to his before he could deny her feelings again. For a moment he resisted, but then his lips firmed and his tongue tangled with hers.
Mercy wrapped her arms around his shoulders and clung. He couldn’t leave her. Not when he made her feel like this; cherished, desired, loved.
He lifted her onto his lap suddenly so that she straddled his thighs. Mercy quaked at the sensation of being so close to him again. She wanted him like this every time they met, regardless of the circumstances.
His hand stroked her thigh under the gown and then closed over her bare bottom. Mercy moaned at the sensation and shuffled forward until she sat over his erection. They could make love like this if they were quick, if they were quiet, and swept away by the moment.
A door opened, and then crashed shut again.
Leopold threw Mercy off him as he slewed around to stare at the doors. She landed on the end of the chaise, rumbled, aroused, and utterly embarrassed. Blythe could have caught her and finally have a reason to call her scandalous. She covered her flaming cheeks. “Which door was that?”
“Allen’s.”
A servant had found them. “Oh, dear.”
“Don’t worry. Despite his assertion I’m not aggressive enough, I’ll kill Allen if he breathes a word of what he just saw to anyone.”
“You can’t do that. Let me speak to him.”
Leopold’s skin mottled a dark red. “If you so much as mention this catastrophe to my cousin I will put you across my knee and spank your arse until it’s as pink as your cheeks are now.”
Mercy flushed at the harsh words and at the threat of being spanked. And then her mind caught up with what Leopold had just said. “Cousin?”
“Damnation. I’m too tired for this.”
“Cousin,” she repeated as she righted her clothing and rose to face Leopold.
He nodded.
Leopold didn’t have any cousins that she knew of according to her copy of Debrett’s. “On which side of the family?”
“The worst side.” He sighed. “You won’t find a record of the connection or his place in the family. He’s an illegitimate son.”
Mercy stared at the door Allen had burst through. “Whose child was he?”