She followed the path along the garden wall, the one that ran along the outer perimeter of the flower beds, where the boxwood bushes would hide her from the windows in the servants’ hall. The last thing she needed now was to have Martha or any of the others glimpse her flitting by when she was supposed to be sick in her bed. At last she reached the gate at the far corner of the garden. This gate was used only by the gardener, and the door was heavy and practical, with an iron padlock instead of a lock. There was also a small grated window high in the door, and with her heart racing, she stood on her toes and peeked through.
He wasn’t there.
The street and the walk beside it were empty, and disappointment swamped her. She was too late. He’d given up and left, or worse, he’d changed his mind and hadn’t come at all.
“Geoffrey?” she called forlornly, not really expecting an answer. She dropped back down on her heels, feeling very much back to earth.
Suddenly Geoffrey’s blue eyes filled the grate. “Jēsamina?”
She gasped with relief. “So you did come!”
“I did,” he said wryly. “And unlike others I might name, I was prompt about it. Perhaps even early.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Geoffrey,” she said, arching back up on her toes to be more level with him. “My grandfather was so vastly slow leaving for church, and I couldn’t come downstairs until he and my aunt were—”
“Serena,” Geoffrey interrupted wryly. “Forgive me, but I feel rather like the turnkey at Newgate, waiting on the other side of a locked door from you.”
“One moment, if you please.” With hands shaking from anticipation, she fit the oversized key into the padlock and pulled on the heavy door. At once he shoved it the rest of the way open, slipped inside, and shut it closed again.
She smiled and blushed, excited but uncharacteristically shy at the same time. He was dressed in much the same fashion as he’d worn when they’d gone riding in the park, in a red waistcoat, a black cocked hat, a blue superfine coat that made his eyes even brighter, and pale buckskin breeches, all of it tailored to fit his broad shoulders and lean hips within a breath of decency.
There was no question of decency in the way he was smiling at her, however, or in the way he was watching even the slightest movement she made. She’d been admired ever since she’d come out into Society, but she’d never had a man study her with this thoroughness or intensity. She’d no doubt that he approved—that was clear enough—but he made her feel as if she’d mislaid some of her clothing. In her haste, she supposed she had. The light silk of the sultana hid very little, and the purple sash that she’d tied so tightly around her waist must only accentuate how soft and rounded she was without the rigid control of whalebone and buckram. Too late she realized that more of her actual form and shape was visible than he or any other gentleman had ever seen, and her blush deepened.
With all that to consider, she’d overlooked the large bouquet of white roses in his hand. Sweeping his hat from his head, he made a courtly bow to her, one leg before him, and held the flowers out to her.
“For you,” he said, looking up at her as he bowed. “I trust you’ll find more pleasure in these roses than in the last ones I sent.”
“Because of my grandfather,” she said quickly, wincing inwardly at how unnecessary that was. She raised the bouquet to her face, and breathed deeply of the flowers’ fragrance. She thought of telling him how she’d preserved the single battered rosebud from the first bouquet, tucked away for safekeeping upstairs in her bedchamber, but decided such an act sounded too sentimental and girlish.
“Because of your grandfather, yes,” he said, rising. The morning sun was making him cast a long shadow over the path and over her. “But you deserve roses every day, if they please you. You deserve everything you wish for.”
“You don’t know what I wish,” she said over the roses. “You can’t.”
His blue eyes were hooded against the sun, focusing their intensity entirely on her. When he looked at her like that, her blood raced through her veins and her entire body warmed, and her heart was beating so loudly that she was certain he could tell exactly what she wished for.
Perhaps he heard it. He smiled slowly, just enough to reveal the rakishly lopsided dimple he had in only his left cheek.
“I can guess,” he said. “Should I?”
She smiled, too, and shook her head. “You shouldn’t,” she said. “It wouldn’t be wise.”
“Unwise because I might well guess the truth?” he asked, chuckling as his gaze wandered freely up and down her person with obvious approval.
