"If you think to rouse my temper by lumping me in with those soft, pampered boys who grow up believing the world exists only to please them, you are wasting your time, Miss Drysdale. My younger years could not have been more different."
"Perhaps," she conceded. "But the result is, neverthe less, the same: a spoiled and arrogant young lord who lives only to satisfy his own whims."
She'd struck home with that sally. He did not reveal it by so much as a twitch or frown or anything else. Still, she was certain she'd nicked his pride. When he again whispered in her ear, she knew it.
"Would you like to know what my latest whim is?"
To her dismay her aplomb promptly fled. Fortunately the music ended and she was saved having to answer him.
Unfortunately, he did not let her go.
She stepped back from him but he kept hold of her right hand. "Let's have our promenade," he said. "As I'm sure you instructed Lady Valerie, that's the proper way to end a dance with a gentleman."
"Proper for younger ladies," Lucy retorted. "And assuming her dance partner is a gentleman." But he would not let her go and in the end she had no choice but to yield to him. He tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow, then covered it with his free hand.
"You needn't hang on to me as if at any moment I might bolt," she muttered as they strolled the edge of the dance floor.
"You mean you won't?" he mocked her. "Dare I hope that you enjoy my company?"
"I know my duty to my dance partner includes a brief promenade between sets."
"And you always do your duty."
It was a statement, not a question. She chose not to respond but instead smiled at the people they passed, greeting the few she knew and generally trying to behave as if nothing at all out of the ordinary was happening.
Everyone stared at them. And why shouldn't they? What an incongruous pairing they made. The spinster chaperone and the notorious Gypsy earl.
A few of the men ogled her, as if seeing her in a whole new light. The women studied her more critically, as if wondering why the fabulously wealthy bastard earl had chosen her as a dance partner when there were so many more eligible partners.
They were fascinated by him, and frightened too, Lucy realized. And he liked it that way. Well, she refused to let him know he frightened her too.
"So you hate your grandmother because she had you taken from your family, then abandoned you in that school. Do I have it right?"
His hand came back to cover hers. "That's old gossip, Miss Drysdale."
"Old gossip? Why? Because it all happened some twenty years ago? It's my observation that childhood experiences haunt a person and influence their adult behavior. Both good experiences and bad ones."
Their eyes met in a silent battle of wills. Then he smiled, a slow, confident smile. "Now that you remark on it, I seem to recall as a boy being beaten with unwelcome regularity. Assuming your theory is sound, that must account for my heretofore inexplicable aversion to anyone raising a fist to me. Even now, as I approach my thirtieth year, I tend to defend myself stoutly against any and all attackers," he finished in a mocking tone.
"Scoff if you wish," Lucy responded with unruffled calm. "But your animosity toward the dowager countess is due to the dramatic upheavals in your childhood." She stared curiously at him. "Your mother was a good mother, wasn't she? It's the contrast between your life with her and your life after her that is the deepest source of your discontent. If your earlier life had been awful, I doubt your anger now would be so great."
She'd spoken impulsively. It was more thinking out loud than anything else. But once again it was plain she'd struck home. Without warning he steered her past an open arch and into a less-crowded hallway. Another turn and they were suddenly alone in a marginally lighted library.
Lucy felt the beginnings of alarm. "I don't believe I wish to carry on this conversation in here where—" He shut the door with a decisive click. The alarm changed to out-and-out fear. A bead of perspiration rolled hot and telling down between her breasts. She knew, however, that to show him her fear would be a fatal mistake. She crossed her arms across her chest with a nonchalance that was pure affectation.
"You know very well, my lord, that closeting the two us alone together will do far worse damage to my reputation than to yours. If your purpose is to intimidate me, then rest assured, you have done so. Now, you shall please allow me to return to the ball and to my duties to your cousin."
"And here I was prepared to expound upon my anger to you. Does this mean you are no longer interested in that particular subject, Miss Drysdale?"
What she was interested in was getting out of this dangerous situation she'd somehow placed herself in. Or at least that was what she should be interested in. Unfortunately curiosity seemed to have taken over where caution should have reigned. The more she knew of him the better she would understand this perverse attraction she felt for him. She'd always considered herself too intelligent for such silliness as crushes and infatuations. That was for other women, not for her. But here she was, behaving as foolishly as a girl fresh from the schoolroom. Even Valerie was not fool enough to become enamored of Ivan Thornton.
"I'm always interested in the workings of the human mind," she finally managed to answer. "But I'm also mindful of society's rules. Go ahead, my lord. Expound upon your anger. But do so quickly," she added, "so that I may return to my role as Valerie's chaperone."
His fine lips turned up in a mocking grin. "Quickly," he echoed. "Very well, I will try to be brief. But before I begin, I wonder if you will be equally forthcoming with me.
Lucy studied him warily. "What do you mean?"
"Well, for one thing," he began, pushing away from the door and approaching her with a lazy, graceful stride. "What is it in your own childhood that has made you so avid an observer of other people's lives? Is your own existence so boring and unremarkable that you are forced to live vicariously through the lives of others?"
