“You don’t have enough money to employ me.”

“Everyone has a price. Even you.”

She made a disgusted sound. “You are the most insufferable, pompous, irritating man I’ve ever met.”

“And you, Miss Thraxton, are the most infuriating, maddening, annoying woman in all of England. But I’m willing to overlook that unfortunate fact because you’re also supposedly the best governess to be had. And make no mistake,” he growled, stalking closer until he stood not a foot in front of her, “I intend to have you. Now cease this foolishness and tell me your requirements.” Good Lord, was he going to have to battle her every step of the way?

Her chin lifted to an even more mutinous angle, her mouth thin with anger. “I was willing to assist you in locating a suitable replacement, but if you cannot at least pretend to be pleasant, then I have nothing more to say.”

Anthony’s temper flared. By God, he hadn’t come to London for his health. “You haven’t heard me out.”

“I’ve heard more than I wanted to,” she said. “Please leave before I call the butler.”

Anthony closed the narrow space between them, his body all but touching hers. “Then call him.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” she said, hissing the words through her teeth.

Her chin lifted and, before Anthony could comprehend what she was about, she opened her mouth and called loudly, “Hawk—”

Anthony grabbed her. His only thought was to keep her from making such a racket that she brought the entire household into the sitting room. But the frustrating events of the morning and the sudden, enthralling feel of her full breasts pressed against his chest cracked the veneer of Anthony’s calm logic and released a torrent of pent-up emotions, emotions that flared to life all too quickly around the fiery-headed woman he now held in his arms.

Thus it was that Anthony Elliot, the always proper ninth Earl of Greyley, did something he never did. He lost control of his carefully contained anger and kissed the woman he wanted to hire as a governess.

Chapter 4

I will never again play cards with Lord Greyley. There is no lower feeling than dealing to a man who never loses.

Lord Brevenham to Miss Devonshire, over an ice at the Waltham musicale

Of all the stolen kisses Anna had been made to suffer since becoming a governess, Greyley’s was different. It wasn’t apologetic or furtive, but forthright and passionate. It stormed the frigid barriers she’d erected about herself and shattered her illusion of control, burning a way past her shocked defenses before she could do more than gasp.

Anna responded immediately, though not in the way she should have. Instead of doubling her hands into fists, she found herself clutching Greyley’s lapels, pulling him closer. As he deepened the kiss, his mouth searing across hers, she moaned softly, the sound delicious and wanton, urging her on.

And why not? the heated part of her wondered. Why not taste just this one, tiny bit of pleasure? She deserved it. The part of her that lusted after the feel of raw silk, that reveled in the glitter of a diamond pin, that unabashedly desired finery and pleasure and fun—it wound its way through her, heightening her senses, and completely silencing the other, more logical part that mumbled a warning of some sort, the incoherent thought lost as Greyley’s tongue slid across Anna’s lower lip. The erotic gesture sent a shudder of delight straight to her toes.