Bewitched by the Bluestocking

by Eaton, Jillian

  One by one, he undid the buttons, knuckles tracing a tantalizing path down her spine to the small of her back. The gown fell to her waist, and she balanced herself on the edge of the sofa as she stepped out of it, then turned to face him.

  Watching her, he loosened his cravat and then peeled off his tailcoat, letting it drop carelessly onto the thick rug. His waistcoat was next, and then his linen shirt.

  Anticipation brought Joanna to the tips of her toes, her attention fixed to his torso as he bared his bronzed chest to the flickering firelight.

  He was, in a word, magnificent.

  All smooth skin and lean, taut muscles that clenched when she ran her hands along his body, exploring every nook and cranny, every flaw and scar, until there was no part of him that remained a mystery to her.

  Above the waist, that is.

  When his thumbs hooked into the waistband of his trousers, she held her breath, and released it on a slow, wondrous exhalation as he exposed all of himself. Every long, thick inch revealed for her viewing pleasure. She was reminded of the Greek statues at Cremorne Gardens. Except Kincaid was carved from flesh and blood instead of stone. At least on the outside. And for now, for this, that was all that concerned her.

  It was her turn to undress next. No tiny task, given her number of undergarments. But she managed it well enough, and with only the tiniest bit of shyness. When she finally stood naked before Kincaid, she struggled not to give in to her natural instinct and cover her breasts. A good thing, as that seemed to be where his main focus was.

  Heavy lidded, his gaze rose slowly to her face.

  Their eyes met.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “With every fiber of my being,” she replied.

  As the strains of Chopin’s Spring Waltz sounded faintly from the hallway, Joanna and Kincaid came together. It was not the feverish rush to climax that they’d sought in the boarding house, or the bold lust she’d instigated in his office, but rather a purposeful unraveling of all the ties and restraints that had kept their ultimate desire bound.

  He kissed her gently, his tongue sweeping between her lips. Her fingers glided along the sculpted valley of his chest, her soft belly pressing against the hard, pulsing root of his passion.

  The kiss deepened and then eased, like a tide washing up against the shore. She melted into his arms when he picked her up and carried her to one of the sofas, her auburn hair standing out in vivid contrast against all the pink velvet as he tenderly laid her upon the cushions.

  Standing at the end of the sofa, he leaned over her and brushed a ringlet from her cheek. Her stomach drew inward when he pressed his lips to her jaw and then began to make his way down to her breasts, where he lingered for what felt like hours before he went lower, the short stubble on his chin scraping against her navel on his way to the curls between her thighs.

  She gasped when he kissed her there, his tongue seeking and finding the source of her ardor. Her toes curled. Her heartbeat sped up, then slowed as warmth seeped into her.

  The rising temperature drove her spine off the sofa. She arched, her voice escaping on a breathy moan of wanton disbelief as Kincaid cupped her bottom and lifted her to his mouth. For days, months, years he brought her to the brink again and again, teasing her with his lips, his tongue, his fingers, until her temple was damp with perspiration and her entire body was trembling with need.

  Only when her eyes were glazed and her arms were limp did he give her curls a final kiss and withdraw his fingers from her wet, clenching heat.

  The sofa was wide enough for his knees to fit on either side of her waist. He pinned her lightly in place as he lowered himself with exquisite control, and her nails dug into his back when she felt the press of his manhood, already slick, at her entrance.

  He slid inside of her. There was a token resistance, a slight sensation of tugging, but he’d taken such care to prepare her that there wasn’t so much as a flicker of pain. Just ecstasy. Sweet, sweet ecstasy that expanded with every subtle rock of his hips.

  When he sheathed himself completely inside of her, they both gasped. The sensation was such that she burrowed her face in the crook of his neck to keep herself from crying out. Beneath her hands, his muscles bunched and coiled from the force of his restraint.

  Slowly, so slowly she could have wept, he began to move again and, this time, she moved with him. Their glistening bodies bathed in firelight and their hearts racing in tandem, they rode towards the elusive crest of sweet surrender.

