“How are your sisters, Lord Ravenscroft?” Lady Bella asked, still cool though the earl had undeniably begun to thaw some of her ice. “You have two, yes? Lady Alexandra and Lady Josephine?”
He inclined his head. “You are, of course, correct as ever, my lady. Both are well, thank you, but perhaps a trifle in need of some sisterly guidance from a female. It’s my fervent hope that Miss Whitney might become dear friends with them.”
“I’m sure Miss Clara would enjoy such an arrangement, in the event of your marriage.” Lady Bella said the last as if it tasted bitter upon her tongue. As though their marriage were still a questionable matter.
Clara stared at the earl’s hands upon the fine china of his saucer. So large, those hands, holding such a delicate porcelain. He could easily crush it in his fist, but he was gentle, his long fingers curved over the handle as though it were a lover’s body. Pity that she’d never again be capable of looking upon his hands without recalling what they’d done to her.
“Clara, dearest?”
She blinked and forced her attention to her stepmother, who had apparently asked her a question. A question she hadn’t heard, mired in wicked thoughts about Ravenscroft’s hands, of all things. Not even his mouth, though another stolen peek confirmed it was equally as fine as she’d recalled, well-molded and sensual.
“I would dearly love a turn about the garden, Lady Bella,” she blurted, suddenly in need of air. Lots of air. “Forgive me, my lord. If you’ll excuse me?”
“I’ll escort you,” the earl offered, playing the role of the gallant knight all too well as he shot to his feet.
“My lord,” Lady Bella argued.
“We shall stay in view of the windows at all times, Lady Bella,” he countered. “I’ll not do Miss Whitney any harm, I swear. Not a hint of scandal.”
Her stepmother’s gaze was as sharp as a guillotine. “Ravenscroft, my husband will have your hide if you so much as touch her elbow inappropriately.”
The earl nodded, unperturbed. “I wouldn’t dream of molesting Miss Whitney’s elbow, I assure you.”
Such a droll wit, his lordship possessed. Clara repressed her smile. Lady Bella did not appear equally amused.
“I’ll be watching from the window, my lord.” Lady Bella’s tone was frigid. “Five minutes. No more.”
“Thank you, my lady, but fifteen would really be much more the thing.”
“Seven and a half, not a second past.”
“Ten,” he countered, “and a disappearance behind a tall, accommodating hedge.”
Clara couldn’t stifle her shocked laughter at his daring.
Her stepmother pinned her with a remonstrating glare before turning the full force of her disapproval upon the earl. “You think everything a lark, do you not, my lord? Eight minutes and absolutely no accommodating hedges to speak of. You’re fortunate indeed that I haven’t called for my husband to beat you to a pulp for your insouciance.”
“Ah, I suppose being a peer of the realm possesses its merits,” he said drily.
“Being a peer of the realm has nothing to do with it,” Lady Bella corrected. “Clara professes to care for you. And that, my lord, is your only saving grace.”
He smiled, but the effect did not reach his eyes. On the whole, it was a rather grim smile, harsh and unforgiving. “On that, my lady, we are agreed.”
* * *
A turn about the gardens for eight minutes with an overbearing stepmama watching from a window for the slightest misstep. Damnation, he supposed this was his punishment for toying with innocents. Or perhaps it was his very own form of Purgatory? One of Dante’s circles? Jesus, who knew.
The only fact Julian did know as he stood in the garden with Clara, her hand on his elbow—the better to avoid an improper touch, and all that—was that if he didn’t soon take her to bed, he’d go mad. How had he thought that touching her in his carriage was a good idea? How had he believed he could slide his hand beneath her skirts, experience the welcoming, wet heat of her, her newly awakened desire, and then ride home to his impudent sisters, threadbare home, dwindling cast of servants, and empty bed? How had he ever fancied he could carry out polite conversation before Lady Bella and not recall what Clara tasted like? Sunshine and honey and the earthy musk that was deliciously, innately hers.
Fuck.
Someone needed to brain him. Plant him a facer. Trounce him. Take up the cudgels and beat him senseless. For that was the only way he could shake the deliriousness this innocent slip of a girl had visited upon him.