“Exactly,” she said succinctly, and dipped her chin for emphasis. Ahh, he was so wickedly handsome and male that it almost hurt to look at him.
“Then I’ll answer your riddle with another of my own,” he said, his voice rumbling seductively low as if sharing a secret. “I would guess, my sweet Jēsamina, that your wish at this moment is exactly the same as mine.”
Lightly he touched his fingertips to her lips. She held her breath as he traced the bow, and then pressed his forefinger to the plump cushion of her lower lip. Instinctively she kissed it, pressing back, and he smiled.
“The same as mine, then,” he said softly, slanting his face as he leaned forward to kiss her.
But instead of offering her lips to him, she raised her hand between them and pressed her own fingers across his mouth to stop him.
“Not here,” she whispered, even though there was no one to overhear. “Not when there’s a chance we’ll be seen. Come into the house instead.”
His brows rose, questioning. “You’re certain?”
“My aunt and grandfather have gone to church,” she said confidently, “and nearly all of the servants are out as well, exactly as I thought they would be. That’s why I asked you to arrive now.”
“Clever lass,” he said with approval, cupping her cheek with his hand. She turned her face to brush her lips over his palm before she pulled free.
“Let me lock the gate.” She tucked the flowers beneath her arm as she pulled the key from her pocket and turned back to the door. “It will only take a moment.”
“Are you trying to make me your prisoner?” he asked, unhappy at being interrupted and not quite teasing.
“Oh, no,” she said, bending to turn the key in the padlock. “It’s more about keeping out thieves than keeping you in.”
When she turned around again, it was clear that he hadn’t been listening, but rather studying her backside as she’d bent over the lock.
“That is the most captivating attire I have ever seen on a lady,” he said, his gaze still lingering well below her face. “Why can’t you dress like that all the time?”
She laughed, more from nervousness than humor, and linked her fingers into his to lead him toward the house. “Because I’d be condemned to Bedlam as a madwoman for roaming about town in my dressing gown.”
“Not by me,” he said, hanging back to let her go before him. “My God, I could watch you walk all day.”
“Me?” she said self-consciously. She thought of how often Monsieur Passard had chided her for her walk, calling it vulgar. It must be even worse now with her wearing the flat-soled slippers in place of proper heeled shoes. How could he ever admire her like this?
But he did, his eyes glowing. “Look at you,” he said, marveling. “Your walk is like a dance. You’re like a goddess.”
She blushed again, this time with pleasure. She slipped free of his hand and spun lightly on her toes before she made a curtsey of acknowledgment. “I’m the Terpsichore of the garden, if you please.”
He didn’t smile. “No, you’re much more like Kamadeva, the Hindu goddess of passion.”
“Kamadeva?” she repeated wryly, skipping out of his reach and making her skirt flutter away from her bare ankles. “That could be a compliment, I suppose, except that Kamadeva is a god, not a goddess, and that he has green skin. But then, that’s a common mistake for an Englishman to make, believing every
name that ends in an a belongs to a female.”
His eyes gleamed. “Just as Terpsichore was a muse, not a goddess,” he said. “A common mistake for an English lady who, apparently, knows no Greek.”
She raised her chin, delighting in the challenge. “The English lady knows no Greek, for she has no Greeks among her acquaintance with which to converse.”
“A sorry excuse,” he said, lunging to grab her.
She laughed, barely escaping, the flowers in one hand. She ducked beneath a tree’s branch and danced backward, just far enough to keep from his reach. Being hunted like this was a flirtatious game, full of risk, and the thrill of not knowing exactly when he’d capture her—which, inevitably, he would, just as she wanted—made her heart race.
“An English lady requires no excuses, nor apologies,” she said, breathless with excitement. “And an English gentleman never expects either one, not from a lady.”
“Oh, an English gentleman has certain expectations,” he said, following her slowly. “Every English lady knows that.”
