by Tessa Dare
“Tomorrow may be too late,” she said. “I can’t take that risk. I’ll have to do it tonight.”
“You’ll have to do what tonight?”
“Seduce him, of course.”
Jeremy stared at her, dumbstruck. A log settled in the fire with a loud crack, and a flurry of red sparks shot out from the hearth.
Lucy stopped before the mirror. She untied her dressing gown and opened it, surveying the simple linen nightgown beneath with a dissatisfied expression. “Silk and lace would be better, I suppose, but I haven’t anything finer.” She made a quarter turn and looked askance at her reflected profile. Thrusting her shoulders back, she smoothed her nightgown tight against her torso until every swell and peak of her flesh strained against the sheer fabric.
Jeremy leapt to his feet, upending what remained of his whiskey onto the carpet. In a matter of two paces, he crossed the room and stepped between Lucy and her scandalous reflection, grabbing the edges of her dressing gown and wrapping them firmly about her waist. The third button of her nightgown was undone, and the thin fabric gaped to reveal a crescent of golden skin. He forced his gaze up to her face. “Don’t tell me that … that this is what you’re practicing.”
She nodded. The cool intensity in her gaze told Jeremy that, ridiculous as the idea might seem to him, Lucy thought seduction an entirely sensible plan. He put his hands on her shoulders and willed authority into his voice. “Lucy, Toby does not love you.”
“Yes, Jemmy, he does.”
“What makes you so sure? Has he given you any reason to hope?”
“I wasn’t aware that hope required a reason, any more than love. In case you have forgotten—I have no talent for hoping. I don’t hope. I know. I believe. I expect. I know that Toby loves me. I believe we belong together.” She jabbed a finger into the center of his chest. “And I expect you to understand.”
Jeremy groaned. How was he supposed to reason with a girl—a woman, he corrected—who put no stock in reasons? “Lucy, Toby is quite fond of you.” He realized he was still holding her by the shoulders. Retreating a step, he let his hands drop to his sides. “But fondness isn’t love. Besides, what would you know of seduction?”
“Oh, I have a book.”
“A book?” He pulled a hand through his hair. “Good Lord, Lucy, I am not going to ask you where you obtained such a book or what pearls of wisdom it might contain.” She opened her mouth to interject, and he silenced her with an outstretched hand. “In fact, I beg you not to tell me. Suffice it to say, I hope you will not heed the lessons of whatever lurid novel you’ve managed to get your hands on.”
“I’ll admit book learning has its limitations.” She regarded him cagily, her gaze searching his.
“That’s one way of putting it.”
She inched closer. “Reading is certainly no substitute for practical experience.” She drew nearer still.
“But … wait … Lucy, you can’t possibly—” And then he blurted out a question directed more at God in heaven than at Lucy herself. “Why me?”
“You mean besides the fact that there’s no one else? You’re so proper, Jemmy, so cold. There are icebergs in the North Sea with less frost on them. If I can thaw you out, I’ll have no problem seducing Toby.”
“I assure you, you could not ‘thaw’ me, even if I wished to be … thawed. Which I don’t.” He retreated a step. Then two.
“Try to resist, by all means. I like a good challenge.” She closed the distance again, her eyes lit with mischief. “I’ve learned to snare grouse and angle for trout. Is catching a husband really so different?”
Yes, Jeremy meant to insist, but somehow his jaw would only move up and down noiselessly, in a rather good imitation of—well, of a trout.
And then she caught him by his shirt and reeled him in, catching him up in that net of chestnut curls and kissing him within an inch of his life. Her lips attacked his with the same steely determination. But when she threw her arms around his neck and fell against him, the rest of her was soft, pliant, yielding. Silky strands of her hair slid over his forearm. Lush curves molded against his chest.
Before he could gather his wits to protest, she pulled away suddenly and studied his face.
“Well? Is it working?”
It was a simple question. And as Jeremy’s mind recited the reasons why his answer ought to be an emphatic no, other regions of his body were decidedly saying yes. Good Lord, he was only a man. A man who, it seemed, had wasted the past several months not kissing anyone, and whose body was veritably leaping at the chance to end the reign of self-imposed monasticism. He shook his head firmly in the negative, hoping she would overlook the ragged breathing that argued otherwise.
Lucy was undeterred. She shot up for yet another attempt, but Jeremy caught her face in his hands. Her cheeks flushed soft and warm beneath his palms.
“Have you gone mad? This is not going to happen. It cannot happen.”
“Well, of course it cannot happen.” Her mouth spread into a grin, and her cheeks dimpled under his thumbs. Jeremy was seized by an unpardonable urge to trace those little laughing hollows with his fingers, explore them with his lips.
