Mary Elizabeth laughed a little, but quietly, so as not to draw Alexander’s attention. She poured liquid from the flask onto Catherine’s ice. Catherine looked around to see if any of the fashionable people had noticed, but they were too busy preening and trying to be seen to pay any attention to what two lone girls were up to.
“Will it ruin the flavor of the ice?” she asked, suppressing her excitement, feeling a strange warmth beginning to creep over the edges of her mind.
“No, love, it’ll just give it a kick. Eat up, then.” Mary Elizabeth added a tot to her own ice, then slipped the flask back into her bag before her brother could see what she had done.
The liquid tasted strange, and a little off-putting, but as Catherine continued to eat, she found the taste not as strong, and a warmth spreading along her tongue. The heat of the drink and the cold of the ice pleased her immensely. She must find out what that stuff was, and get a bit for herself. Margaret might like it when she was feeling out of sorts.
By the time she had finished her strawberry ice, a lovely sense of well-being pervaded Catherine’s whole body. She felt warm in her belly, but not too warm, and the whole world had taken on a sunlit cast in spite of the gathering clouds. She was not even embarrassed when she handed her silver cup and spoon back to Mr. Waters to be returned inside.
She smiled at him beatifically, feeling at peace with all the world and every man in it. Even him.
Mr. Waters hesitated at her smile. He looked into her face as if searching for the answer to a puzzling question. She saw the moment he found it, for his look turned thunderous.
“Mary Elizabeth Waters, what have you done?”
Eleven
His angel was as drunk as a sailor.
Alex cursed, not bothering to do it under his breath. Mary Elizabeth ignored him, but Miss Middlebrook stared him down like a schoolroom governess.
“I beg your pardon, Alex, but I must insist you do not use that language in my presence.” She looked at him imperiously from under the narrow brim of her white flowered bonnet. He was about to open his mouth to apologize when she laughed long and loud. The sweet sound echoed down the street in waves, and more than one gentleman looked over to see where the courtesan was sitting. When they saw only a little debutante dressed in pink muslin and silk flowers, they raised their eyebrows and turned back to their companions. But not before their gazes lingered for a moment, as if to memorize her face.
He returned the silver cups that had held their ices, not hesitating a moment longer before vaulting into the seat and drawing up the duchess’s black geldings. The pair shook themselves awake and dove into the melee of the London street, as eager to get back to their mews as he was. Of course, he had a second stop to make.
Alex’s stomach sank. Even their connection to the duchess would not be enough to smooth the way with Mrs. Middlebrook this time. One cut from a throwing knife was bad enough, but when he brought the eldest daughter of the house home intoxicated, there would truly be hell to pay.
He would probably never be allowed to call on her again, much less dance with her in company.
Alex turned his glare on Mary Elizabeth, who sat beside her friend, contemplating the sky that was turning gray above their heads. Catherine Middlebrook, sandwiched between them, hummed a lilting little tune he did not recognize. She leaned heavily on his arm, as if she were a vine that sought to grow there.
His body hardened at her nearness, as it always did, but this time there was a keenness to his appetite, for it grew by what it fed on. An almost constant diet of her presence had only made him want her more. And now she was warm and willing by his side, hanging on his arm, her breast pressed against his bicep.
He was a gentleman, and had to remember his oath. He thought of unpleasant things instead: the coldness of the burn when he tried to swim too early in the year at home, the icy slickness of the water he was obliged to break in his wash bowl every morning in the middle of winter.
All these thoughts did not cool his ardor in the least. For his angel was a warm burden against him, a bud ready to flower, and he was but a man—a man of honor, but just a man.
God help him.
“Alex,” his sister said, as if she had not been wreaking havoc in her wake, “do you think it is going to rain?”
“We’re in London, Mary. It is always about to rain. And do not speak to me. Your friend has had a bit of the whisky.”
“She has.” Mary Elizabeth kept her eyes on the sky, not looking his way at all. “Only a tot, just to sweeten her mood. An afternoon with you had put her in an ill frame of mind.” She turned to him then, raising a pointed eyebrow. “I wonder why?”
“Do not speak, Mary Elizabeth. Your friend is drunk, we are ruined, and you are going home.”
“To Glenderrin?” Mary Elizabeth asked hopefully.
“No. To the duchess’s.”
His sister slumped a little, sighing.
“Yes, it is such a burden to live in a princess’s palace while all the swains of London leave you calling cards and flower bunches, each waiting to dance with you at the next ball.”
Mary Elizabeth brightened and straightened her back at the mention of dancing. “That’s right! Tomorrow, we dance! Alex, do you think these English know any reels?”
He breathed deep, working hard not to thrash his little sister with his buggy whip there in the street. He was overwrought, and overreacting, but as his angel pressed one lush breast tighter against his arm, he had all he could stand. It was high time Robert took over the business of marrying off their sister. Robbie need no longer wander among the whores of London, but stay home and squire Mary Elizabeth about Town while Alex drowned himself in a vat of cold water in the garden.
“I doubt it, Mary Elizabeth. Maybe you can teach them one.”
“Maybe I will.”
