Marianne had tied it around her neck. “Bonjour,” she’d said, with a cheeky little smile.
“That is stealing,” he’d said, grinning.
She swished her skirt from side to side and quirked a challenging brow. “Then come take it back from me, good sir.”
He’d chased her around a tree, where she’d used the thickness of the trunk to evade him. She’d darted out of his grip several times, but then he’d caught her around the waist.
They’d slipped and fallen to the ground, laughing loudly. He didn’t realize the mistake he’d made until he found their limbs tangled and saw her face beneath his in the grass.
Their chests had been flush. Their cheeks red. He’d felt the crook of her leg on the outside of his. And just as his heart started to thunder, he’d looked down at her mouth.
He’d lowered his face towards hers. She’d started to close her eyes.
And then they’d heard the chatter of voices. Julius and Becky.
Alexander had rolled off of her and stood quite suddenly. He’d straightened his jacket and pushed his hair back, trying not to look guilty and failing miserably.
Julius and Becky passed the grove without even noticing Alexander and Marianne.
After that, he’d suggested they spend the next day with Julius and Becky when he visited. Marianne had looked confused, and perhaps a little sad, but she’d conceded. “That would be lovely,” she’d said.
So the four of them went to the lake.
For a long time, they sat by the shore, lounging in the sun. It was a warm day, which forced Julius and Alexander to take their jackets off. They were left in their shirts and trousers. But even then, they were visibly hot.
Sweat was beading on Julius’ forehead.
“I can only imagine how you ladies must feel,” Alexander remarked. Becky looked entirely composed. She was reading from a book of poems and seemed too engrossed to feel the heat.
But Marianne was another matter entirely. She had this strange look on her face and she was staring at the water. Her countenance was almost… defiant.
“I am thinking about going in.” As she said this, Marianne turned her face to look at them, as if daring them to tell her not to.
Lord Blackwood quirked a brow, but said nothing. He didn’t care much for propriety. He never had.
Becky, on the other hand, was entirely horrified. She put her book down. “Go in?” She blurted. “Now?” She looked pointedly at Alexander and Julius.
He knew what she was trying to say. That Marianne couldn’t very well go in with the gentlemen around. But Marianne was already standing and walking towards the water.
“Marianne! It’s improper!”
“Improper,” she echoed, with an eye roll. “I am tired of not doing things I want to do because they’re improper. They are gentlemen. They won’t look while I undress. And then I’ll be in the water.”
Becky’s jaw went slack, but she didn’t say anything more.
As Marianne reached up for the straps of her gown, Alexander felt as if the sun had gotten hotter. Now he was sweating.
But then he saw that Julius hadn’t looked away yet.
“Well?” He said, suddenly. He stood and grabbed Julius by the arm. “Turn around.”
Julius smiled and the pair of them turned their backs to the lake. They heard the rustle of clothing, and then a splash. “May I turn now?” Julius asked.
Alexander felt his breaths becoming unsteady. He recalled the last time he’d seen her in no more than a slip.
Slowly, he turned and so did Julius.
But neither of them sat down.
Julius looked at him. “I am rather hot. Aren’t you?”
Alexander swallowed. He knew what he was suggesting. “I am.”
And then Julius looked down at Becky, with a broad and cheeky smile. “Well? Are you going to come in?”
“Certainly not!”
“I think you won’t be able to resist.” Julius winked at her and went towards the water. He removed the heaviest, least necessary garments, which included his boots and his trousers. This left him in his breeches and his shirt.
Suitably undressed, Julius ran into the water. He splashed right towards Marianne, who squealed and raised her hands to ward off the water he sent hurtling towards her in a wave.
They were laughing.
And Alexander suddenly felt extremely envious.
He found himself removing his own boots and trousers before he’d even consciously decided to join them. “You too?” Becky said. With a huffing sound, she resumed reading and seemed entirely resolved to ignore them all.
Alexander walked into the water. Ahead of him, Julius and Marianne were having a splash war. By the time he’d joined them, they were laughing so much that they looked like they could hardly breathe.
“So you decided to join us?” Julius remarked.
“I knew he would,” Marianne said. She was looking at him and smiling, with red cheeks.
“You knew, did you?” He said, with a quirked brow.
“I did.” She splashed him as he said this. He put up his arm to block it, then splashed her right back. They played like that for a long time. Just splashing each other and swimming around. They were like children and he loved it.
When Julius leapt on his back and pushed him under the water, he came up laughing. He did the same to him. And then, as Alexander resurfaced, he felt a pair of hands on his shoulders.
