She fit here, he thought. She looked natural strolling along a dusty road in the countryside, swinging her bonnet back and forth by the ribbons like a toy. She brushed at the strands of hair that had fallen from their pins, kicked idly at rocks until her hem and shoes were covered in red dirt, and pointed out plants and birds she recognized until the fields grew dim and silent.
“Where did you learn all that?” he inquired, stopping to light the lantern he’d taken from the carriage.
“From Lilly mostly. And a book we found in the attic.” She took the lantern from him. “We may not need this. There’s to be a full moon tonight.”
He took her by the shoulders, gently turned her about, and pointed to the horizon where the moon was just appearing as a fiery golden orb. “And there it is.”
“Oh, it’s enormous,” Winnefred breathed. “Like the sun rising all over again. Can one see the moon in London?”
He glanced at her in surprise. “Of course.”
“Lilly says the lamps in Mayfair make the stars less vibrant.”
“You can still see them,” he assured her. “And the moon, though not quite so well when it comes up like this.”
“I don’t mind.” She shrugged and turned to resume their walk. “The countryside ought to have its own charms. Although, I should be interested to see what the night sky looks like from Hyde Park.”
He considered that statement for a few minutes. “You do realize this sort of thing has to stop once we reach London?”
“Visiting prisons, do you mean?”
“Well, yes.” He pictured Winnefred in the bowels of Newgate. “Absolutely, yes. But I was referring to midnight strolls with gentlemen.”
She snorted at that, a small sound that was somehow both delicate and brash. “It’s eight o’clock at the latest.”
“It’s dark, and if you were seen, you’d be ruined.”
“And Lilly by association,” she grumbled. “It wouldn’t matter, I suppose, that we were stranded through no fault of our own.”
“No.”
“It’s very unfair.” She hopped over a rut in the road. “On the other hand, if it’s dark, how would anyone see?”
“The lamps,” he reminded her.
“Then it wouldn’t truly be dark, would it? It . . .” She trailed off as they topped a small rise and Murdoch House came into view. The light of the moon reflected off the stone, and candlelight flickered in the windows. The entire house appeared to glow.
Winnefred stopped and set down the lantern.
“Oh, isn’t it lovely. And mine, because of you.” She turned to face him and smile. “Thank you.”
Because she was there, because there was moonlight lighting her upturned face, and because he thought in that moment she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, he bent his head and kissed her.
He managed, just for the time it took to lean down, to fool himself into thinking it would be a quick and simple thing. A harmless thing. But the second his lips met hers, the kiss became anything but simple and everything but harmless.
Her mouth began to move under his—with the innocence of an untutored girl at first, and then with the irresistible demand of an impatient woman, as if he was a new treat she’d only just discovered. One she was determined to devour in a single bite.
The effect was devastating. Desire, a smoldering ember only moments before, leapt into flame. He let go of Samson’s lead and cupped the back of Winnefred’s neck so he could bring her closer and slant his mouth across hers at the angle of his liking.
He had demands of his own.
He wanted to hear her sigh and feel her yield.
He drew his thumb along the underside of her jaw until he reached her chin. Gently, he pressed until she opened for him and he could slip his tongue inside the warm cavern of her mouth. She tasted like heaven—unbearably sweet, impossible to refuse.
She sighed for him then, a soft feminine sound that fanned the flame into an inferno. It seared through his belly and blistered his skin.
He was only vaguely aware of his own answering growl, of dropping his hand to band an arm around her waist and drag her hard against him. He felt the press of her soft breasts against his chest and the hot puff of her breath against his mouth. But it wasn’t enough.
He needed the scent of her around him, the taste of her inside him.
In his mind’s eye, he saw himself dragging off her gown and pulling her to the ground. He imagined her pale skin glowing in the moonlight and shivering with anticipation and helpless need in the cool night air.
He imagined taking his time with her, making her wait while he stroked the smooth, lovely length of her with his hands, while he laved the delicate skin of her breasts with his tongue and teased her nipples taut with his mouth and teeth. He imagined exploring every silken inch of her at his leisure and watching her shivers turn to trembling and her soft sighs to desperate moans. Then, when he’d had his fill of tormenting them both, when she was lost in the throes of passion, he would slip between her legs and bury himself in the wet heat of her.
He could see it all clearly.
Much, much too clearly.
Winnefred reveled in the kiss, in the delicious feeling of Gideon’s arm banded about her waist and his hard body bent over her own. His mouth moved over hers in rough demand, and she was lost in the foreign sensations of being overwhelmed and overpowered.
And then, suddenly, she wasn’t—not overpowered, not overwhelmed, and certainly not kissing. Gideon had pulled away abruptly. One moment he was kissing her senseless and the next moment they were standing a solid three feet apart.
She stared at him, stupefied. Had she done something wrong? Surely not. Surely kissing wasn’t that complicated a business. It was exhilarating and bewildering and had left her decidedly muddled. But it wasn’t something a person could fail at, was it?
Nervous, she licked swollen lips and tasted him on her tongue. “Gideon?”