He drew the duchess’s carriage up in front of her town house. “Why are we here, Alex? Aren’t we taking Catherine home?”
“What happens to Miss Middlebrook is no longer your concern, Mary.”
Catherine roused herself enough at this point to speak. “No, indeed, Alex. Mary is my best friend. I will see you at the dance tomorrow, Mary. You can teach me a reel.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Mary Elizabeth said, planting a kiss on Catherine’s cheek before leaping down from the carriage, into the road. Lucky for her, and less lucky for him, no other carriage was barreling by to kill or maim her in that moment. His sister gave him a jaunty wave before blithely strolling into the house. The forbidding ducal butler shot him an evil look before closing the door behind her.
Catherine pressed harder against his arm to get his attention. His body was at full attention, but he turned his head at last to look down at her against his better judgment.
Her lips were swollen as they always were, as if someone had just been kissing her. The telltale scent of whisky lingered on her breath, along with a hint of strawberries from the ice she had eaten. She leaned closer, if that were possible, raising herself up to whisper in his ear.
“Alex,” she said. “I think it is going to rain.”
* * *
Catherine should be standoffish and ladylike around Alexander Waters, but ever since she had eaten her strawberry ice, she had felt at peace, at one with the world and every man in it. She could not quite remember why she was angry with him. She liked him. She knew he liked her. There was not much else to think about when it came to a man and a girl.
Her grandmother’s strictures about proper decorum seemed very far away, as far as the river that ran by their house in Devon. As Mr. Waters drove her home in the busy traffic of the Mayfair streets, she leaned comfortably against his arm and looked at the sky. She could not see it properly, for her bonnet blocked her view, as it always did.
She pulled away from Alexander for a moment and reached for the ribbons of her bonnet.
>
“Miss Middlebrook, may I ask what you are doing? Please keep your bonnet on. We are almost at Regent’s Square.”
“Balderdash, Mr. Waters. I am tired of not being able to see properly. I want this bonnet off.”
She fiddled with the tie that bound her until the bow under her chin finally came free, and she drew the hat off her head. She sighed, and tossed the bonnet at her feet, where the ribbons fluttered at her gaily. It seemed for a moment that the cursed hat might take flight, so she set her neat-booted foot on it. It was a bit crushed, but it would not flap out of the carriage and scare the horses.
“Miss Middlebrook, your lovely bonnet is ruined.”
“I doubt that, Alex. May I call you Alex? I doubt that, but if it is, I have another at home that will suffice for everyday use, and one for Sundays.”
Her hair suddenly felt tight on her head. The hairpins seemed to be sticking into her scalp more than usual, and she needed to loosen one or two. She reached up and drew out the two largest hairpins. A hank of curls fell across her shoulders and down her back. Alexander clucked to the horses and they picked up speed, bringing a lovely breeze against her heated skin and along her face. She drew two more pins out, and then two more, until her entire head of hair had fallen around her in a mass of curls.
“That’s better,” she said. Her reticule was caught under her thigh. It seemed she had sat on it. Rather than draw it out from under her in an unseemly show of maneuvering in the open carriage, she simply tossed the pins into the street.
“Miss Middlebrook, I beg you, please do not take anything else off.”
“Alex, I must remind you that I am a lady. A lady does not disrobe on a public street, in an open carriage, in the full light of day.”
Alexander seemed to blush under his tan, and she laughed in delight. Finally, someone besides herself was blushing! What a lovely change that made.
Emboldened by the heightened color on his handsome face, she leaned close to him again, sliding her hand up his muscled arm. His tight coat did not do him justice, it seemed. The muscles leaped beneath her gloved hand, radiating warmth and coziness and a tiny bit of danger. But his hands were occupied with the horses… What could one tiny bit of danger matter?
She took both of her gloves off and tossed them on the floor of the carriage beside her hat. Her hands free to roam unencumbered, she leaned close to Alex and slid one hand up his arm, past his elbow, to the bulge of his bicep.
She sighed. “It occurs to me, Alex, that a lady might indeed take off a few more constricting clothes, if she were driven in a closed carriage, in the dark of night. Perhaps that is why I am never allowed to go anywhere, save with Mama, once night has fallen.”
Alex choked, and she looked up into his face with concern. It seemed he was not having an apoplexy like the one that had killed her father. Perhaps he was only trying very hard not to laugh.
“You may laugh, Alex. I will not be offended. I know that I know almost nothing about the world. I suppose I am a disappointment to a worldly man like you.”
She felt a little of the happiness go out of the day, as he stopped the carriage by the curb. This time, Jim did not come out to hold his horses. Indeed, no one from her household greeted them at all.
He turned to her, not moving to hand her down from the rig. His dark eyes were serious, and seemed to be lit with an inner fire that she thought she should heed.
“You are far from a disappointment, Catherine. You are the most beautiful girl I have ever known, and the sweetest. You are wholly unspoiled and could never disappoint a true gentleman or a man of sense, this day or ever.”
“Even with my bonnet off?” she asked, eyeing him warily.
“Even then.”
She smiled at him, the day coming back to rights. She heard the distant sound of thunder and bent down to pick up her bonnet and gloves. Her reticule was indeed tucked under her derriere, and she held on to Alex’s arm as she reached beneath herself to draw it out into the light.
