by Lara Temple
Apparently there was more than one way to waltz. Nothing that would pass muster at Almack’s, but much, much more enjoyable. They were on the other side of the green, far from the Welbeck crowd. There was too much chaos around them to move more than a couple of feet in either direction and Hunter’s arm around her was as much a guard against the merry jostling as a guide for the rhythm.
‘This most certainly isn’t a waltz.’ Nell laughed as he swung her out of the way of a portly couple who were clearly interpreting the music as a reel.
Her laugh collapsed into a gasp as her attempt to avoid stepping on his boot brought her sharply against him and somehow his leg slid between hers, straining her skirts against her thighs in a manner that definitely didn’t happen in a waltz.
‘I never said it was. No, don’t pull back yet. Trust me.’ His voice was as warm as the cider still tumbling through her and she didn’t even manage to scoff at this outrageous demand, too stunned by the sensation of being held there in the middle of the chaos, just swaying gently against his thigh, his head bent next to hers.
She had ridden astride more times than she could count; she knew what it felt to have something firm and muscular between her thighs, the pull of fabric over that sensitive inner flesh. But not this. They continued to move, with no regard to the rhythm, his leg shifting between hers, hard and muscled, scraping and pressing in a way that should have been thoroughly uncomfortable and it was, it was, just not in any way that she wanted to stop. It made her skin heat and tingle and begin to shake, and for one mad moment, still misted in the fumes of the cider, she thought it might be the return of that horrible fear, but that thought passed immediately. It wasn’t that kind of shaking. It was... She was coming apart and re-forming around a completely new heat at her centre. That burst of sun had sunk from her chest and stomach and settled between her legs, insistent and aggravating and in a dialogue with his body she could barely follow.
There were other things occurring, his arms around her, still masquerading as shields against the crowd except that his hand was moving so softly up and down the small of her back she wondered if it had somehow worked its way under her gown, she could feel his fingers so distinctly on her flesh.
He bent his head, his mouth beside her ear as if talking to her, and perhaps he was, if talking was that gentle slide of breath over the curve of her ear and every now and then his lips brushed its tip and the heat between her legs would gather in and prepare to shoot up through her to capture that caress and out into the heavens.
It never occurred to her to do anything but to hang on and survive this multiple-fronted assault as she would have clung to a bolting horse, focusing on keeping herself safe until the horse wore itself out and could be checked. But soon hanging on wasn’t enough.
The kiss by the paddock had been a revelation, a ripping back of curtains on a part of the world she had only known at the level of gossip or myth. That heat and pleasure had been sensuous and unnerving and made her yearn for something more. The kisses in the linen closet and the copse had confirmed her suspicions that she was probably a thorough wanton. Now she was being dragged higher or deeper and once again all she could think was that there must be more to these amazing sensations—everything he was doing told her so, was an invitation to proceed and discover what she was capable of. She. She was capable of this, not just him. She knew it.
Her hands had just been clasped on his coat and she loosened them and let them slide around him, her body sinking against his as it had yesterday. As her breasts pressed against his chest she realised they had wanted this. Every part of her body, which she had always thought of as a rather necessary unit for getting about the world, was now a clashing collection of needs and demands. Right now quite a few of them were making utterly new demands of her and of Hunter and rewarding her with wonderful but also thoroughly frustrating sensations like a band of musicians engaged in a cacophony begging to be drawn into a single tune.
‘Hunter.’ She turned her head to breathe against his neck, and his scent, his essence, warm and spicy and inexplicably vivid, flowed through her like the cider, twisting through to every one of those elements of her body taking part in the uprising. It did something to him, too, because he wrapped around her with a sudden shiver, pulling her against him painfully, breaking the rhythm. Then they were separate again. The only point of contact was his hand on her arm as he led her out through the crowd back towards the relative calm of the stalls. She kept her eyes on her pale slippers darting in and out from under her skirts as they threaded through the chaos and did a little tripping stumble as Hunter stopped abruptly.
‘May I have this dance, Nell?’ Charles asked over the noise and she looked up. He had stopped directly in front of her and the light from the torches and fires that turned his hair into a blazing sunset was also in his eyes and for a moment she stood mute and breathless before the embodiment of a dream. She had actually daydreamed of this precise moment. That in the midst of the fête this man, his hand held out to her, would single her out. It had been with her for so long, clung to during her aunt’s vicious scolds or during the quiet hours before sleep at school. She would sail away in his arms dancing in this very clearing, with the world fading away around them as he looked into her eyes. It wouldn’t be like the chaos of sensations and heat of dancing with Hunter that left her confused and frustrated. It would be as light as gossamer and would empty her of doubts and fears because Charles wanted her.
He stood, hand outstretched, with the boyish smile she had revered, and she had an urge to slap him. She couldn’t blame him for his affair with Phyllida, but she could for this shameless attempt to take advantage of an infatuated young woman. She held firmly to her smile, but it felt like a grimace.
‘Of course,’ she answered and held out her hand.
‘You look lovely, Nell,’ he said once they began dancing at the edge of the green.
