Read One Naughty Night2 for Free Online

was painful.
    “Thank you for the tea,” she said. “I should go now.”
    “Do you have your carriage here?”
    Lily shook her head. “I took a hansom.”
    “Then let me drive you home.”
    She considered refusing. His dashing yellow curricle was so small; she wasn’t sure how she would feel pressed close to him on the narrow seat. Her body against his.
    But she found herself nodding. “Very well. Thank you. It’s not far.”
    He took her arm in a light grasp as he led her out of the cafe and back onto the crowded street. He held her close,safe from the jostling, and drew her back toward the wider lanes outside the warren of shops and restaurants. He kept up a light stream of talk as they went, making her laugh at his jests, his observations of the people around them. She even found herself relaxing somewhat and let herself enjoy his touch on her arm, the protective closeness of his strong body.
    But then they turned a corner, and she glimpsed a figure lounging against the brick wall across the street. A muscular figure with close-cropped black hair and clad in plaid trousers and leather coat and holding a stout, skull-headed walking stick.
    Oh, Christ, that stick! It could not be.
    Lily’s whole body went stiff with a rush of raw fear. He was dead. She had heard he was, that he had died in Australia, and even the old nightmares had started to fade as the years went on and she never saw him again. This had to be an illusion. She was probably overly tired from working on the plans for the club.
    She peered past Aidan’s shoulder, back to the wall, but no one was there now.
    Her skin still prickled with awareness, with the fear she had known all the time as a child, and she gave her head a hard shake. She had only imagined it. He was gone. He no longer had any power over her.
    “Lily?” Aidan asked. “Are you well? You look so pale.”
    Lily jerked her attention away from the wall and back to Aidan’s handsome face. He looked concerned, and his hand tightened on her arm. But the fear of the past, of that man, still held her in its cold, iron grip. She drew away from Aidan.
    “I am quite well,” she answered shortly, and walked away down the street.
    Not real, not real
, she told herself as Aidan fell back into step beside her. If only she could believe it.
    Aidan leaned against his carriage door and watched Lily as she hurried up the back stairs to her house. She wouldn’t let him leave her at the front door and walk her inside. She had insisted he drive her to the mews tucked behind the garden. And as he helped her down, he could swear she nervously scanned the windows to make sure no one was watching.
    What was she hiding?
    That hint of mystery, of intrigue, only made her more attractive to him. He had always loved a woman with secrets. It made it so much more fun to uncover them all, layer by layer.
    Especially when the secrets came in as pretty a package as Lily St. Claire Nichols.
    She paused by the door to glance back at him. She gave him a tentative smile, a little wave with her gloved hand. He barely had time to wave back before she whirled around and dashed into the house.
    Aidan grinned as he flexed his fingers and remembered the brush of her skin against his just there, the rainy-violet scent that seemed to linger on his hand. He was a man who liked women, enjoyed their company, and he had known a great many of them in his life. If anyone knew exactly how many, it would be a scandal. Yet he had never felt anything quite like the sensation that shot through his hand when Lily touched him. The hot awareness that jolted straight to his manhood.
    He glanced up at the windows, hoping for one more glimpse of her face, but the glass was blank. Aidan swung back up into the carriage and gathered the reins. Soon he was back on the crowded streets, turning toward his lodgings on Jermyn Street. But his thoughts were still on Lily St. Claire.
    Usually he knew all too easily how to woo a lady, could see as soon as