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care to admit—wicked to the core.
    Gavin ignored the voice inside him.
    While it was true that on his journey back to Norfield he had been envisioning Kira
     Melbourne astride him, as he’d tried to piece the sultry image together, Gavin remembered
     Vance’s assertion that Kira had a birthmark. Instantly, he knew the means by which
     he could prove or disprove its existence , and thus, the scoundrel’s claims. So he’d waited for the servants to bring her fresh
     water. She would be awake now and dressing for the day. And he could learn the truth.
    With sun shining its pale morning light on the south side of the manor, he pushed
     aside the tapestry that hid the passage door, took a deep breath, and lifted the latch,
     candle in hand.
    It was dark in the tunnel, of course, as well as musty. The walls closed in around
     him. The low ceiling forced him to hunch over as he navigated the narrow path. He
     raised the candle, noting the markings by each chamber, written in his father’s hand.
     Leave it to dear Papa to be thorough when chasing a good voyeuristic thrill.
    Finally, he came upon the rose room. The room that held Kira Melbourne. The room where,
     by now, she was likely performing her morning toilet.
    Was Kira a seductress or an innocent?
    Though the truth did not matter where the ton was concerned , because she was still a ruined woman in their eyes . Gavin was determined to know the truth . Naturally, he sought answers for James’s sake. If the woman was as wanton as Lord
     Vance claimed, he would have no qualms about ousting Kira from his cousin’s life.
     She was scandal personified, a half-Persian outcast who did not belong in the Daggett
     family. Gavin didn’t personally want to disprove her dissolute past for any particular
     reason. It hardly signified whether she’d had one lover or one hundred.
    Some annoying part of him, however, hoped not to find the heart-shaped birthmark on
     her left hip that Lord Vance had so lewdly described.
    Shielding the flickering candle flame with his damp palm, Gavin leaned toward the
     wall behind the rose room. Silently he removed the slat behind the old painting of
     some long-dead Daggett matron who would probably be spinning in her grave if she could
     see him now. Ignoring the racing of his heart, he peered through the two small eye-shaped
     openings.
    Kira Melbourne stood before her mirror in a nightrail, bathed in gentle golden sunlight
     beaming through the room’s sheer drapes. With a sharp, clear voice she hummed a familiar
     tune he could not place. Her face looked soft, morning sleepy. She wore her black
     hair in a single glossy braid down her back. The tip of the thick tail brushed the
     top of her sweetly-sloped buttocks. Gavin hungered to touch her there.
    A moment later, Kira splashed some water from the pitcher atop her mirrored vanity
     into the bowl beside it. Then she reached for the buttons at the front of her gown.
     Still humming, Kira released each one at a slow, measured pace, displaying the delicacy
     of her collarbones, the top swells of her rounded breasts, the inviting valley in-between.
    As she exposed each inch of new skin, Gavin found it more difficult to draw his next
     breath. The lust inside him rose; his heart beat faster. Gavin reminded himself that
     he was only here to learn the truth—for James. He repeated that fact over and over,
     like a mantra.
    Then Kira bent and grasped the hem of her gown. It came off in one clean sweep, exposing
     every lush inch of her body.
    His gut knotted. Lust sizzled down his legs, burst like fire in his groin. He began
     to sweat. A craving to touch her, explore every curved, feminine inch of her, seized
     him. He wanted her slick and ready for the feel of him deep inside her.
    So much for mantras. Gavin swallowed, his throat dry.
    When was the last time he’d felt such driving lust? Never. Gavin frowned. He kept
     occasional, discreet mistresses whom he found vaguely pleasant. He had never