It was Marianne. She pushed him under, but instead of resurfacing he dove down lower and twisted in the water. When he came back up, he was facing her.
“You are lucky I would not treat a lady in such a way,” he said, with a broad smile. “Or I’d dunk you right this instant.”
Her smile turned impish. Her hands had come to rest on his shoulders. “Would you do that to me, my Lord? I thought we were friends.”
His eyes lowered to her lips again. And for a second, he forgot that there were other people around.
He felt her fingers touching the hair at the back of his neck. Saw her look down at his mouth and knew that she wanted him to kiss her.
Everything else fell away and he started to lean closer.
And then he heard a splash.
“Becky!” Marianne said, when she turned to see that Becky had run into the water.
Blushing like guilty adolescents, Marianne and Alexander parted from one another. But it couldn’t last long. While Becky and Julius played near the shore, Marianne took Alexander’s hand beneath the water and led him towards a small island in the center of the lake.
The island was overgrown with bushes and flowers. She led him around it, until they were out of sight. “What are we doing?” He asked.
“This,” she said, as she turned to face him. She pulled his hand to her waist and eased herself against him until their bodies were aligned. He felt his breath catch in his throat.
He’d always known her as this sweet, innocent girl. But there was a sultry look in her eye which reminded him of the power she wielded over him.
Her lips were wet with water when she kissed him, which made his bones feel liquid. He knew that he shouldn’t be doing this. Fiancé or not, Marianne wasn’t his to kiss. Not yet, at least.
Though the love he felt for her grew with every day that passed, he hadn’t proposed yet. He’d wanted to give Eliza time, at least, before Alexander moved in on her sister.
That was what he’d told himself when he’d woken up that morning. But all he could think of now was the glide of Marianne’s limbs beneath the water.
“Marianne,” he whispered against her lips.
“Don’t fight it.” She shook her head as she said this, speaking breathlessly.
And then he felt it. The flutter of her fingers down his abdomen, towards the part of himself that was beginning to ache. Her other hand reached for his and drew it towards her thigh.
She pushed gently and looked him in the eye, coaxing his hand beneath her slip. “Please,” she b
reathed.
He gazed at her, in a reality of her very own making.
And his hand rose.
He felt the pulse beating hard in her inner thigh and the heat coming from her center. His eyelids grew heavy and his breath caught audibly in his throat.
Her fingertips were in the hollow of his hip bone, her lips were on his neck, tasting the salt of his skin. With a sudden intake of breath, he lowered his head towards her chest.
He closed his eyes and trailed his lips down her collarbone until he found what he was looking for.
Through the slick wetness of her laced pantalette, he caught her nipple between his teeth and dragged his tongue over it.
Marianne gasped, too loudly.
“Marianne?” Becky called. “Marianne, where are you? Are you okay?”
Marianne and Alexander were snapped out of their maddening lust. “Go!” She exclaimed, in a whisper, pushing him out from behind the island.
She followed seconds later, with flaming cheeks.
“Very well, Becky,” she called in return. “Only exploring.”
Becky looked dubious, but Julius was smiling. When Becky looked like she was about to ask questions, Julius splashed her, which suitably distracted her.
In the wake of what had happened, Alexander and Marianne smiled shyly at each other, still blushing.
When it got cold, Julius and Alexander turned around again. This allowed the ladies to get out, remove their wet undergarments and put their gowns back on.
“You can turn around now,” Marianne called, once they were done.
Julius and Alexander dragged their wet bodies back to shore. They stood looking at the women for a moment, with their breeches clinging to them. “Well?” Julius said. “Are you waiting for a show?” He put his hand on his breeches, as if he meant to pull them down, which gave the ladies the shock he’d hoped for.
They turned quickly and faced the opposite way.
Alexander smiled at Julius and they both started to undress. They stripped off their wet breeches and put their trousers back on.
Then they told the ladies they can turn back around and lounged in the sun for a while longer, until their shirts were dry.
At last, when the sun was beginning to set, they went back to the house. Julius and Becky walked ahead of them, while Marianne and Alexander lagged behind.
They talked about their time in the lake for a while. How much fun they had, how freeing it was. How they hoped to do it again sometime.
***
Lady Marianne Purcell, Daughter of the Baron of Westlake
It was the day after their trip to the lake when Lady Lilia announced that someone had come to visit her. Alexander wasn’t there that day, because he’d gone back to Mayfair to deliver another letter to her father.
Marianne thought it might be Lord Fuller, come for his answer. And oh, how she dreaded telling him that her heart belonged to another.