Before she realized it, he swiftly reached out and caught the end of her sultana’s sash. He pulled the length of purple silk taut to pull the looped bow at her waist apart, then snapped it free. Freed of the sash, the dressing gown at once unfurled like the petals of a silk flower, leaving her with only her night shift covering her.
She gasped at his audacity but did not move, frozen in place as he studied her with frank appraisal. The shift’s white linen was a very fine Holland, so fine as to be almost translucent, and from the look in his eyes she knew it was revealing more of her than it hid. Her breasts, her waist, her hips, and the dark patch of hair at the top of her thighs—he must be seeing everything that was usually masked by the armor of her clothing, everything, illuminated by the bright sunlight.
Yet far more shocking was how her body was responding to his scrutiny. Her breath quickened and her nipples tightened with arousal and there was a warmth curling low in her belly, the way it had when he’d kissed her. Despite Aunt Morley’s training, she wasn’t ashamed, and she made no move to pull her sultana closed and cover herself. She didn’t want to hide, and she didn’t want him to look away. None of it was how a proper English lady should feel, and she didn’t care. All that mattered to her now was Geoffrey, and the urgency of the desire flickering like a flame between them.
“Jēsamina,” he said, his voice rough and seductive and with the slightest edge of desperation. He didn’t just look as if he was hungry for her; from the expression on his face, he wanted to devour her. “My Jēsamina.”
She smiled, the only answer she could give, and brushed aside a stray wisp of hair that was tossing about her temple in the breeze. She wasn’t being purposefully silent or mysterious; she was simply too overwhelmed for words.
He took a single step toward her and stopped, as if barely controlling himself. “Do you know what you do to me, Serena? Can you see it for yourself?”
“I could be blind and still know it,” she said in a rush, “for you’ve done the same to me.”
He smiled, turning his head slightly to one side, and held his hand out to her, beckoning. “Then we should be together, yes?”
“It’s fate,” she breathed. “Kismet.”
“Passion,” he said firmly. “Passion.”
Her smile widened, for she understood that, too. Aunt Morley never mentioned passion, but at Sundara Manōra, the women had spoken of it incessantly as an important and undeniable part of life. She’d listened, but had never understood the power, the magic that passion represented, until now with Geoffrey.
The sudden clatter of a dropped pot and a servant’s oath came from the kitchen across the garden, enough to break the moment and make Serena gasp. It was also a reminder that they’d likely already lingered here in the garden too long.
“We can’t stay here,” she whispered urgently. “Come, this way.”
She slipped her hand into his and at once his much larger fingers swallowed hers in his grasp. She led him along the narrow outer path next to the wall, and yet the closer they came to the house, the more she felt as if he were the one leading her, and not the other way around. To her relief, the few servants remaining at home had kept indoors, and she and Geoffrey entered the house the same way that she’d left it. She pulled her hand free and turned away to latch the door after them.
“This is where we take our breakfast each morning,” she said, and winced inwardly. She sounded so hopelessly English. She was babbling from nervous excitement, filling space with empty words. “Everything’s been cleared away for the day, you see, so no one will return here again until tomorrow, and then—”
“Serena,” he said softly. “Jēsamina. Hush.”
She blushed and turned back to him. He seemed so much larger here in the small room, the slanting sun through the windowpanes crisscrossing over his broad shoulders. His eyes never left her, and his gaze alone made her feel almost feverish with longing. He dropped his hat onto the table and ran his fingers back through his dark hair. He shrugged his coat from his shoulders and tossed it on the back of a nearby chair, and her blush deepened. True, he still wore considerably more clothing than she did, but to see him there in his shirtsleeves, his body defined by his close-fitting waistcoat, seemed shockingly, deliciously intimate.
Then he smiled, a dark and seductive smile. Of course none of this would be any mystery to him; she was the one who’d no notion of what should happen next.
Yet still she couldn’t stop her babble. “I can send for tea, if you wish.”
