emma sheehan ೃ⁀➷

“He was, he realized, comforted by her presence. They didn’t need to talk. They didn’t even need to touch (although he wasn’t about to let go just then). Simply put, he was a happier man— and quite possibly a better man— when she was near.
He buried his face in her hair, inhaling her scent, smelling . . .
Smelling . . .
He drew back. “Would you care for a bath?”
Her face turned an instant scarlet. “Oh, no,” she moaned, the words muffled into the hand she’d clapped over her mouth. “It was so filthy in jail, and I was forced to sleep on the ground, and—”
“Don’t tell me any more,” he said.
“But—”
“Please.”
If he heard more he might have to kill someone. As long as there had been no permanent damage, he didn’t want to know the details.
“I think,” he said, the first hint of a smile tugging at the left corner of his mouth, “that you should take a bath.”
“Right.” She nodded as she rose to her feet. “I’ll go straight to your mother’s—”
“Here.”
“Here?”
The smile spread to the right corner of his mouth. “Here.”
“But we told your mother—”
“That you’d be home by nine.”
“I think she said seven.”
“Did she? Funny, I heard nine.”
“Benedict . . .”
He took her hand and pulled her toward the door. “Seven sounds an awful lot like nine.”
“Benedict . . .”
“Actually, it sounds even more like eleven.”
“Benedict!”
He deposited her right by the door. “Stay here.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t move a muscle,” he said, touching his fingertip to her nose.
Sophie watched helplessly as he slipped out into the hall, only to return two minutes later.
“Where did you go?” she asked.
“To order a bath.”
“But—”
His eyes grew very, very wicked. “For two.”
She gulped.
He leaned forward. “They happened to have water heating already.”
“They did?”
He nodded. “It’ll only take a few minutes to fill the tub.”
She glanced toward the front door. “It’s nearly seven.”
“But I’m allowed to keep you until twelve.”
“Benedict!”
He pulled her close. “You want to stay.”
“I never said that.”
“You don’t have to. If you really disagreed with me, you’d have something more to say than, ‘Benedict’!”
She had to smile; he did that good an imitation of her voice.
His mouth curved into a devilish grin. “Am I wrong?”
She looked away, but she knew her lips were twitching.
“I thought not,” he murmured.”
― Julia Quinn, An Offer From a Gentleman