He glanced at her. The slightest stain of pink covered her cheeks.
“She must be.” He moved to the rear of the carriage and took up a rope to fasten the traveling trunk in place.
She came again to his side and Wyn felt her move the air. He felt it. She was a spring breeze that with the gentlest aggression threatened to send his world spinning.
“She is fifteen. She told me she has a tendre for a boy who lives on the next farm, yet she is afraid to reveal to him her interest for fear he will scorn her.” She spoke more slowly now. “I think it is more than shyness on her part.”
“Do you?” He tightened the rope about the trunk.
“She hides her face when she can.”
Ah. Of course. “She will learn confidence in time. She is young yet,” he only said.
“I don’t think it is her age.”
“Perhaps not.”
A lengthy pause. “Do men notice such things?”
He could not pretend he hadn’t any idea what she meant. Naïve regarding man’s baser nature or not, Diantha Lucas was much cleverer than she liked others to think.
“Yes. I am afraid most men do.”
She was silent a moment. “I knew that, of course. I mostly asked to see how you would . . .” Her voice faltered. “How you would . . .”
He turned. “How I would re—”
Her chin collided with his jaw.
They both jerked back. Her hand flew to her face. A full, rosy flush washed across her lovely features, and tension flooded Wyn precisely where he did not wish it.
Fingers over her mouth, she backed away a step. He crouched and looped the rope above the rear axle, pulling in a slow breath.
“I will not insult either of our dignities, Miss Lucas, by pretending that you did not just attempt to kiss me.” He glanced at her over his shoulder.
“I did.” She performed the usual damnably taking twist of her lips. “I should very much like to.”
He leaned his forearm onto his knee to turn to her. “Did you hear nothing I said to you yesterday afternoon?”
“I wish I had managed it more successfully.”
“Apparently not,” he answered himself, and stood.
She frowned, her features coming to life again. “Oh, why not? The Bateses believe we are wed, and Mrs. Polley has just dropped off to sleep so she will not discover it. I am not proposing marriage to you. It would just be one kiss, and no one would know.”
“I would know.”
“Well then you could simply forget about it right after, couldn’t you?”
“No.” Never. Dear God, she was unbearably pretty. He scanned her face aglow with mingled indignation and hope, unable not to take his fill of looking. “Do you even hear yourself now?”
“Yes. Don’t be silly. Although I suppose it isn’t silliness but rather gentlemanliness. I admire that about you enormously, of course, but it is inconvenient at the present.”
He laughed, because the only other alternative was to drag her delectable body against him and kiss her until neither of them could see straight.
A crease slipped across her brow. “You already know that I occasionally have lapses in modesty. But why must you be a gentleman at all times? Except of course in that stable.”
He had not been a gentleman when she’d drunkenly clung to him and he’d nearly given her what she wanted. The thoughts he’d had then were not gentlemanlike. Nor was fantasizing about her the night before. Nor was the ready tenor of his body now.
Damn it, where were the rules when a man needed them?
Rule #8!
“A man is only a gentleman if he is never otherwise.” He matched her tone, seeking steadiness. “Except perhaps in a stable,” he admitted.
Her lashes flickered up. “We are in a stable now.”
God help him. “That we are.”
“Just one kiss,” she whispered. “I promise I shan’t bother you about it again.”
Bother? Rather, enchant, torment, torture. Her lips and eyes and silken neck and perfect breasts beckoned.
Damn the rules. If only for a moment.
He cupped his hand around the side of her face, his palm reveling in the warmth of satin. Soft skin. Soft hair. Soft woman. He nearly groaned from the pleasure of it. Her eyes were wide as moonlight. He bent to her.
Her lips were infinitely sweeter than he had imagined, plump and yielding. For the barest moment he allowed himself to breathe her in, to capture her scent of fresh air and sunshine amid the autumn mist, to feel the caress of her against his mouth.
Long enough for his body to stir and a hot thread of panic to dart through him. Good Lord, he had to have her.
Intoxicate.
She intoxicated him.
He drew away. She gulped breath, her lashes stuttering open. Then she smiled and the lapis pools shone.
He choked back a groan.
Mistake. Weakness. Enormous mistake. What had he been thinking?
“That was a perfect first kiss,” she breathed.
“Second.” His voice was uneven.
“Second?”
He tapped a fingertip to the place on his jaw that she had first attempted. Her berry lips opened in a grin of pure delight.
He should kill himself now rather than wait to meet his end after murdering the duke. None of the thoughts in his head were gentlemanly. None of the desires. He saw a flash of her pink tongue and wanted it wrapped around every inch of his body—several inches in particular. He wanted her here, beneath him in the straw and damn every scruple, rule, and plan he’d had for the past five years. Ten. Fifteen. The way Diantha Lucas made him feel was far from gentlemanly. He needed to be inside her.
She had no idea. Despite her inebriated advances and innocent insistence, her face wore an expression of complete satisfaction. She hadn’t any notion what lay beyond kissing, of what he could do to her now.
The air seemed thin.
He could regain control.