“I apologize.” His voice was rough and his breathing ragged. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” The words came without thought, but she saw no reason to wish them back. It was only the truth.
Gideon made a pained sound in the back of his throat and retreated another step.
She couldn’t think of anything to say to that. She didn’t know what to make of it. Perhaps she had done something wrong. Something so terribly, terribly wrong that he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.
“I’ve never kissed a man before,” she blurted out and this time, rather wished she could take the words back. She didn’t mean to sound so obviously unsure of herself.
Gideon didn’t immediately answer. Instead, he bowed his head, leaned heavily on his cane, and blew out several long breaths. Finally, after what seemed an eternity to Winnefred, he lifted his face, squinted at her as if she’d been speaking in a foreign language, and said, “Beg your pardon?”
She gave a small, irritated sniff. “I just thought it was something you should consider before you backed into Samson.”
“I . . .” Gideon glanced behind him to where the lame horse was grazing at the side of the road. “I don’t follow.”
“Look at you.” She waved a hand to indicate how far away he was. “You’d not be running away, nor have pushed me away”—strictly speaking he’d pulled away, but she didn’t feel like making the distinction—“if I’d not done something incorrectly or—”
“No.” He took a large—and rather gratifying—step forward. “No. You’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing at all. Do you understand?”
That didn’t address why he’d been quick to retreat, but he was so adamant in her defense that she found herself nodding anyway.
Gideon looked caught somewhere between relieved and pained. “It is unconscionable for a gentleman to have taken advantage of a lady in such a manner. I have no excuse for it. I can only assure you it will never happen again.”
Was that all? But what if she wanted it to happen again? What if
she wanted more?
She might have asked him that if Lilly’s voice hadn’t chosen that moment to sound in her head.
Propositioning any man, for any reason, is nothing short of unforgivably forward and therefore immensely stupid.
It seemed unlikely that propositioning a man after kissing him was immensely stupid, but since Winnefred remained unclear on the specifics of acceptable behavior for a lady, she decided to keep her question to herself. There would be time enough for her to explore her attraction to Gideon. An isolated place like Murdoch House ought to provide plenty of opportunity for a gentleman and lady to find a few moments alone.
“I should hate for things to be uneasy between us because of this,” she told him, and then, to make sure they weren’t, she stepped over to pick up Samson’s lead and hand it to Gideon with a smile. “I should also hate a lecture from Lilly about dawdling. Take me home.”
Chapter 14
In retrospect, Winnefred realized she should have known that what an isolated farm ought to provide and what it will provide are two entirely different animals. Murdoch House ought to have yielded a fine crop of carrots last year, and it ought to have given her another opportunity to kiss Gideon in the days since their trip to the prison. Neither of those expectations had been met.
Gideon attended one meal a day as promised, but immediately disappeared after, going to his room or into Enscrum. During the few hours of the day he did spend in her company, he acted as though nothing unusual had passed between them. He certainly gave no indication he desired for something unusual to pass between them again.
Once or twice, she had considered knocking on the door to his chambers with some excuse or other, but she’d not been able to gather up the nerve. It was one thing to kiss a man while standing in a moonlit field. It was something else altogether to imagine herself capable of re-creating that moment . . . without the fields and moonlight.
It occurred to her that he might be avoiding her on purpose, but she couldn’t think of a single reason he should.
He’d kissed her, for pity’s sake. That had to be an indication of some liking.
Didn’t it? Lilly still had not expanded her knowledge of men, and Winnefred very much wished her own understanding of what went on between males and females extended beyond what she had gleaned from breeding Giddy. She was at a complete loss when it came to matters of the heart, even more so when it came to the courting rituals of gentlemen and ladies. Lilly had provided a few more do-not-evers in the past week, but there had to be more to it than that—subtle rules and signals she could only guess at.
She wondered if she’d given him an unintentional signal of disinterest, and she worried she might have missed one from him.
Just the idea of Gideon turning her away made her feel ill. She was no stranger to rejection, to the awful, crushing pain of it. The memory of that pain was enough for her to briefly contemplate putting her pursuit of Gideon aside. She might have done just that, were it not for three reasons. First, he had kissed her, which she was willing to take on faith indicated some interest on his part. Second, she had a difficult time backing down from a challenge.
Finally, and perhaps most important, she wanted him.
And if there was one thing she knew very, very well, it was how to fight for what she wanted.
Winnefred found this skill to be useful under a variety of circumstances. Including the morning Lilly stepped into the front parlor to announce they would be accepting an invitation to dinner at the Howards.
“This is absolutely ridiculous.” Winnefred plucked the invitation out of Lilly’s hand. “You loathe the Howards.”
“That is patently untrue,” Lilly countered. “I’m rather fond of the vicar. I just loathe his wife.”
“Because Clarisse is a pretentious ninny and a right bi—”
“It is Mrs. Howard, Freddie.”
“Certainly now, it’s Mrs. Howard. You never bothered to call her so before.”
“She wasn’t of any use to us before.”
Though she appreciated the honesty of that statement, it did little to sway Winnefred’s opinion of Mrs. Howard. “I sincerely doubt she’s been of use to anyone a single moment of her life.”