‘Thank you, Charles.’
‘I mean it. You’re so lovely I wish...’
‘Please don’t insult me by feigning emotions that don’t exist, Charles. I am betrothed and I know you and Lady Melkinson are lovers.’
He stumbled, but didn’t let go of her hand.
‘Nell! Really! Someone might hear you!’
‘Is that what concerns you? What a hypocrite you are.’
He looked both shocked and rather desperate.
‘Lady Melkinson and I are merely acquaintances. You are the only woman who has touched my heart.’
‘Do you often kiss your mere acquaintances in the garden? Oh, don’t bother explaining. I thought I cared, but I must be as shallow as you because I don’t. Please don’t say anything else, Charles. Let’s enjoy the dance and part friends. Please.’
She could feel him struggling, but thankfully he complied with her request and they completed the dance in silence. As the music slowed she stepped back and smiled.
‘Goodnight, Charles.’
She turned and searched the crowd lining the green and her eyes met Hunter’s. She moved towards him without thinking and he took her arm and they walked through the stalls of roasting, sizzling and bubbling fare. She didn’t particularly care where they were going, just that he was with her, his hand securing hers on his arm and the press of people forcing her often against his side. There were jugglers and a man with dogs who danced on their hind feet and a man tossing lighted torches into the air. People gasped as sparks burst upwards like comet tails. One torch fell to the ground by her feet and Hunter pulled her back, his arm about her waist.
‘It’s dangerous to play with fire,’ his voice murmured close to her ear. She turned her head towards him without thinking and his mouth grazed her cheek. Around them the crowd kept moving from one spectacle to another, a pulsing, noisy current around their stillness. Not that she felt still. The heat that had been suspended restarted the inner drumming, feeding off every point of contact w
ith his body. It made no sense that never during her dreams of Charles had she imagined him kissing her. Now all it took was for her to stumble into Hunter, for his hand to brush against her, for him to speak...
She wanted to cry out in anguish. Hunter had ruined everything! She had been within sight of land after years adrift and he had pushed her back into the treacherous current that would eventually leave her becalmed and alone again.
But she didn’t stop him when he finally moved, guiding her out of the crowd and towards the tree-lined path towards Welbeck. Not even when he stopped and turned her to him, pulling the hood of her cloak over her hair.
‘It’s getting chilly,’ he explained as he tucked back a tress of hair that must have fallen free during the dance, but it slid free again and he stood with it draped over his palm for a moment before raising it.
‘Baked apples, with cinnamon.’
‘What?’
‘Your hair smells of baked apples and cinnamon.’
The very earthy statement eased her rising tension slightly. She tried to gather her hair, but only succeeded in dislodging Betsy’s carefully positioned pins and a hunk of hair tumbled down her other shoulder.
‘You’re just making it worse. Here, let me.’
Hunter pushed back her hood, inspecting the damage, and Nell felt the return of the familiar embarrassment at her unfashionably straight-as-sticks hair.
‘It’s hopeless. It just won’t curl.’
‘Thank goodness for that; why on earth would you want to torture something so beautiful into curls is beyond me.’
‘That’s because you’re a man.’
‘You noticed. I have clearly done something right, then.’
He picked up another tress that had slipped free and ran it between his fingers, watching her.
‘This one is cider and cloves.’
She presented him with another felled tress.
‘The whole fair smells of cider, so that is nothing extraordinary. What about this?’
With his eyes on hers Hunter brushed it just gently with his lips and all conscious thought faded like the last gasp of a sunset.
‘This is Nell.’
How did he make his voice do that, reverberate through her like a musical instrument? It made her body dance, but it was still an intrusion and a warning.
His words were like the cider, warm and drugging, and like the cider she wanted more of them. He wasn’t looking hard and grim any more. The fire that was pulsing away inside her was in his eyes as well and she wanted it so much it terrified her. He wasn’t hers to keep, but how could she let him go? The thought was so terrifying she withdrew, trying to find the stable ground of the laughing, sophisticated flirtation he had taught her.
‘That sounds rather unappealing after all those delicious scents. Try another one. We need some more substantial fare than baked apples and cider.’
He shook his head, dismissing her weak attempt to bring them back to the mundane.
‘You’re wrong. This...’ He ran the lock of hair between his fingers, just an inch, but enough for a shower of tingling heat to cascade from her scalp downwards. ‘This is the most exquisite scent of them all. If I could describe it, all your poets would have to bow before me.’
Far behind them she could hear the roar of the crowd, but it was all just a rumble of sound around the reality of a man holding her hair and turning her body, turning her, into the rest of the universe.
Her mind and senses were raw, but enough of her remained to be scared she might never regain her footing. If she stepped into the void now, how would she return? There was no one she could really trust to guide her back to safety. No one. So it made no sense to let him secure the hood of her cloak again and take her hand and lead her up the path towards Welbeck knowing that it wasn’t over. As they walked down the dim and silent corridor towards her room she was conscious of a growing elation that something was going to happen. Tomorrow she would have to go back to her old life, but right now she could take this. Him.
