That, he decided with an inward smile, would be lesson number one—to attune Mary to the yearnings of her own body.
…
Mary had never experienced such a pleasurable day of simple delights. After their leisurely perambulation of the Dutch flower gardens, Lord Hadley had suggested a brief rest at the new hermitage overlooking the Serpentine. Resting in the shade of the classically inspired shelter, they had enjoyed fruit, wine, and strawberry tarts.
While Jenny packed up the remains of the picnic basket, she and Hadley strolled along the water’s edge, tossing leftover crumbs to the swans. Gazing at the graceful birds who barely stirred the shimmering waters, Mary felt as if she had stepped into a dream. Yet the afternoon had passed all too quickly and the thought of what awaited her upon her return—Sir Richard and further discussion of her marriage filled her with dismay. She tossed out the last of her breadcrumbs with a sigh, and found her wistful gaze lingering on Lord Hadley.
In the past couple of hours, she had begun to relax, to be herself. She no longer felt so tongue-tied and shy, but she still couldn’t quite puzzle him out. It was almost as if he was two different men inhabiting one body. At times, he was the most noble Conte di Caserta, a model of urbanity, but then in unguarded moments, he revealed with a suggestive word, a wicked look, or an intimate touch, a playful, teasing side, as if he forgot his noble mask.
He caught her staring and Mary swiftly averted her gaze.
“You are distressed?” he asked softly. “Why?”
“It’s nothing,” she answered.
“Your sigh betrays you, Miss Edwardes.”
“Was it really aloud?” She hadn’t realized she’d given away her thoughts.
“Sweet and sad, it was. I have failed to divert you. Perhaps I should have thought of something else.”
“It’s not that—” she turned to protest but stopped when he brushed the corner of her mouth with his thumb. Her gaze widened as he inspected it with a half-smile.
“A vestige of jam tart, I believe. But alas,” he gave a helpless shrug. “I have no napkin.” Before she realized what he was about, he brushed her lips in a feathery kiss, lingering at the corner of her mouth, where his tongue flicked out to taste her. The unexpectedness of it stunned her. “Lord Hadley! Wh-what are you doing?”
“If you have to ask, I must be losing my touch. Perhaps I should try again?”
While still too dazed to formulate a response, he took advantage to steal another kiss, this one as soft as the sigh that escaped her lungs. He increased the pressure then, slanting his heavenly mouth and lightly nibbling her lower lip. His kiss was warm, soft, and wonderful, making her forget she was supposed to protest.
“You are deliciously sweet, Mary, like ripe strawberries, but now I have taken a taste of you, I only want more.”
“Please,” escaped her lips.
Was it a protest or a plea? She wasn’t sure. If the former, it was feeble even to her own ears. How easily…how eagerly…she had capitulated to him…and far worse…how desperately she wanted more.
“Please?” he repeated. “Please stop, or please kiss you again?”
“No.” She averted her head with what he surely knew was a toothless protest. His manner was far too familiar, far too intimate. She knew she shouldn’t permit him any more liberties, but good heavens!
“Come now, Mary.” He turned her bodily back to him, his warm gaze seeking hers, his honeyed voice cajoling. “It’s only a kiss, after all.”
Only a kiss?
Perhaps he had no idea how devastating a kiss could be…or mayhap he knew exactly what it did to her. “Perhaps this is normal for you, my lord, but I am an unsophisticated girl and unaccustomed to casual kisses.”
“No? Then perhaps it’s past time you became accustomed. Shall I really kiss you, sweet Molly? Truly and thoroughly?”
Was this the course of a seduction? Is this what he had planned all along? She searched his face for the answer only to lose herself in his blue eyes. Fear gripped her. Not of him, but of her weakening will. “Don’t,” she whispered.