“Are you in the habit of assigning numbers to the kisses you share with gentlemen, Miss Lucas?” Speech. Inane speech would help. He would imagine himself in a London drawing room trading flirtatious banter with a lady of society. In a manner of weeks she would be just that, after all, safely surrounded by propriety and safely none of his business.
“Numbers?”
“Counting them up on your fingers, as it were, like points in a card game.”
“No. Why would you think that?”
“ ‘First’ suggests you anticipate a second.”
“ ‘First’ actually means that you are the first man I have ever kissed.”
Her first kiss? Impossible. Yet he was a scoundrel for even imagining otherwise.
“Your suitors have not—?”
“Oh, well, I didn’t have any suitors in Devon—except Mr. H. I was all spots and two stone rounder until last summer, after all. Gentlemen found nothing of interest in me. You didn’t.” She said it so blithely, as though commenting on the shade of the grass.
“I found your quantity of opinion interesting. And before that I found that you danced quite prettily.”
“You remember?” She drew her chin in, disbelief bright in her wonderful eyes. “You remember at Savege Park two years ago when I told you that you should not drink as you did? Do?”
“I do. Remember, that is.”
“Oh.” She seemed to consider it. “But you don’t really remember dancing with me on the terrace at Lord and Lady Blackwood’s wedding. You were drunk then.”
“I remember everything, Miss Lucas. It is my curse.”
She seemed not to hear the last. “Do you . . . ?” Her gaze fluttered past his mouth, then down his chest. “Do you remember what those young men were saying to me?”
“I remember that you wished them to cease teasing you.”
Her voice quieted. “You saved me.”
He turned back to the carriage. “I merely recalled them to their manners.” He affixed the final loop of rope and pulled it
tight. “All is ready here. We can leave immed—”
She grasped his arm. His every muscle tensed. She would not make this easy, but Wyn didn’t know if he wanted it to be easy. Part of him wished to crave something he could not have, and to suffer accordingly. It was the foolish part of him, the part that had trod that path of craving and suffering so well he knew it by heart, the part he’d thought he left behind when he escaped home, then again when he joined the Falcon Club, but that nevertheless clung tenaciously.
“Can—” She caught her lip in her teeth. “Can you tell me . . . ? How does one breathe?”
Very unsteadily while those eyes gazed up at him. “Breathe?”
“While kissing.”
Not easy. He tried to moderate his voice. “In the usual manner, I imagine.”
Her slender brows dipped.
“At opportune moments,” he suggested.
Her lips twisted up in that manner he both dreaded and longed for.
“Through one’s nose, perhaps,” he said, because his only refuge was to continue speaking or to walk away.
“Really?” She appeared unconvinced.
And so, because her skepticism suited his need to have her lips beneath his again, he showed her how one breathed while kissing. To her soft gasp of surprise, he took her waist in his hands, bent to her mouth, and kissed her in truth this time. Her lips were warm and still, and then not still as he felt her eager beauty, tasted her, and made her respond.
She held back at first, and then she gave herself up to it. Her mouth opened to him as though by nature, offering him a sweet breath of the temptation within. If he’d gone seeking an innocent with more ready hunger he could not have found her. But he had not wanted an innocent. He’d wanted no one, yet here he was with his hands on a girl he could not release, his tongue tracing the seam of sweet, full lips that she parted for him willingly.
“Now, breathe,” he whispered against those lips, then he sought her deeper. She made sounds of surrender in the back of her throat. He wanted to run his hands over her body, to pull her to him and make her know what a real kiss could be.
“Breathe.” God, she smelled so good. He could press his face against her neck and remain there simply breathing her. But he feared that if he enjoyed much more of Diantha Lucas he would be in a very bad way when it came to giving her over to her stepfather and subsequently her intended. A very bad way indeed. And she didn’t deserve it. Rule #9: A gentleman must always place a lady’s welfare before his own.
She slipped her tongue alongside his, gasped a little whimper of pleasure, and he coaxed her lips open and showed her more than how to breathe. He showed her how he wanted her.
It was a pity for Miss Lucas’s welfare that no gentleman could be found here, after all.
She wanted it to go on and on, forever and ever.
His first kiss had not been what she expected. Having a man actually touching her face was a bit odd. It was not soft like when a woman bussed her on the cheek, but firm, and he smelled of leather and horse and a hint of elegant cologne. But after a moment she’d thought it was quite nice. Quite. It made her heart beat swiftly and her breathing cease. She’d been glad she arranged for Betsy to play lookout so Mrs. Polley would not discover it.
It did not feel odd any longer, and glad seemed an enormous understatement.
She never allowed anyone to touch her waist, not even her sisters when they embraced. Told so often by her mother and the girls at school that she was as wide as a tree trunk, she’d learned to pleat her gowns to hide her belly. When he grasped her waist she recoiled. But his hands were so large and strong and certain, and anyway his lips on hers made her forget entirely about her waist because she simply could not think. She gripped his arm, which was thrillingly hard, unlike his mouth that was a little bit open over hers and hot and made her hot too. But not just on her mouth. Rather, in other places that he was not even touching with his lips or hands, below her belly especially—deliciously warm and needy in a strange sort of way. It wasn’t what she had imagined—not in the least. She had always assumed it would be wet and distasteful, but the only place she felt wet was between her legs and he seemed to be doing the tasting.