“I wanted to come out here alone, you know,” Clara said then as they stopped before a perfectly trimmed hedge. Not tall enough to serve his purpose, but a green slash of boxwood nonetheless. The sun was blotted out by fog, and the air was far from fresh. But the garden was, somehow, rebelliously green and alive in their city of filth.
A casual glance over his shoulder confirmed the wraithlike face of his chaperone on the other side of the pane. Blast. She was true to her word, Lady Bella. He turned his attention back to his betrothed’s profile. A perfect, petite slash of nose. A high cheekbone. A smattering of freckles. How de trop. How refreshingly real. He hadn’t noticed before. Nor had he noticed the way her left brow winged out in imperfection. “You sought to avoid me, little dove? Why, I wonder? Do you not trust yourself with me?”
She made an impatient sound, almost a harrumph, keeping her gaze trained on the hedge. “You flatter yourself, Lord Ravenscroft.”
“Did you not enjoy my touch yesterday?” He couldn’t resist goading her with the question. Some devil within him wanted to see her cheeks filled with roses once more, to shake her from her nearly flawless equanimity. “Tell me, love, when you lay alone in your chamber last night, did your thoughts not stray to our carriage ride at all?”
Her lips compressed into a firm line, hammered out by irritation, he had no doubt. “No, my lord, to both impertinent questions.”
He grinned. Perhaps there was something to be said for being watched in a garden while he conducted a proper courtship. He’d never aroused a woman with mere words before.
“You didn’t even think of me once, darling?” he pressed, stepping nearer to her with a subtlety he hoped would spare him notice from the hawk-like chaperone at his back. His trousers curved into the voluminous fall of her gown, their sides almost touching. Yes, there was something to be said for the wait. Somehow, their lack of intimate contact only heightened his desire. That gilded scent of citrus wafted to his nose, and his cock went as hard as a marble bust.
She turned her head toward him at last, rewarding him with the full effect of her beauty, the high forehead, delicate tawny brows, luminous eyes, the lush mouth, slightly retroussé nose. Even her ears were lovely, goddamn it, the plump little lobes calling for him to bite and lick.
“I didn’t think of you at all, Lord Ravenscroft. I thought of my home, the place where I belong. I thought of freedom, of the scent of the earth in Virginia after a summer rain, of the sun rising over Richmond. I thought of the call of whip-poor-wills and a sky that isn’t blanketed in noxious fog and endless drizzle.”
Her impassioned reply had him knowing a sharp pang of jealousy. What would it be like, he wondered for a fleeting moment, to be thought of with as much unadulterated passion as the woman before him directed upon a place on a map? The urge to usurp her homeland in her affections rose within him, as ridiculous as it was unrelenting. Tea was not a panacea, it seemed. Nor was an eight-minute turn in the gardens with a grim, window audience.
He leaned nearer to her, just near enough to maintain propriety but capture the full attention of the woman before him. The woman who expected him to believe she carried a mere place in the same regard as a man’s touch. Virginia couldn’t damn well make her come, now could it?
“Perhaps I was remiss in my efforts.” He allowed his gaze to dip to her lips. “Next time I shall use my tongue.”
Her eyes flew open wide. He’d shocked her again. Such an innocent, his future coun
tess. But just as quickly, she schooled her features into unaffected elegance once more. “For what purpose, Lord Ravenscroft? I’m sure you’ve already wielded your tongue upon me with your verbal prowess on each occasion of our meeting. Sometimes with manners, but usually without.”
Ah, she wanted to play the game? He hoped to hell that Lady Bella wasn’t about to swoop down upon them and put an end to their invigorating tête-à-tête, for he was enjoying himself immensely. “Sweet, innocent darling, you cannot think I meant to use my tongue for something as boring as speaking.”
She swallowed. “My lord, this conversation is quickly becoming improper.”
“If you wanted proper, you sought out the wrong earl, little dove,” he reminded her with a touch more bitterness than he intended. “Proper is for clergymen and maiden aunts. Proper is dull as hell. Improper, however, is infinitely more rewarding. Do you want to know what I’d do to you with my tongue?”