He muted her protest with his mouth, catching her breath and replacing it with his own. This kiss was different, paradoxically soft and firm, it demanded a response that she was helpless to deny. Mary closed her eyes, responding and melting into him as he nipped, and licked, and suckled her lips. Like a vortex, he pulled her into the kiss, stealing the air from her lungs, along with any remaining will. His warm slick tongue teased, gently urging her to open. When she parted, just a fraction, he took command. He entered her mouth deeply, seeking, exploring with his smooth, wet tongue, the contact of which instantly sent a flood of warm moisture between her thighs.
Only a kiss?
It was staggering.
Her mind was lost to time and place, as if nothing existed beyond his divine mouth. He discarded her bonnet and tangled his fingers in her hair. She whimpered, clutching at his lapels, yet he refused to relent. Mercilessly, he intensified the kiss, pulling her so far in; submerging her in so much sensation that Mary thought she would drown in the pleasure of it.
…
Never releasing her mouth, Hadley maneuvered Mary under the sheltering bower of the willow. He kissed her with a masterful deliberation, teasing and suckling her plump, delectable lips. He deepened the kiss and as their tongues tangled and entwined in the first steps of the lover’s dance, he felt desire take hold of her. Raw, honest, unadulterated, it rippled over her and flared to life.
He backed her against the trunk pressing his body into hers. She undulated against him with a moan he caught with his mouth. It was purely instinct on her part, but her response triggered the most powerful and startling compulsion to pull up her skirts and thrust into her. For a blinding moment, lust almost overcame his good sense, but prudence prevailed. Although rigid as a spike, he broke the kiss, withdrawing to arms-length while he endeavored madly to will his rampant arousal back into abeyance.
He pasted on his languid smile with an effort. “I think perhaps this is enough for the nonce.” His voice was thick and heavy, an effect of his throbbing erection and the sexual frustration constricting his chest. She regarded him in wide-eyed bewilderment and he couldn’t suppress the compulsion to stroke his thumb over her damp and kiss-swollen lips.
With her bonnet discarded, her hair mussed and tangled, she looked scandalously and deliciously tumbled, thoughts he struggled to tamp down. But then in an impulse he couldn’t have controlled to save his life, he claimed her mouth once more, savoring the most intoxicating of concoctions—wine, innocence, and strawberry tarts.
Chapter Ten
Storm clouds rolled in just as they were leaving, as if an omen that the idyll had truly ended. The rain necessitated raising the carriage top and taking Jenny inside, making it impossible to speak.
Why had he kissed her? Well, it was certainly more than just a kiss, but Mary was confounded what else to call it. With his mouth and tongue, he had stirred something to life inside her, making her feel strangely restless and thoroughly agitated, while he appeared completely unruffled.
Had he only done it for his amusement? Or did he mean something more? Did he intend to woo her? Was it possible? Or was she only deluding herself?
The pragmatic part of her chided herself for a fool to imagine she could ever appeal to a man like him. He was a nobleman and she was a nobody. But then again, she was a nobody with substantial wealth. Both Lady Blanchard and Sir Richard had implied her fortune could secure a match with almost any man she desired…and Mary increasingly desired him. Could he ever come to care for her?
Surely, her money would be a doubly powerful inducement to a man in such straightened circumstances as the countess had implied he was in. Although she yearned for more than a mercenary marriage, Mary had come to accept that her money would be her primary attraction to a potential husband, but this knowledge would bother her far less if she believed affection might eventually grow.
Countless questions
plagued Mary, yet during the drive back to Hanover Square Lord Hadley seemed unusually preoccupied. When the carriage finally halted under the portico, he assisted her down and bid her a good afternoon with only a cool smile and the briefest brush of his lips across her gloved hand. He seemed utterly unmoved and detached, as if their passionate interlude had never occurred. Was this how a relationship progressed between a man and a woman? Was this advance and retreat all just part of the incomprehensible courtship game? For that’s what it felt like—a game in which she knew nothing of the rules, and his behavior left her no clues.
Perhaps she had disgusted him with her shameless behavior? Mary wanted to scream out of frustration. How she wished she had someone in whom to confide.