  And plummeted together.

  *

  Weston was late to the ball.

  One of his mares had showed signs of being ready to foal, and he’d stayed by her side as she circled her stall and pawed restlessly at the straw. Ultimately, it had been a false labor, and with Brynne snapping in his ear to hurry up, he’d changed his clothes and driven them to Beresford Manor in his curricle.

  The slight, two-wheeled carriage was a decade out of fashion, but he still preferred it to the cumbersome town coach whenever he needed to get somewhere with haste. Not wanting all the fuss that accompanied the main entrance, he went in through the terrace at the back while Brynne skipped off to meet her friends.

  His guarded expression warding off any who might have been tempted to engage in a simple conversation, he was afforded a wide swath of space as he made his way across the ballroom. He was searching for a tall redhead. If his half-sister was here, as she was rumored to be, he’d like to promptly dissuade her of any notions she might have of taking the ring back.

  If she wanted to meet their father, he wasn’t going to stop her. In fact, he’d wish her good luck: the marquess was notably difficult to get an audience with, even for his own children. To the best of Weston’s knowledge, the old man was currently on holiday in France. There was no telling when he’d return. Or if he would even be bothered to meet with his illegitimate daughter when he did.

  Mostly likely, the marquess would simply throw money at the problem and wash his hands of it. That was, after all, what’d he done with Weston and Brynne for their entire lives.

  In many ways, Joanna was fortunate she’d been raised across the pond.

  She certainly hadn’t missed any warm family gatherings on this side of it.

  His attention drawn by a large gathering at the base of the master staircase, he approached warily, a lion circling its hunting ground. To his annoyance, there were no redheads to be found in the crowd. But there was a slight brunette trapped in the midst of the melee, her diminutive frame nearly lost in the sea of people.

  The urge to protect her caught Weston off guard.

  Quite frankly, he was not the rescuing type.

  Which was why he surprised himself when he surged forward, fighting his way through the dukes and the debutantes to where the young lady stood, holding her own but losing noticeable ground.

  “Do you care to dance?” He hadn’t signed her card. He didn’t even know her name. But that didn’t matter. When she turned her head and he caught his first glimpse of her cornflower blue eyes, nothing did.

  Noise faded. Color receded. The crowd melted away.

  There was only Weston…and the most stunningly beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  A fairy, was his first irrational thought. Plucked from the woods and waters wild.

  She studied him for a moment beneath high, arching brows a shade darker than her hair. Her skin was ivory tinged with the slightest hint of rose on the apples of her cheeks. Her mouth was full, the top lip just a tad heavier than the bottom and shaped like Cupid’s bow. As Weston gazed at her, utterly transfixed, she smiled, slow and sure. Then she held out her gloved hand.

  “I would love to.”

  They walked out of the crush and into each other’s arms. The Viennese waltz required its participants to be intimately close and their steps to be perfectly in tune lest they fall out of rhythm. As with all other things, Weston was a good dancer. It wasn’t that gracefulness required of such a dance came naturally t
o him, but rather that his governesses and tutors had never allowed him to be subpar at anything.

  A boy of eight should have been hunting for frogs in the stream or racing his pony through the fields. He had been walking circles around the drawing room, a vase filled with freezing cold water balanced on his head and his arms trembling from the weight of the books his dance instructor had forced him to hold.

  The lessons, however barbaric they might have been, had paid off.

  Weston rarely—if ever—made a misstep, and if he did, he was his own harshest critic.

  He did not expect perfection.

  He demanded it.

  Which was why it was a pleasure to discover that his blue-eyed fairy was just as good, if not better, than he was at the waltz.

  She moved with a natural grace that could not be taught, her hands fluttering from his shoulder to his waist and her small feet moving with impeccable timing. He spun her away from him and then brought her back, his retraction a bit more forceful than necessary so that she bumped against his chest.

  “I am sorry, my lord.” Her voice was as soft and light as the rest of her; a rainbow dancing on a sunbeam.

  “The error was mine,” he said without apology, as the act had been intentional and he did not regret her breasts pressing against his jacket. Countless layers of clothing between them, and he’d still felt a shock.

  When was the last time he had been shocked by anything, let alone anyone?

  The edge of her mouth curled upward. “I suspected as much, but am always loath to point out other’s errors unless they are deserving of it.”

  “And I am not deserving of critique?” he asked, arching a brow.

  “That remains to be seen,” she said coyly.

  They stepped seamlessly around a slower, clumsily moving couple.

  Weston adjusted his grip on her waist, his hand enveloping a large portion of her back and the slightest curve of her bottom. “What is your name?” he asked. “You are not from around here.”

  “Was it the accent that gave it away?”

  “That, and I never forget a face.”

  “Do you find it memorable?” She tilted her chin. “My face, that is.”

  “You’re beautiful.” It wasn’t praise so much as a statement of fact. “Only a blind man could forget you.”

  “And you’re not blind.”

  “I am not,” he confirmed.

  “Just rude, then, for asking me to introduce myself to you when it is a gentleman’s duty to introduce himself to the lady.”

  Unbidden, a roguish grin claimed his lips. “I never said I was a gentleman.”

  “That’s fine, as I never claimed to be a lady.”

  They gazed at each other.

  The music swelled, a final crescendo, and then stopped.

  Sliding his hand to the end of her fingertips and taking a step backwards, he lowered himself into a deep bow. “Lord Weston Weston, Earl of Hawkridge.”

  “You’ve the same name twice,” she said as he straightened.

  “So I have been told.”

  “Why would your parents—my goodness,” she gasped, her blue eyes widening. “You’re the Earl of Hawkridge!”

  “Does my reputation precede me?” he said dryly. “Unfortunately, it’s most likely worse than what you have heard.”

  She tugged her hand free of his grip. “No, it’s not that.”

  “Then what is it?” he asked.

  “You—you have my mother’s ring.”

  Weston stiffened. “You’re not Joanna Thorncroft.”

  “Of course not.” Her chin lifted a notch. “I am her sister, Evelyn.”

  All at once, he remembered what it felt like when he’d lost his balance and that pitcher of icy water had rained down on him. “That is why you are here, then.” His voice dropped several degrees. “For the ring.”

  She lifted her slender shoulder in a shrug. “And for the dukes, but it seems they’re in alarmingly short supply. This is rather fortuitous that our paths have crossed. Do you have the ring on you? May I have it? It means a great deal to me and my sisters, and I—”

  “No,” he said flatly.

  She blinked at him. “No, you don’t have the ring on you, or no I cannot have it?”

  “Both.” His countenance hardened. “I don’t know what you possibly hoped to accomplish by coming to London, but you and your sister can sod off all the way back to Boston because you’re not getting your greedy hands on my family’s ring ever again.”

  With that, he stalked away.

  *

  Kincaid helped Joanna back into her gown.

  It was surprisingly heavy, and he marveled at her ability to wear it all night. But then, everything she did was a marvel to him.

  Including what they’d just done on a pink sofa in the Countess of Beresford’s library.

  He knew he should have felt guilty, but he didn’t. He could he?

  A sunset did not feel guilt for painting the sky in reds and oranges so bright and beautiful it sometimes hurt to look at. A flower did not feel guilt for growing where it shouldn’t and spreading its beauty far and wide. A poet did not feel guilt for writing a sonnet so wrenchingly poignant that it made the reader cry.

  And thus neither would Kincaid feel guilt for loving the woman he was in love with.

  Loving the woman he was destined to be with.

  He was not a man who looked to the heavens for answers, or believed in cosmic powers beyond his understanding. Logic and reason were his driving forces. But surely, there was some type of fate at play. Some kind of destiny, decades in the making, which had brought him and Joanna to this spot in the world at this precise moment in time.

  And who was he to argue with the stars?

  “There.” Sliding the last button of her dress into place, he kissed her bare shoulder. “You’re ready.”

  “For what?” she asked, turning towards him in a rustle of silk and taffeta. Her eyes were luminous in the dim light, her cheeks flushed, her lips slightly swollen. She was a goddess brought to life, an earthly Athena of courage, and wit, and daring.

  “To be married.” It wasn’t until Kincaid glanced around for his jacket that he realized he still hadn’t found his spectacles. The room blurred, then abruptly came into vivid focus when Joanna jumped in front of him.

  “Married?” she repeated.

  “Indeed.” Ah, there was his jacket. Draped over the arm of a chair. But he didn’t dare reach for it. Not when Joanna was glaring at him as if he’d just eaten all the marzipan. “Is that a problem?”

  “Perhaps my memory is the problem, as I do not remember even being engaged.” Those luminous eyes narrowed. “When did you ask me to marry you, Kincaid? The last I recall, you had ended our agreement and told me I should prepare to return to America.”

  The icy shard of glass in her tone was his first inkling that whatever he was attempting to do, it wasn’t going very well. The finger drilling into his chest was the second. “I, ah—”

  “I told you that I loved you, and you told me—what was it? Oh, yes—that our personal feelings are irrelevant. What has changed between then and now?”

  Of its accord, his gaze slipped to the pink sofa.

  Joanna bristled.

  “You want to marry me out of some outdated philosophy that a woman is ruined once she has lost her virginity, is that it?” she asked.

  “Yes. No,” he corrected hastily when her eyes flashed a deep, dark blue. “No, that’s not it at all. That is to say, I would do right by you, Joanna.”

  He needed better words.

  The right words.

  He wanted to tell her how much he loved her. How much he cared. How much she meant to him. But when he opened his mouth, those words did not come. They were trapped inside of him. Stuck beneath the keystone that, although cracked and battered, still stood. The final barrier between keeping his heart safely guarded…and entrusting Joanna with it.

  “You would do right by me,” she said dub
iously. “What does that mean?”

  “I…” Frustrated, he plunged his hands into his hair. Why couldn’t he take that last step? Why couldn’t he commit himself in the way she wanted him to? What was so bloody wrong with him that he was unable to tell the woman he loved what she needed to hear? What she deserved to hear? “Joanna, I…”

  Her gaze softened. “Yes, Kincaid?”

  He drew a breath. Maybe…maybe he didn’t have to give his heart away all at once. Surely, that would be safer. A piece now, and a piece when they married. A piece when he finally found the words to tell her that he loved her. A piece when they had their first child.

  That was better, he decided as the knot of tension in the middle of his temple uncoiled ever-so-slightly. That was best.

  For both of them.

  “I have always honored my obligations,” he began. “I know a priest who can marry us tomorrow, if that is what you would like.”

  “What I would like is to not be thought of as an obligation.”

  Kincaid frowned. “That isn’t what I meant.”

  “But it’s what you said.” Wrapping her arms around herself, she began to back slowly towards the door. “More than that, it is what you haven’t said that tells me everything I need to hear. I am not a pretty vase to be put on a shelf. And I am not a duty to be fulfilled. I am a woman with hopes and dreams and aspirations that go far beyond being some man’s obligation. I believed you, of all people, saw that.” Her voice thickened. “Goodbye, Kincaid.”

  It wasn’t until after Joanna had left, closing the door quietly behind her, that Kincaid understood a heart torn into pieces was still broken.

  *

  “There you are,” said Evie, coming up to Joanna just as she was poised to flee onto the stone terrace. “I’ve been looking everywhere.”

  Joanna brushed her fingers across her lips. They felt hot to the touch, and she feared there was a sign hanging above her head in bold lettering that read “Recently Ravished”. But if there was, it seemed her sister was unable to see it, for Evie hardly spared her a glance.