“It’s early in the morning for a visit,” Marianne remarked. “I suppose it is Lord Fuller?”
Lady Lilia shook her head, grimly. Marianne frowned as she walked downstairs.
Her heart was in her throat and she felt like it was suffocating her.
It was Eliza.
“Eliza…” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I suppose you’re wondering how I found you,” Eliza said, in a voice so sharp you could have cut glass with it. Eliza looked truly awful. Her hair was in disarray, she had mud on the hem of her dress and she had deep purple rings under her eyes.
“Eliza, come sit down. You don’t look well.”
“Don’t pretend that you care about me. You’ve never cared about me.”
Marianne walked down the remaining steps and tried to approach Eliza, but she put her hand out to stop her. For fear that she might strike her, Marianne stopped in her tracks.
“Is father with you? How did you get here?”
“I came here alone.”
Marianne’s hands fell back to her sides. She couldn’t run from this, so she faced it. “Then you know.”
“Of course I know. I’ve always known!” Her sister cried.
Marianne blinked at her sister, with nothing but sincere confusion. “What do you mean you’ve always known?”
This frustrated Eliza to no end. When she next spoke, she screamed. “You are trying to steal him from me, as I always knew you would! But I won’t let you!”
When Eliza screamed, she lunged towards her, forcing Marianne to take a sudden step back.
She put her hands up in a show of submission and in an attempt to calm her. “Eliza, you must know that I didn’t mean for this to happen. There’s things you don’t understand. I knew him long before you did.”
“How dare you lie to me? Will you lie to my face?”
Marianne pursed her lips. “I’m not lying, Eliza. I met him in Bath.”
Eliza ignored her and kept speaking. “He has been coming here for weeks,” Eliza spat. “I saw the letters in father’s desk. You’ve been making him come here to see you! You’ve been manipulating him!”
“I’ve done no such thing. He comes here of his own accord. I am sorry that you have been hurt, Eliza, but this is the truth. We love one another.”
“Love?” she spat. “Is that what you think? That he comes here for love? Then why, little sister, is he marrying me? You have tried to dig your claws in, but you have failed. He is mine. Mine.”
Marianne felt anger rise in her, coaxed to the surface by such a brazen claim. “You are hysterical,” she said, in a tighter voice. “But this isn’t something you can deny. You aren’t going to marry Alexander. He loves me, sister.”
Eliza laughed. She laughed. And it was a terrifying, maniacal sound. “Oh, you have truly lost touch with reality, haven’t you? I suppose that’s why you have come here, isn’t it? So that you can live in a fantasy where you get to ride into the sunset with your knight in shining armor.”
Marianne went silent and stared at her sister.
“But that’s not the real world, is it?” She sneered. “In the real world, I tried on my wedding dress just yesterday and my future father-in-law paid the bill.”
There was a moment of weighted silence while that sank in. “You… you did what?”
“Oh, dear little sister,” Eliza said, in a sickly sweet and callous voice. “Did I shatter your little fantasy?”
With those final words, Eliza left.
Marianne stood there for a long time, before drifting inside.
“Are you alright?” Becky asked, when she saw her.
Marianne didn’t answer. Upon seeing her friend, she could only do one thing. She walked quickly into Becky’s arms, pressed her face into her dear friend’s neck. And sobbed.
“Oh Becky,” she wept. “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
***
Lord Norman Purcell, Baron of Westlake
“Eliza is gone,” his wife said from the doorway of his study.
He looked up from his book. “I know.”
“Did you hear her leave?”
“Everyone did.”
“Is that all you have to say?” Her voice was cutting.
He sighed and put his book down. “What do you want me to say?”
“She told me about the letters, Norman. The letters you’ve been sending to Marianne.”
“Am I not allowed to write to my daughter?”
“You knew where she was all this time, and you’ve encouraged Lord Redmond to visit her by making a messenger of him. Now I want you to put a stop to it, before it gets out of hand,” she snapped.
“How can you be sure that Marianne wants him?”
“Because she is a jealous, impudent girl.”
Norman felt a muscle pulse in his jaw as he clenched his teeth. He’d always been so passive with his wife, which was something he’d come to regret in recent years. When he’d seen what his passivity cost Marianne.
“She is neither of those things.”
�
�You’re blind to her faults,” his wife spat.
“And you imagine them. You have always hated her.”
“I can’t be blamed for that, given where she came from. That wretched-”
“I’ve told you not to speak of it,” he bit out sharply.
A Marquess' Forbidden Desire (Steamy Historical Regency) Page 29