“Have no fear, Jemmy, I have no plans for it. Then you would have to marry me, and that would not do at all.”
“It most certainly would not.” He studied the face cupped in his hands. Her skin drank in the firelight and glowed like burnished gold. Her eyes danced with reflected flame, daring him to look closer, draw nearer. Who was this woman, and what had she done with Lucy? She felt like a stranger to him, and that was a dangerous thing. A stranger was fair game, for kissing … and more.
Jeremy began a short list of the reasons why Lucy was not—most definitely not—fair game.
Point one, she was the sister of his oldest friend.
Point two, his oldest friend was a crack shot.
“Listen to me,” he said, giving her head a little shake. “If you have questions about … about the marriage bed, you ought to take them up with Marianne. Or you should wait for your wedding night, when your husband—who will not be Toby—can enlighten you. There will be no lessons on fishing for husbands or ensnaring men.”
She smiled. A smug, maddening smile that Jeremy longed to shake right off her face.
“Do you understand me?” he demanded.
“Yes.” She pressed her lips together briefly before they parted again in laughter.
“Then damn it, why are you laughing?”
“Because I think it was working.”
That damned impish grin again. But this time he saw not the impudent smile, but rather what composed it.
Lips.
Full, sweetly bowed lips, flushed deep red with kissing and laughter. Lips that begged to be covered with his own.
He closed his eyes to the temptation, sliding his hands back to fist in her tumbled hair, as if by taming those curls he could control her. Control himself. But—sweet heaven. It was like plunging his hands into liquid silk, and behind his eyelids he saw those strands of exquisite softness stroking every inch of his skin.
His eyes snapped open. In desperation, he glanced downward, just to see if the third button of her nightgown was still undone.
And it was. Damn it, it was.
She laughed softly, drawing his gaze back up to her mouth, now tilted at the perfect angle to receive his kiss. Those lips … and just a hint of a moist, pink tongue … the instruments of his irritation for so many years, now offered up in invitation. Just waiting to be silenced, mastered, tamed. There was one certain way, a dark voice inside him argued, to make Lucy finally see sense.
Kiss her senseless.
His mouth crushed down on hers, and he felt her lips contract from that wide smile to a passionate pout. And when she opened her mouth to him readily, eagerly, Jeremy thanked God for lurid novels.
He slid his tongue into her hot, whiskey-bold mouth, exploring, demanding. She gasped against his lips, and he thrust deeper, took more, determined to drink in he
r sweetness until he tasted the bitter edge of fear. If she wanted lessons, he meant to give her one. He would teach her that desire was not a game; passion was dangerous sport indeed. He meant to push her until he pushed her away—sent her scurrying back to her room to tremble beneath crisp white sheets and curl back into that high-necked virginal nightgown. And button that damned button.
Then her tongue stroked his. Cautiously, once. Again, with abandon. She was pulling him in, coaxing him on, stoking the fire in his loins with every darting caress. He answered instinctively, deepening the kiss. And a realization pierced him with all the sweet sting of requited desire.
This kiss was a dare.
And in the eight years he’d known her, Lucy Waltham had never once backed down from a dare.
She wriggled closer, grasping his shoulders and running one hand to the back of his neck. He growled as her fingernails raked lightly across his nape.
Some force pulled his hand downward. Regret, perhaps. The desperate need to regain control. A charitable impulse, truly—he had to convince her she was playing with fire. Fingers splayed, he laid claim to the small of her back and pressed her to him, drawing her body tight against his swelling groin. The pleasure was immediate. Intense. Not nearly enough.
Surely now she would squirm away, perhaps even scream.
But no. She was moving, yes. God, was she moving. Arching against him, moaning into the kiss. Cool velvet teased his fingertips; warm velvet caressed his tongue. Traitorous images flooded his mind. A crimson robe pooling on the floor. Buttons flying everywhere. He was in this kiss far too deep, and oh God, how he longed to sink in deeper still. It had gone all wrong.
This was … all … wrong.
Jeremy fought through the haze of lust, clenching his fist in her hair and tearing her away. An inch. He looked down at her face. This time, her eyes were closed.
“Lucy,” he whispered hoarsely.
Her eyes fluttered open. They were green flecked with gold; dark, wild passion, glinting with laughter. He untangled his hand from her hair, released her waist, and stepped back, trying to think. His breath was ragged, his pulse thundering, and blood was rushing everywhere in his body except his brain. “Lucy,” he tried again, “that was—”
“That was practice,” she interrupted. A smile curved her lips. “Very good practice.” She shifted her weight back on one foot, pushing the curve of her hip into relief and lifting her breasts for attention—an unconscious motion of raw sensuality.