She did. Her expression, her sparkling, intelligent gaze, all clamored with curiosity. “Perhaps you ought to bite your tongue, my lord,” she suggested airily, refusing to give in to that inquisitiveness. “That seems to be the wisest course of action for all concerned.”
“Wisdom and desire so rarely go hand in hand,” he returned, smiling at her rejoinder before bemusement overtook him.
He enjoyed her wit, her determination, and even her dedicated love for her homeland, her wrongheaded pursuit of liberation from her father’s perceived tyranny. He liked bantering with her as much as he liked kissing her and touching her. Now there was a rarity indeed. Few women had ever called to him on a deeper level than mere animal lust. That this innocent firebrand from Virginia, this slip of a girl with golden hair who smelled like sunshine, who’d shown up in his study and proposed marriage to him did—somehow, this seemed like God’s greatest joke of all upon one of His most sinful servants.
“On that notion, my lord, we are in agreement,” she said, interrupting his musings with such abruptness that for a moment he wasn’t certain what she referred to. “You’ll not sway me. A marriage in name only. I don’t care how handsome you are or how fine a kisser.”
As she said the last, she raised her fingers over her mouth as though doing so could recall the words. Color still tinged her cheeks. With his free hand, he covered her fingers where they rested in the crook of his elbow. Just a slight touch, but she was teaching him that there could be power in the smallest of gestures.
“You think me a fine kisser, Clara?”
She glared at him. “You must already know that you are, sir.”
“Perhaps.” He considered her with great care. “But hearing it from you is the greatest of compliments. I do believe your delightful stepmother is about to swoop down upon us any moment. But do think tonight when you’re alone, darling, where you’d like to have my tongue. You’ll find I’m a most obliging sort.”
* * *
Think about where you’d like to have my tongue. Indeed! The man was a rake, a cad, a voluptuary, a… Why, Clara had run out of insults already, but there it was. Plain and stark and true. The Earl of Ravenscroft was every bit as wicked as she’d been led to believe. She didn’t know which was worse, his obvious dearth of morals or the way he’d managed to intrude upon her thoughts far too often when he was nowhere in sight. His sinful suggestion had stayed with her, and she was ashamed to admit that her fanciful imagination had envisioned more than one place upon her person where she’d like to have the bounder’s tongue.
It was wicked, wanton, and altogether at odds with her plans for a hasty marriage, even hastier dissolution, and her happy return to American shores. She took a calming sip of the champagne she’d forgotten she held. Then another. And another. She’d tucked herself into a corner of the Duke of Devonshire’s ballroom, where she hoped she could remain undetected by her fellow revelers, her stepmother and father chief among them, for as long as possible. Invisibility wasn’t a virtue, but in the maelstrom of her life, it had suddenly become a condition she craved.
“Clara, dear heart.” The familiar, feminine voice in her ear had Clara whirling to find her closest friend, Lady Boadicea Harrington. Bo was auburn-haired and tall to Clara’s petite fairness. The two of them had become fast friends in finishing school, bonding over their mutual hatred of such an insufferable institution. They’d both been seen as too spirited by their families, too rebellious in nature, desperately in need of some ladylike polishing. As though we’re candlesticks, Bo had once lamented, rolling her eyes.
Bo grinned at her now in that vibrant, carefree way she had that made anyone who looked upon her feel as if they were sharing in a great secret. “I feel it’s been ages since we’ve seen each other. I’ve missed you so.”
“And I’ve missed you.” Clara was relieved to see her friend and confidante at last. “There’s so much I must tell you.”
She hadn’t dared to write Bo with news about her plan for fear her father was reading her letters after all the trouble she’d brought raining down upon him. Lord knew he’d done it before when he suspected her of becoming too familiar with the Earl of Dalmain’s third son. In truth, Henry had kissed her but twice, though his long and ardent love letters—intercepted by her irate father—would have suggested otherwise.
Henry’s kisses had been nothing at all like the earl’s. They had been pleasant but hasty, a quick press of his wet mouth upon hers. Not entirely unpleasant, but neither had it left her longing for more in the way Ravenscroft’s masterful mouth had. Lord have mercy, there her wicked mind went again, at full gallop into enemy territory. She had to grab hold of the reins.