Although the countess had shown great kindness in taking her under her wing, Mary was wary about sharing her feelings with Lady Blanchard. There had been a subtle change in the countess in recent days. She had become peevish and ever-critical. It also seemed to have coincided with Lord Hadley’s arrival. Intuition told her to hold her peace where Lady Blanchard was concerned.
And now she feared chastisement for her tardiness. Aware of the late hour and her meeting with Sir Richard, Mary bustled to her room with Jenny in tow, determined to make the hastiest possible repair to her tousled appearance before meeting with her guardian.
…
Barbara was still in a foul mood when Sir Richard called for tea a full half-hour before his usual time. “You’re early,” she remarked with barely disguised irritation.
“I have an appointment to keep, and did not wish to forego our usual business,” he replied with a leer.
“Of course, darling.” She pasted on a fake smile. “I look forward to our afternoons as much as you do.” It was all she could do not to grind her teeth.
He grunted as she knelt and unbuttoned his breeches to release his flaccid penis. Soon, she reminded herself. Very soon, this would end. Hadley would not fail. He was a superb lover. The girl would not be able to resist him. But the same thought she used to console herself was as a knife twisting in her gut. Had he done it yet? Had he thrown up her skirts and taken her? How soon would he become bored with Mary and return to her bed?
“Why have I not heard anything about Mary yet?” Sir Richard asked as she began stroking him to arousal. “You have had the girl in London above a fortnight already. ‘Tis past time she’s seen.”
“Why, my dear, just this afternoon she has gone to the gardens at Kensington.” She was careful to avoid saying with whom. “And last week I took her to stroll St. James.”
“Why have you not yet taken her with you on any of your social engagements?”
“La! Take her out with me? Darling you have no idea!” Barbara protested. “I assure you the girl can hardly put two words together in company. It’s tragic really.”
“I don’t expect a miracle, only for her to pass as a lady of breeding. It’s been nigh on two months you’ve had her. Surely she has made some progress by now.” His gaze narrowed. “Do you think to make a fool of me by stalling?”
Her hands froze. She looked up in protest. “My dear, you do expect a miracle! She still has no polite conversation, no accomplishments worth mentioning, and the dancing master threw up his hands in despair.”
He looked down at her, his porcine gaze narrowed to a slit. “And your step-son has returned to England at a suspiciously propitious time.”
Barbara’s gaze widened in surprise. “Hadley is in England? I had no idea.”
“Did you send for him?” he demanded.
“Whatever can you mean?” Abandoning her efforts to rouse him, she rose to her feet in an affronted swish of silk.
“Don’t play innocent, for I have already seen him. Indeed, I have every reason to believe you harbor him under this roof, in the very house that I generously let to you.”
“So you’ve set your damned spies on me?” Barbara hissed. She snatched up her fan and waved it furiously about her face.
“I simply do what I must to protect my interests.” He tucked himself back into his breeches with a scowl. “Did you intend to insinuate him into my ward’s good graces, Barbara? Did you hope that Hadley would secure her fortune? I advise you to forget whatever plot you two have connived together, for it is only within my power to grant consent for Mary Elizabeth’s marriage.”
“You cut me to the quick, Sir Richard. For these seven years, have I not done all you have asked of me and more?”
“I think your actions have always suited your own agenda, madam.”
“I simply do what I must to protect my interests,” she echoed back at him.
“And in so doing, you have betrayed my trust. Therefore, we are no longer on your timetable, but on mine. The girl will be presented and all will be carried out as I alone see fit. I have secured a box at the opera the evening after next. It is the premier of Handel’s Riccardo Primo, composed in honor of our new king. Everyone who’s anyone will be there. You will bring the girl.”
“To the Royal opera! Don’t you think she should begin with something a bit less…conspicuous?”
“When I wish to marry her off? Little sense that makes. Let the world look upon her all at once I say. Dress her in silks. Paint and powder her. You, above all, know how to employ these feminine artifices. Do what you must, but you will make her ready.”