"Is this a new tack, to annoy me by insulting me?"
"I meant no insult, Miss Drysdale. May I call you Lucy?" he added in a low rumble that managed to rattle her right down to her toes.
"I... I don't think ... No. It would not be proper," she at last got out.
"Then Lucy it is. The last thing I want is to be considered proper." As if his words weren't outrageous enough, he had the brass to smile deeply into her eyes.
Was he trying to seduce her? It was ludicrous, of course, and yet there was no mistaking the slumberous look in his impossibly blue eyes. No. Sulfurous would be a better description, for he looked at her as if he would burn her to cinders!
She slid a little to the side, putting more distance between them, and deliberately broke the hold of his forceful gaze. She searched her mind for a way to change the subject and douse the fire he'd brought to life somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach. "I find it very interesting—though you may find it less so—but once again you put me in mind of ... of my nephew. He is forever trying to goad his brother, to irritate him and tease him until he explodes in anger. He tries the same ploy with me as well, but not too often any more, for he knows I am onto him. As I am onto you, my lord."
She had moved behind a broad oak library table, and so felt a trifle more sure of herself, even though she knew she was babbling just like Hortense did. But then, perhaps that was why Hortense babbled, to cover her nervousness. Hortense was not, however, her concern right now. Ivan Thornton was.
Perhaps if she were very careful she could divert his attention and at the same time exercise her responsibilities toward Valerie. Summoning every bit of her nerve, she smiled at him. "I propose a pact between us, Lord Westcott. An agreement that might benefit us equally."
"An agreement that might benefit us equally?" He surveyed her with an insolent thoroughness. She'd never realized eyes that blue could appear so warm. Could feel so warm upon her. "My dear Lucy, are you propositioning me?"
"What?" That jerked her attention away from the color of his eyes
. "Propositioning you? What do you mean— Oh!" Her eyes narrowed and she planted her fists on her hips. Her cheeks were hot with color so there was no hiding her embarrassment. But that only increased her anger. "If you are going to insist on behaving like a troublesome little boy, then I doubt we have anything further to discuss."
He spread his arms, affecting an innocent expression. "A little boy? You wound me deeply. Do I look like a little boy?"
Her rattled nerves caused her to be more blunt than usual. "Oh, no. You look like a man, a man who is more than sure of his own appeal to women. But there's a scared little boy inside you, nevertheless. An angry, howling little boy who has not yet recovered from his lonely, terrifying childhood."
As if her words were shards of ice, the atmosphere in the library chilled instantly to December.
The humor fled his face. "I suspect your experience is more with boys than with men, Miss Drysdale, and that must account for your misjudgment. I have not been a boy since the day I was stolen from my mother. I have not been a boy since I was abandoned at Bastard Hall. I have not been a boy," he continued in a low, awful tone, "since learning of my connection to this amoral family, this amoral society that dares call itself the quality. Whatever there was of the boy in me was driven out too many years ago to remember."
He was magnificent in his anger, magnificent and threatening and oh, so dangerous. But he was vulnerable too, and it was that tiny crack of vulnerability that touched Lucy's heart and would not let her back down from him.
"You have every right to be angry with your grandmother," she murmured, wanting somehow to comfort him. "You have every right to want to hurt her as she has hurt you."
But he did not want her comfort, In three strides he was around the table. He grabbed her shoulders with hands that would not relent. "Any anger I feel for her I will reserve to vent upon her. At this moment, however, my anger is reserved solely for you, Miss Drysdale. Lucy," he amended in a huskier voice.
"What are you doing?" she cried in a voice pitched far too high to be her own.
"I'm venting my anger on you. A man, not a boy, venting his anger on a woman, not on some little schoolroom chit."
Lucy's heart had begun to hammer so hard she could barely breathe. Yet somehow she found words. "If you think you're going to kiss me, you could not be more wrong."
His face lowered to hers. "My dear Miss Drysdale, I'm going to do much more than merely kiss you."
* * *
Chapter Seven
Lucy had been kissed before. Several times. So many times, in fact, that though she remembered the number—eleven—she couldn't remember the particulars of each and every occasion when it had happened.
But she would never forget this kiss.
That was the very first thought that broke free of the fog that had taken over her brain. She would never forget this kiss, for it was soft and fierce, tentative and demanding, generous and greedy, all at the same time. He flooded her with sweetness and singed her with passion. She could swear she smelled smoke.
Then he drew back, just enough that he could look down into her face, and she knew she would never forget him either. He was not sincere about his affections toward her, nor was she toward him. So there was no real harm done. But he was the first man—the one and only man—who'd ever made her want to kiss him back. And to kiss him again.
Without weighing the consequences, she rose up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips once more to his.
Those consequences were swift in coming. One of his arms circled her back; his hand splayed open at her waist and pressed her fully against him. His other hand caught the back of her head, holding her steady for the wicked onslaught of his mouth. This time there was less softness, and more fierceness and greedy demand. There was no tentativeness whatsoever. But there was still generosity.
He slanted his mouth over hers, fitting them closer than before. She could feel the connection between them, all the places their bodies touched: belly, breasts, mouth. Where his hands held her steady.
Then his tongue moved along the seam of her mouth, teasing her lips apart. She gasped at the startling feel of it and he immediately pressed his advantage, caressing her incredibly sensitive inner lips, then plunging in fully.
She'd heard about such kissing, of course. Whispered gossip. Fragments of conversation. She'd even found a brief reference to it in a book in a friend's library, a French tome on health and hygiene, which had discussed in limited detail the physical relationship between a man and his wife.
But this kiss was nothing like what she'd imagined from that dry and awkward description. And anyway, they were not husband and wife—nor would they ever be.
That thought alone should have revived some portion of her good sense. Unfortunately he'd moved his very clever kisses around to her ear and neck, and she was tilted off balance, both physically and mentally. Or was her reaction emotional?
When the hand at her waist slid farther down to cup her derriere she knew it was none of those, however. These feelings he created in her were something else altogether, something that melded her emotional and rational and physical selves into something much bigger than the sum of its parts. Something unimaginable. Something she'd never known she'd been missing.
No, she would never forget this kiss or this man, though she lived to be one hundred.
"You kiss like a courtesan." He murmured the words between sensuous nibbles at her earlobe.
Lucy swallowed hard. He was teasing her, of course. Mocking her considerable inexperience in this sort of kissing.
"I'm sorry you're disappointed," she muttered. "Had I known your intentions, I would have practiced my technique. Now please, let me go!" she demanded, twisting her face away when he sought her mouth once more.
"I'm hardly disappointed," he murmured, nuzzling her ear again. "What you lack in technique you make up for in enthusiasm. I know you like kissing. So come, don't fight me, Lucy. All I want is another taste of your sweet, provocative mouth."
Sweet. Provocative. The words were too seductive for Lucy to resist. She'd been called handsome and witty. One suitor had described her cheeks as downy soft; another had called her hair silk. But none of them had ever described her as provocative. They would not have had the nerve, even had they wanted to.
But this Gypsy earl, Ivan Thornton, had more nerve than ten men. Than eleven.
Just one more kiss, her fevered body begged. Just one more, her foggy mind rationalized. Just one more, her foolish heart pleaded.
She turned to meet his seeking lips, his clever, scorching lips that ignited every part of her, from neatly coiffed head to stylishly clad toes, and everything in between. Of their own account her arms circled his wide shoulders and she threaded her fingers through the longish waves of his Gypsy-dark hair.
Their lips met and the kiss went on forever. Or maybe it was several kisses, kisses beyond number. He kissed her. She kissed him. Once more his tongue delved deep. Then without her knowing how, he drew her tongue into his mouth. She explored and tasted, and as she did, she discovered the unparalleled feeling of wanting to possess him.
When the necessity for air finally drew them apart, Lucy was too shaken to be embarrassed or ashamed. What had passed between them had been too astounding to believe, as if all the most extreme emotions, like terror, panic, and joy, had been united into one intense moment, one exquisite act.
His embrace loosened and his hands slid back to hold her upper arms. But they remained mere inches apart, his brilliant blue gaze burning into hers. "So, my dear Miss Drysdale, my lusty Lucy. Will you teach your young charge how to kiss a man as thoroughly as you do?"
Like ice-cold rain his mocking tone chilled Lucy's euphoria. She pulled out of his grasp, and he let her go.
She could hardly breathe. Her heart raced so violently she feared it would expire from the effort. But somehow she managed to answer him. "If you have been sufficiently amused, I believe I shall go."
"Your hair is mussed." He leaned ba
ck against the library table, crossing his arms and his ankles in a position of remarkable poise.
With painful clarity she noticed that he was not breathing nearly so hard as she. Was she the only one rattled apart by the power of that kiss? She smoothed back her hair with a hand that shook. There was more than her hair askew, she realized. What she had just done with this man was foolish beyond belief.
And unforgivable too, should her employer, Lady Westcott, ever find out.
She willed herself to look unaffected by either their kiss or his casual reaction to it. "Is this how you end every dance, my lord? You whisk your partner off to a private room and proceed to kiss her silly? Or try to?" she added, wanting to wipe the smug expression off his face.
But her attempt to denigrate his talent for kissing only caused his grin to deepen. "I have my reputation as a rake to maintain."
"You will not long remain a rake, footloose and fancy free, if you continue such incautious behavior. It would take only a watchful chaperone and an irate parent to force you into an unwelcome union."
He pushed off the table, then casually adjusted his neck cloth. "It will take far more than a nosy chaperone and an enraged father to force me into anything, Lucy. Just remember that before you thrust Valerie at me."
"Thrust Valerie at you?" she exclaimed. "Surely you jest. I couldn't possibly imagine a worse husband for her than an unfeeling rake. And it's Miss Drysdale to you!"
She was nearer the door than he, so when he crossed the room to her, she had to suppress the panic that made her want to beat an ignominious retreat. When he stopped just before her she reminded herself to keep breathing.
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