“No,” he said, coming to stand before her. “All I want, my own sweet, is you.”
He cradled her jaw with his palm, turning her face up toward him, and kissed her. Her lips welcomed him, for it felt as if she’d been waiting forever for this moment, and for him. His fingers slid back to the nape of her neck, tangling in her hair to hold her steady as he kissed her.
The possession of that kiss stunned her. His mouth was hot and demanding with a ferocity that he hadn’t shown when they’d kissed before. It was as if he was claiming her in this way, marking her as his, and she longed to do the same to him in return. Shamelessly she leaned into him and circled her arms around his waist, her fingers running over the broad muscles beneath his silk waistcoat. Besides, she needed the support, for this kiss was making her head spin and her body grow warm, almost feverish, and restlessly she shifted against him.
His fingers tangled in her hair, and impatiently he yanked away the few hairpins she’d used. Her hair fell heavily down her back to her waist, and at once he brushed his cheek against it, clearly reveling in the silky dark curtain. He kissed her forehead, her nose, her cheeks.
“Tōtā mērē, mērī jāna,” he murmured, the beautiful Hindi endearments shimmering against her skin. “Tuma pūrnatā hai.”
My lovebird, my darling, you are perfection. …
She searched his handsome face, trying not to think of how very far from perfection she was.
“Oh, Geoffrey, you do not know,” she whispered. “You can never know, except how much I need you.”
With a low growl by way of reply, he kissed her again, and thrust a hand inside her open sultana to find her. With only the thin linen between them, she was aware of the heat of his palm as he explored the narrowness of her waist and the swell of her hips. His hand settled and spread over her bottom, caressing the softness, and then pulled her snug against his hips and the thick, hard length of his shaft, filling the front of his breeches.
Virgin though she was, she understood. She remembered the explicit prints that had been passed about the women’s quarters, and she remembered the equally explicit raillery that had accompanied them, leaving no mysteries.
But this wasn’t a painted picture or a lewd jest. This was Geoffrey, and she hadn’t lied: she did need him, more than he would likely ever know. This wasn’t a surrender, or a seduction, or even an acquiescence, but a gift of pleasure that they would offer to each other. Since
the afternoon in the Library when she’d invited him here, she’d anticipated this moment—this moment that was happening far too fast.
He was kissing her and she was kissing him, but somehow he had also managed to guide her to the cushioned bench near the window. She was half-lying on the bench, her head on her aunt’s striped silk cushions, and he was lying with her, or rather, beside her—no, halfway on top of her.
She’d lost her slippers and her feet were bare, and the silk of her sultana had slipped down her arm to uncover her shoulder. His hand slid blindly along her leg, from her shin to over her knee, pushing aside her night shift, and she shivered with excitement as he found the inside of her bare thigh. She clung to him tightly, afraid of letting go, and still they kissed, bound by the ever-increasing fever of passion. The passion consumed them, and in the haze of growing pleasure, neither of them heard the footsteps in the hall, or the voices with them, or even the little scrape of the door’s latch as it turned.
She had taken such care to lock every gate and door, except the one that mattered most. The door swung open, and over Geoffrey’s shoulder she saw the single sight she hadn’t wanted to see: the horrified faces of Grandpapa, Aunt Morley, and the Reverend Dr. Bracegirdle.
And for the first time she truly understood what it meant to be ruined.
CHAPTER
8
“You were trapped, Geoffrey,” his father said with succinct disgust. “The snare was set, and you marched right into it, or at least marched as well as you could with your breeches around your knees.”
“Father, please,” Geoffrey said wearily. The day that had begun with such excitement and promise had deteriorated into a farcical disaster, and now, inevitably, it must end like this, in the company of his father. Of course he had been caught, captured along with Serena in a thoroughly compromising situation, and only the presence of that pompous clergyman had stopped her grandfather from running him through with his sword. But the last thing he needed now was a paternal lecture, or the disappointment that would come with it.
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