“Of course, darling” Barbara agreed, hiding her pique while her mind worked furiously to adjust to these new and disconcerting circumstances. “What precisely do you intend after that?”
“Why to negotiate her marriage of course.”
…
Hadley knew he had left Mary in a turmoil of confusion and sexual frustration. It was an act of cruelty for which he felt a twinge of remorse, for he had awakened her desire only to withdraw. Still, a Royal Garden in the light of day was hardly the place to fornicate. Moreover, leaving her wanting would only further his designs.
Vengeance by seduction. Hadley smiled. It certainly suited his talents. Sir Richard intended to use her to achieve his own ends, and by thwarting him, Hadley could recover his lost patrimony and achieve retribution.
Poor Mary would be aching in her bed tonight…as would he. That surprised him the most, actually. Sweet, innocent Mary had inspired his lust with a ferocity. While Hadley knew he would bed her, in abstract, the prospect of deflowering a wilting wallflower had seemed somewhat of a chore. But as their afternoon together had unfurled, so had Mary’s passion, and now the idea of initiating her to carnal delights, of nurturing her to full bloom, intrigued him excessively.
With these thoughts churning in his head, Hadley passed by the drawing room only to be arrested by the sound of Sir Richard’s voice.
“Once she is seen decently turned-out, I will make known the amount of her fortune. Thenceforth, it should be easy to secure a suitable match—something I intend to see to posthaste.”
He stopped in his tracks. Bloody hell! He’d thought he would have weeks to win Mary over. Today he had made a successful inroad, but he would be hard-pressed to achieve her complete confidence in such short shrift. This curtailed timetable was highly alarming. Nevertheless, he supposed it was far from hopeless. He had spent five years adapting to unexpected situations. How difficult could this one be?
He turned away, but within three paces, the devil came to the fore. With no other purpose than the unadulterated pleasure of vexing Sir Richard, he flung open the door and strolled into the drawing room as if he still owned it. “Ah, Sir Richard! How fortuitous that we meet!” he pronounced with mock surprise.
Sir Richard’s livid gaze flew to Barbara. “You have been harboring your stepson! I knew you for a lying slut!”
“Take care how you address me!” Barbara hissed and looked to Hadley expectantly.
Although he knew it ungentlemanly, Hadley could not quite move himself to come to her defense.
“Or what, madam?” Sir Richard taunted. “Will you throw me out of the house? Must I remind you that the deed is
mine?”
“Only for the nonce,” Hadley murmured under his breath.
Sir Richard speared Hadley with an evil look. “What the devil are you doing here anyway?”
“Surely I am not prohibited from calling upon my dear step-mama,” Hadley drawled and then sprawled himself in an overstuffed chair and withdrew his snuffbox.
“Not when you should be packing your bags for Italy,” Sir Richard snapped.
“But I think I will stay in England for a while.” Hadley studied his buffed nails and then took a pinch of snuff. “We had a gentleman’s agreement, did we not? I have a full fortnight remaining and this house suits my needs.”
“You err gravely if you take mine for an idle threat,” Sir Richard growled. “You have been given a reprieve to attend to certain business, after which time, you will either leave the country for good…or find yourself in chains.”
“If I leave,” Hadley replied coolly, “it will be by my own design and certainly not empty-handed, for my prospects are much changed since last we spoke.”
“The devil you say! Are you claiming to have secured the funds?”
“Soon,” Hadley answered with an enigmatic smile. “Very soon.”
The baronet’s eyes narrowed. “And the tower clock is ticking. Speaking of which, I’ve no more time to fritter away.” He turned back to Barbara with a curse. “Damn the chit for wasting half my day. I’ll return tomorrow eve.” He left with the final warning. “Don’t disappoint me again.”
Barbara spun on Hadley the moment the baronet departed “Why the devil did you choose to make an appearance just now when surely you knew he was here? And then you openly defy him? Do you wish to make my life a living hell?”
“Does it really matter now?” Hadley asked. “He already knew I was here. He’s no doubt tracking my every move.”
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