“Has your plan commenced?” Bo asked quietly, her eyes sparkling with mischief. Bo enjoyed larks. In finishing school, she’d once switched out the headmistress’s cheese plate with a rather convincing array of sliced soap. Madame Desjardins had not been impressed to be the butt of such a joke. “Do tell.”
Clara nodded. “My plan has more than commenced. I’m marrying the earl in a week and a half’s time.”
“Truly?” Bo’s eyes went wide. “How can it be when I haven’t heard a word?”
“My father is doing his best to blunt the scandal. Unfortunately, I’m being forced to endure two weeks of proper courtship before we can wed.”
“Shrewd of Mr. Whitney,” Bo agreed before a frown creased the otherwise flawless cream of her high forehead. “But does this mean you’re really going to leave me here in this unforgiving wilderness on my own?”
“You have sisters,” Clara reminded her.
“Of course, and I love them all dearly, but none of them have ever crept into the darkness of a Swiss night with me to rig a saucer of honey to fall on Lady Louisa Wormley’s head after she left her chamber in the morning.”
Clara laughed at the reminder of one of their more memorable adventures. “Lady Louisa deserved a saucer of pig excrement. The honey was too kind.”
“You see? Where will I find anyone else with such a delightful sense of justice?” Bo clapped her hands to her wasp waist and gave her a severe look. “Don’t answer me. I despair.”
Her friend’s feigned melodrama had Clara relaxing slightly, and momentarily distracted her mind. “You may visit me in Virginia whenever you like. My doors will always be open to you.”
“Is Ravenscroft in accord with your intentions?” Bo asked.
“Yes. He’s pockets to let as you said, and he needs the funds. He keeps his portion, and I return to my home. It will all be easy.” She flushed as she said the last, for her thoughts again strayed to his wicked suggestion, and to thoughts of his touch. Of how much she’d enjoyed it, and of how difficult she found it to resist him.
“He’s the devil’s own sort of handsome, is he not?” Bo seemed to sense the sinful course her thoughts had taken. “Is he as good a kisser as they say?”
Her pride wanted her to lie, but this was her friend. Her compatriot. The very lady with whom she’d released frogs into the knickers drawer of one Miss Caroline Stanley. “I
’m afraid so,” she admitted weakly, embarrassed. “Bo, he’s every bit the rake they say he is too. Perhaps worse.”
“Never say it.” Bo looked impressed.
She likely was. Bo was unique and bold, and she aired her mind without caring who she offended or what rule of society she bent. She was a true original, the last of her sisters on the marriage market. As such, her parents were quite eager for her to make a good match before she created a horrible scandal. Bo herself was in no such hurry.
“I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true,” Clara grumbled. “Though it grieves me to admit it. I’d certainly never tell a soul other than you. Well, and perhaps the earl himself. I do believe I foolishly told him just such a thing yesterday in the gardens.”
And he’d been pleased, the rapscallion.
Her friend’s gaze searched Clara’s, seeing far too much. “You like him, don’t you?”
Like him? Of course she didn’t like the Earl of Ravenscroft. He was odd, a contradiction, too handsome for his own good. He was a reprobate who’d used his looks to cuckold husbands all across London. He drank too much. He didn’t seem to hold anything sacred. He’d never done anything worthwhile in his life, aside from taking on the title of earl and walking about as though the world was his theater. Why, the greatest suffering in his life was likely nothing more dire than a leaky roof on one of his stately homes or a worn carpet he could ill afford to replace. Pockets to let for an English lord was still living quite handsomely for most folk.
No, she didn’t like him at all. She opened her mouth to say precisely that.
“Don’t answer me now,” Bo intervened in a low tone, her eyes darting past Clara’s shoulder and widening with meaning. “He’s coming this way. Oh my, he is wonderfully fine-looking, Clara. I’d forgotten just how much since I saw him last at Cleo and Thornton’s dinner. I’m not sure I’d be in such a rush to leave for Virginia, were I you.”
Heart’s Temptation Series Books 4-6 Page 34