No, you idiot. It’s because she’s intelligent, quick-witted, and beautiful. You’d be interested in her if all of London was standing in one ballroom, and she was on the other side.

Not to mention, it appeared she was as interested in him, which couldn’t help but increase his own interest.

“What are you thinking about?” Clark’s question snapped him out of his reverie.

“Uh—” Griffith began, only to have Clark raise an eyebrow and look him straight in the eye. Difficult, since Clark was so much shorter than Griffith was.

Griffith admired his friend’s dexterity.

“Out with it. What are you doing? What are you planning on doing?”

He never could keep a secret from his first mate, could he?

“Well, there is a lady.”

Clark’s expression cleared. “Oh, is that all? I should have expected that.”

Griffith wanted to bristle at Clark’s easy acceptance, and his implication that Lady Della was just another of his passing fancies.

Even though she was, by her own definition. And they hadn’t done anything but kiss yet. And he’d stroked her breast, which it seemed she thoroughly enjoyed.

He felt as he did when he had first noticed the opposite sex; how could one sharp, beautiful woman set him so askew? As though he were half his age and desperate for notice?

He would have to remind himself of his own skill in matters of passion when he actually got to touch her. Or she’d be disappointed in his quick . . . resolution.

“Do you need anything else, my lord?” Clark said, a sly gleam in his eyes. “Should I help you dress for bed?”

Griffith grabbed a pillow off the bed and flung it at Clark, who dodged it easily, laughing.

“I take that as a no. If you will excuse me? I’ll just go to my room.”

“Good evening, Clark.”

“Good evening, my lord,” Clark said as he left the room.

Leaving Griffith alone to recall the kiss, and the proposal she’d made, and imagining just how delicious she would taste.

If it weren’t close to midnight, he’d be tempted to walk over to her house right now to take her up on the offer. Perhaps she’d already be in bed, all sleepy and rumpled, and he could curl up alongside her, rousing her gently with his mouth and hands.

But—damn it!—he knew he could not do that, and now he had a massive cockstand and only his own hand to take care of it.

But soon. Soon he would be able to thrust inside her, to bring her to release, to ravish her thoroughly so that both of them would be left in a boneless heap.

He couldn’t wait.

Chapter 8

“Lord Stanbury is arriving at ten o’clock this morning so we can go down to the docks and make inquiries.”