“I suspect her children would disagree.” Lilly snatched the invitation back. “We will be attending the dinner. You need the practice.”
“I need to practice pretending to enjoy the company of someone I cannot countenance and who does not like me, all because that someone may be of use to me?”
“Yes. Exactly,” Lilly exclaimed as if Winnefred had just successfully completed a particularly difficult lesson. “Oh, you are getting a grasp of things. Now, I think you should wear the green gown. The color is not so flattering as the peach, but the cut—”
“Wait. I’ve not agreed to go as of yet.”
“You are going.”
She had no doubt that was true, and she had to admit that Lilly’s reasons for attending the dinner party were sound, but she had no intention of saying as much aloud . . . yet. “I will go, but I want something in return.”
“And what might that be?” Lilly asked warily.
“A respite. I want a day, a full day, without lessons, without fancy dinners, without anything but you and I, and Gideon, if he can be persuaded to join us, simply having fun. We could go to town, or have a picnic and play games on the lawn, or . . . do anything really. Anything but speak of London or practice for London or plan for London or—”
“I gave you the afternoon to go to the prison just days ago.”
“That wasn’t a respite, that was a chore, and you weren’t there. I want a day for both of us—”
“A full day is too long,” Lilly cut in. “We can take a morning.”
“A full day,” she returned, folding her arms over her chest, “or I’ll not go.”
Lilly pressed her lips together, breathed loudly through her nose, and tapped her foot. All very positive signs.
“If I agree to this,” she finally said, “you will attend the Howards’ dinner, without complaint, and put every effort into being a pleasant and well-behaved guest?”
“It’s not as if I’d planned to have a go at it with one of the footmen in the parlor.”
“I want your word, Winnefred.”
“Yes, all right,” she groaned. “I promise to do my very best to behave as a proper lady.”
Lilly switched tapping her foot for tapping her finger against the back of the invitation—an even more encouraging sign. “Very well, we have an agreement.”
“Excellent.” She unfolded her arms. “When is the dinner party?”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight? And we’ve only just received the invitation?”
“No, it arrived two days ago. I just put off telling you.”
Because she wasn’t particularly surprised by that, Winnefred merely shrugged and said, “Still rather late.” And a result, no doubt, of Mrs. Howard trying to decide if it was worth having two undesirables in her home for the sake of one brother to a marquess. “She probably hopes Gideon will go without us.”
“There, you see?” Lilly shook the invitation at her. “A chance to thwart and disappoint Mrs. Howard. You should be thrilled.”
Winnefred decided the most appropriate response was a noncommittal “hmm,” followed by a prompt exit from the room.
In truth, she wasn’t quite as resistant to the idea of Mrs. Howard’s dinner party as she would lead Lilly to believe. It was a practical way to test her new manners. If she made a misstep at the party, it would be of little consequence, because if Mrs. Howard had any sort of influence in the ton, there would be no point in Winnefred preparing for a trip to London. Her name would already be ruined.
But feigning opposition allowed her to demand the day of respite, and she certainly hadn’t exaggerated how little she was looking forward to an evening spent with the Howards.
She could still recall with perfect clarity the day Mrs. Howard had made her first,
and only, visit to Murdoch House. She’d arrived full of probing questions, pompous opinions, and insufferable arrogance. Even at the age of thirteen, Winnefred could see how miserable and awkward the woman had made Lilly feel. The third comment on the deplorable lack of comfortable places in the house on which to sit had been the last straw for Winnefred. The moment the topic of Sunday service was broached, she had leapt at the chance to shock Mrs. Howard into an early departure. She regretted the action later, but not as strongly as she regretted ever having met Mrs. Howard.
Hours later, as the carriage rolled to a stop in front of the Howards’ large Tudor home, Winnefred wondered how much she was going to regret agreeing to attend the dinner party.
Mrs. Howard could be seen standing on the other side of the open front door. She was wearing a dark orange gown that clashed painfully with her pale yellow hair and some sort of head wrap with what looked to be a very large peacock feather sticking straight out of the top.
“I hate peacocks,” Winnefred muttered.
Across from her, Gideon lifted a dark brow. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
She pasted on a serene expression as she climbed from the carriage and up the front steps. Introductions, bows, and curtsies were exchanged, the latter of which Winnefred thought fairly well executed on her part. As expected, Mrs. Howard made a small fuss over Gideon, exhibited a reasonable politeness to Lilly, and strained her features into something roughly approximating a smile, but more closely resembling a snarl, when addressing Winnefred.
Despite the fact she had very rarely encountered Mrs. Howard over the years, Winnefred was quite certain that every time she saw the woman, her eyes had grown a little beadier in her head. Bird eyes, she thought and glanced at the peacock feather. How very fitting.
“Miss Blythe,” Mrs. Howard said stiffly. “How fortunate you could join us.”
“I am delighted to be here,” Winnefred recited, just as she had, at Lilly’s insistence, a dozen times on the carriage ride over.
Nearly a Lady Page 13