“There that blasted thing is. What do I owe you for our ices, Alex? A Middlebrook always pays her debts.”
He did laugh then, and raised his arms to help her down from the carriage. “You owe me nothing. A lady does not pay for her own ices.”
He swung her down from the high seat and she clung to him like a limpet. Suddenly the ground seemed very far away, and seemed to sway a little as her feet touched the earth.
“Alex, I fear that bit of beatha…whatever it was, might have made me a little…odd.”
He smiled and let her lean all of her weight on him. “Only a little. I must admit, Miss Middlebrook, I like you odd.”
“Then you will like me forever, Alexander Waters, for odd I always am.”
He helped her up the stairs to the front door, so she managed them without tripping once. For some reason, that simple fact made her inordinately proud.
Jim did not answer her knock, so she simply pushed the door open. The entrance hall was dark, for rain clouds were gathering and the candles had not been lit in the vestibule. Mrs. Beam had her work cut out for her, it seemed. But Catherine did not even care. She was too happy and warm and well to care about households and candles. Who could care for such trifles when a man like Alex Waters stood in the room?
“I must tell you a secret, Alex. And you must not tell a soul.”
“What is that, Miss Middlebrook?”
“Call me Catherine.” She leaned close to him, drawing him into the darkened hallway. She felt a tiny bit dangerous, a tiny bit wild, but she also knew that no matter what the provocation, he would always look after her, would always see to her needs and interests without her even having to ask. For all his good looks and non-marrying ways, Alex was a good man.
“Come close, and I will tell you.”
He obligingly leaned down, and she raised her hands to settle on his broad shoulders. She knew that his horses would stay in place and not run away, as she had seen him tie them to the post by the road. So she closed the door behind him with a tilt of her hips, and stepped even closer in the dark.
“I like you too, Alex Waters. A very great deal. More than any man I have ever met, save my father. And he was a great man.”
“I am sure he was. Miss Middlebrook—”
“Catherine,” she corrected him.
“Catherine,” he amended. “We are standing a bit too close. Someone might see.”
She smiled at him then, and felt as if a little sun had risen in her heart. Even in that dark corridor, when any other man would have taken advantage, he was still trying to care for her. She leaned close, as if to whisper once more in his ear, but at the last moment, she turned her head, and brushed her lips against his.
Twelve
Her lips on his were like a bolt of lightning.
Alex had never been struck by lightning, for he still lived to walk the earth, but he had seen a tree that had been split in two by a blast from above. Now, he knew what that tree felt like. A fanciful piece of his mind thought of that tree as his angel kissed him. His life was now like that tree, divided into two parts: before she kissed him, and after.
Her lips were soft and warm, and more than willing. He tried in the first few moments to remember that he was a gentleman, that he was sworn to protect this girl, even from her own folly. But as she pressed her sweet, round breasts against his chest, winding her fingers into the long dark of his hair, drawing the ribbon out of it, he found that he forgot his oath. He had forgotten every oath he had ever taken, every breath he had taken before that moment. There was only that girl, and her soft sweetness in his arms.
She did not know how to kiss. He wondered if this might even be her first. That thought too splintered off from the main, and drifted away with the current of what he did not care about. He cared only for her, for her breasts against his chest, and the way she felt beneath his hands as he pressed the
m to her waist.
Her waist was reed thin, with no need for stays save to hold up the delectable weight of her bosom. She seemed interested only in pressing that bosom to him, so that all of his thoughts spun away on the current of his lust.
He gentled his lips and ran his tongue over her sealed mouth until she opened it beneath him. She gasped a little, and he pressed his advantage, sweeping his tongue into her mouth as gently as he might, so that he did not offend or frighten her. If this was her first kiss, let it be the best he could offer her, as it would also be their last.
For he knew well, even in the throes of lust, that he could not have this girl. She needed a husband, and he was not a marrying man. He repeated this mantra to himself, but somewhere he lost the thread of it. She began to learn what his tongue was teaching her, and her own tongue joined his in a mating dance.
It seemed she had a natural affinity for it.
She slipped past the last of his defenses then, as her tongue tangled with his, and she pressed her hips against his manhood. He would never think to bring himself against an untutored girl like this one, but she seemed to think nothing of it. She was not frightened or repulsed, but seemed to savor the contact as he did. She moved her hips against him, and his body became a white-hot brand, his mind and morals almost burned away altogether.
It was a sound from inside the house that saved him.
Somewhere within, above stairs, some ham-fisted servant dropped a bin of coal, and it rolled across a metal grate. The clatter startled him out of his sin, drew him back from the precipice that would have led him to his doom.
The selfish part of his nature rose to the forefront of his body and roared. She was his, and he would have her—there, against that wall if he willed, and damn the consequences. There could be no consequences that held any more weight than the weight of her breasts against his chest, than the heat of her flower pressed against his ever-tightening trousers. He shook with the need to claim her, to make her his. He felt as that lion must have done in its youth, on the precipice of an ever-ravening appetite that would take over his reason as well as his body, until his reason and his body moved as one.
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