Outside her door she turned, straightening, preparing herself to do something she never would have imagined was within the realm of the possible just a week ago. With one hand already turning the knob, she held out her hand to Hunter. He took it and held it against his lips for the space of two breaths.
‘Goodnight, Nell.’
No!
She grabbed his coat and pulled him in and either she took him by surprise or he didn’t offer much resistance, only stopping once he was inside the room.
‘This isn’t a good idea. It’s the cider and the dancing. I took advantage of your inexperience, Nell, but I have my limits.’
He spoke very slowly, enunciating each word as if she were dim-witted. She knew the moment would come when he would push her away, bring down the curtain on their little play. A more experienced woman might take this dismissal with a laugh and a teasing comment, but she couldn’t. The best she could do was to try not to show him how much this hurt. She raised her chin.
‘Goodnight, then. I’m going back to the fête.’
She pushed past him, opening the door, but he shut it again, hard, his hand flat against it.
‘No. You’re not.’
‘I most certainly am!’
‘Nell, listen to me.’
‘No. You will say something clever and convince me whatever you want is for my own good and I don’t want to hear it. Let me go.’
‘Nell, it’s precisely because what I want is far from your own good that I am trying to be sensible. You don’t even know what you want!’
‘Oh, and you do?’
‘I do, which is why I am trying very hard not to accept your offer. But there is no possible way I am letting you go back down to the fête alone.’
‘I wouldn’t be alone. I am certain Charles would be only too happy for another dance.’
As a threat it was rather weak. He knew very well she wasn’t in love with Charles and that Charles was only interested in her inheritance, but it was all she had in this uneven struggle. She didn’t expect him to react so fiercely.
‘You’re not going,’ he said, his hands tangling in her hair. ‘I won’t let you.’
She raised her mouth to feel the words against her lips, leaning into him as she had in the dance, and his arm came around her again, not so smoothly now, dragging her against him.
‘Nell, tell me you won’t go.’ The certainty was gone; there was just entreaty and something else that made her want to wrap her arms around him. She slid one hand into his warm hair and it felt like a sigh between her fingers. It might be playing with fire, but this was right. Now her body was coming back to her, gathering, defined by every point of contact between them. This time she must have been the one to start the kiss because for a moment he still held back and then with a half-groan his hands shifted, positioned her, and she lost all control of the situation.
She was no longer playing with fire. She was fire, he was living flame and he was devouring her. She gave him everything he demanded, opening herself, helping when his hands untied her cloak, unfastened her dress, slipped down the sleeves of her gown. He paid homage to every inch of skin he uncovered with his hands and mouth, bringing it to tingling life, finding places she had never realised could make her writhe merely with a breath and flick of his tongue, like the dip below her collarbone, and further, where the skin of her breasts began to rise... She tried to tug down her chemise and stays because they were in the way. Then they weren’t and the cool air gathered around her breasts and her breath shook in relief and agony.
Do something.
For a moment his hands just held her arms and his gaze mapped her. Then he reached out and did the same with one finger, very lightly, first over the delicate swells, dipping between them to gather and release the pearl at the end of her neck
lace before following the curve under her breast. Then his hand cupped it and she watched, transfixed, as he bent towards her.
‘Nell.’ His breath was torture enough on her exposed nipple, but when he touched his lips to it, the lightest feather touch, she gave a little cry, digging her fingers into his hair, not knowing whether to stop him before something terrible happened or to press herself to him, to be consumed utterly, demolished utterly.
She moaned and gave up all thought as he took the hardened bud into his mouth and the pleasure echoed in the thudding heat between her legs. Every touch and lick on her breast was answered by a pulse of pleasure, a damp heat that was gathering.
She didn’t resist as he nudged her legs apart with his knee, and when he pulled up her skirts she helped him. She didn’t even have enough shame to stop him from releasing the string of her drawers and then caressing the heated, shaking skin above her garters. Quite the opposite. She wriggled her undergarments to the ground and when he raised his head to kiss her again she anchored her hand in his hair and kissed him with all the confused need bursting inside her.
She was lost. Her body was acting without her because she would never have dreamed of taking his hand and pressing it against her aching breast. And when his other hand skimmed up her thighs, between her legs, she had no idea how but she moved towards it so that it pressed his large hot palm against the fire at the juncture of her thighs. Her legs tightened instinctively, locking him there, and the hard texture of his fingers pressing against the most intimate part of her condensed the fireball into molten lead that was begging to spill free.
‘Hunter...’ His name was one long plea for the pleasure she knew awaited her. But just in case she wasn’t being clear enough, she added, ‘Please...’
It was an eternity, but finally he moved again, and though she should be shocked or ashamed, all she could do was move to the rhythm of his fingers in total wonder that this was even possible. She had thought the kisses were magical, bringing extraordinary revelation about her body, but this... Where had this been all her life? How could this completely ignored and negligible part of her have transformed into the whole universe and Hunter’s hands and body and lips become the very essence of the laws that governed her new reality?