She slipped her fingers higher on his coat sleeve to feel more. His muscles contracted beneath them, and the warmth low inside her fluttered.
“Breathe,” he murmured again, his voice a bit rough, and again she made the attempt, more of a choke than anything before his mouth covered hers anew. And while it was only lips touching, she felt like he was touching quite a bit more with each kiss. His hands slipped up over her ribs, so warm and strong and holding her firmly, halting just below her breasts.
Yes. She liked a man’s hands so close to her breasts. It made her feel very hot and not at all uncomfortable. A little wild, truth be told, with delicious swirlings in the tips of her breasts. Her fingers clutched him and she let his lips urge hers open farther.
His tongue caressed hers. She gasped.
This—this perfect touching—this could not be a typical kiss. She parted her lips, inviting him to touch her like that again. He did, then again, mating their tongues in a hot, slow dance that made her feel a little frantic. She met his advances, welcomed him inside her. It felt so good, indescribably good, like he was touching the very center of her. He was making her weak but she wanted more. More of him. All the little points of her body, her skin, wanted to be closer to him.
She curved her fingers around his shoulder and pressed herself forward. His grip tightened, holding her in place apart from him.
Abruptly he ended the kiss.
She opened her eyes. It took a moment to focus.
“Second,” she said in a remarkably thin voice. He was so handsome, his hands were tight around her where no one’s hands had ever been, and he made her dizzy. “Or rather, third.”
“Did you breathe?” His voice was very deep.
She nodded. By some miracle she had breathed while he kissed her, but frankly could not seem to now. “I regret having asked for just one.”
He released her and stepped back. His silvery eyes looked like mercury, like the soft throbbing inside her, but his brow creased. “Did you plan that?”
“Of course. I always have a plan f—”
“For everything.” He turned and moved toward his horses, and her heart did a few stuttered beats. Her lips were moist, and she still wanted his on them, and much more of his hands on her body.
She darted a glance at the door. No Betsy in sight. Mrs. Polley must still be safe in the house.
“Would you perhaps kiss me once more?”
He turned to face her, but now his silvery eyes were fierce and his jaw looked hard.
“Miss Lucas, do not ask again.”
“But, I—”
“If you ask again, I vow I will tie you up, stuff you in that traveling trunk, and haul you back to your stepfather’s home at once.”
“I would not fit in my traveling trunk. It is too full of other items.”
“I would remove those first, of course.” He turned to the brown horse and drew it forward. “Was your claim the other night that you can drive an empty boast or truth?”
“I never boast. It’s true. I learned when I was quite young.” At a ridiculously tender age she had convinced the coachman at Glenhaven Hall to teach her. Her stepfather always complained about how successfully she cozened the servants into agreeing to her wayward plans.
He tethered the brown horse to his mount. “Then you may drive. Only do not overturn the carriage. Mrs. Polley would undoubtedly find some justification for scolding me for it rather than you.” It seemed that he teased, but his eyes still glittered sharply.
“I promise not to overturn it.” She watched him move through the stable door ahead with his horses. “Thank you.”
“You needn’t thank me. Galahad prefers to be ridden rather than follow.”
She touched her fingertips to her lips to see if they felt different on the outside. T
hey did not. But she did. He had just taught her how to breathe, and everything inside her felt different.
“I meant thank you for the kiss.”
He did not pause or acknowledge her words. But she thought she heard him mutter “Minx” as he went into the yard.
Chapter 9
Fellow Subjects,
I have frustrating news. The man I hired to follow the member of the Falcon Club that I discovered has lost the trail. I share with you this information because I have had letters from many of you excited at my discovery, and I cannot bear to hold you in suspense. It warms my heart that you are as desirous as I to know the truth of this club.
—Lady Justice
Dearest Lady,
I beg of you—mercy! You must cease this teasing prose. When you write of warmth, your heart, and desire all in the same sentence, I vow I can barely hold my seat. I would erect a tent before the office of your publisher and sleep in it nights in the hopes of capturing a glimpse of you entering the building upon the dawn. Indeed, I have attempted it! Alas, the street warden will not allow it. Thus I am forced to beg of you, my lady, consider my febrile imagination and give it rest.
Increasingly yours, &c.,
Peregrine
Secretary, The Falcon Club
Sir,
You needn’t concern yourself over Lady Rabble-Rouser’s recent ramblings. Raven’s skill at avoiding danger is unmatched. He will throw off this unwanted attention without trouble.
—Peregrine
Chapter 10
He must get rid of her.
He could not wait on Carlyle’s arrival at the rendezvous place he’d indicated in the note sent with young William. He must be rid of her now before she invited him to take greater liberties with her. Before she made further plans.
Dear God, she could drive a man mad with her eager hands and ripe lips and the hunger in her mouth. If she offered him herself again, he wouldn’t even bother resisting. Nine girls in ten years, and he’d never been truly tempted. But now the bottle called to him more stridently than it ever had before too. Undoubtedly, he was slipping. His desires were not entirely within his control any longer.
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