It was wildly seductive.
Jeremy swore inwardly. What had he done? He’d opened the door to an awkward virgin, and not a half-hour later, he was sending away a temptress. It was as though he’d been handed an unloaded gun, only to pack it with powder and buckshot and—dear God—damn near pull the trigger. Scant minutes ago, she’d been harmless. Now …
Now Lucy was a danger to herself.
And if she stood there a moment longer, taunting him with those glittering eyes and those swollen lips and that flushed, kissable curve of her throat, Jeremy would be a danger to her.
What had he been thinking? He had mauled her like a brute. Never mind the fact that she had mauled him right back, or that the whole thing had been her idea. He was a gentleman, and she was—by birth if not behavior—a lady. She was his best friend’s sister. He ought to be facing a pistol at dawn, or worse. A vicar across an altar.
She must have read the guilt in his eyes. “For heaven’s sake, Jemmy. Henry’s never going to know, unless you tell him.” Smiling, she tied the sash of her dressing gown. “And I strongly suggest you don’t. You’d never live it down.”
“You,” he said, grasping her by the elbow and steering her firmly to the door, “are very late for bed.” He cautiously scanned the corridor before guiding her through the doorway. She started to turn left, toward Toby’s bedchamber. He caught her by the shoulders and swiveled her to face the opposite direction.
“Go to your room, Lucy,” he whispered sternly. “I shall keep my door open all night—if you try to get to Toby, you’ll have to get through me.”
She flashed him a coy look which, in any ballroom, he would have taken for shameless flirtation. She was a quick study, indeed. “Are you suggesting that would be difficult?”
He gritted his teeth. “So help me, I will march you down to Henry’s room this instant if …”
“Shhhh.” She silenced him with a finger to his lips, glancing over her shoulder. “Very well, Jemmy,” she whispered. “I suppose Toby will let Sophia unpack her valises before he drops to one knee. I can wait one more night.”
Jeremy listened to her pad softly down the corridor and strained his ears until he heard the sound of a bolt sliding into place. He sagged against the wall.
It was some comfort to know Lucy slept behind a bolted door. But he would have felt entirely more at peace, were the bolt on the other side.
CHAPTER TWO
Lucy Waltham’s appetite was insatiable.
Henry liked to jest that when she married, he would provide her a dowry of two cows, six pigs, and two dozen chickens—just so her husband could keep her fed. It was only a joke, of course. In all likelihood, her dowry would be worth far less.
But no one would be jesting to say Lucy downed meals that would put a farm laborer to shame. Lucy lived hungry. She devoured every day. This appetite for life required a steady supply of actual food. She nicked hot rolls from the kitchen, rang for cold chicken at midnight, and spent long afternoons grazing in the orchards. And she never missed breakfast.
Marianne and Aunt Matilda were already at table when Lucy entered the breakfast room. Lucy leaned over to kiss Aunt Matilda’s papery cheek. The old lady responded by taking a loud slurp of chocolate.
No one knew exactly how old Aunt Matilda was—Aunt Matilda least of all—but Lucy thought she was eighty if she was a day. She also thought Aunt Matilda the most beautiful woman she knew. Lucy’s grandfather had built his fortune farming indigo in the West Indies, where Aunt Matilda had spent her youth. She still dressed head-to-toe in yards of the deepest indigo blue. Her spine had not curved one whit with age, and she kept her chin held high to balance a formidable turban. She smelled of ocean breezes and exotic spices and snuff.
Henry turned from the buffet bearing two plates. He froze momentarily, eyes wide in disbelief, before setting one plate before his wife. “Lucy, what on earth have you done to yourself?”
“Henry, hush,” Marianne said. “I think Lucy looks lovely.”
“Yes, lovely,” Aunt Matilda warbled.
Lucy smoothed her palms over cool silk as she made her way to the sideboard. The dress had been made up by a London modiste nearly three years ago, for what was to have been her first season in Town. That was before Marianne learned she was with child for the second time. The gown had languished in Lucy’s closet through that confinement, and then another—a bit of shimmering silk promise amid yards of everyday muslin. The pale blue fabric matched the shade of a starling’s egg, and creamy lace edged the cap sleeves.
Her figure had rounded considerably in the three years since the dress had been fitted. Her breasts strained against the bodice, pulling the fabric taut. The neckline dipped scandalously low for morning.
It would do perfectly.
She really ought to wear silk more often. The gown flowed around her body, gliding over her skin like water. She touched a hand to her neatly coiled hair. Her maid had nearly dropped the hairbrush when she’d requested a more elegant style than her usual simple knot. The jewels were perhaps a bit much for breakfast. