“Was that wrong?” she asked uncertainly as she fallback.

“No,” he assured her sounding grim. “It was too right. Much more and I would be useless.”

“But you do it to me, and I want to—” Her protest ended on a gasp when he caught her beneath the knees, and pulled her bottom to the edge of the bed.

She started to sit up again then, but fallback with another gasp as he suddenly spread her legs wide, stepped between them and drove himself into her.

He paused briefly then and Christiana blinked her eyes open, aware only then that she’d closed them. She immediately wished she hadn’t. He stood, peering down at her and she was completely revealed in this position. Before she could cover her nakedness he lifted one of her legs to press against his chest and leaned against it as he reached with one hand to caress her breast. The other then moved between her legs, caressing her again as he began to move inside her and Christiana quickly forgot her self-consciousness and everything else as he pounded vigorously into her, his actions and caresses taking them both to the precipice and over.

Chapter Fifteen

The murmur of voices stirred Christiana from sleep, and had her rolling onto her back in bed. Opening her eyes, she found the room awash with sunlight and Richard up, dressed, and at the door talking to someone in the hall . He closed the door now and turned back into the room, a smile curving his lips as his eyes landed on her.

“Ah, you’re awake.” Richard approached the bed, pausing to collect a dressing gown off the back of a chair as he came. “Your bath is ready, and everyone else is gathering downstairs. Cook is making breakfast, which should be ready soon, and then we need to start moving on our plans for the day.

You’re still willing to take care of interviewing the staff today while Daniel and I go see about the money, aren’t you?”

“Of course.” Christiana sat up, taking the robe from him and managing to pull it onto first one arm and then the other while still holding up the bedclothes to cover her nakedness. Before she’d nodded off in the carriage on the journey back to London, the group had discussed and decided who would handle what tasks today after they’d rested. Daniel was going to accompany Richard to arrange for the blackmail money, Lisa and Robert were to visit the park and various other areas in search of gossip to see if they could not find out who George had seemed most friendly with this last year in the hopes of sorting out who the blackmailer could be, and Suzette and Christiana were to question the staff and see if they couldn’t figure out who might have been paid to poison George’s drink.

Christiana had been rather surprised he’d trust her with the responsibility when Richard had asked if she’d be willing to handle the interviews. George wouldn’t have.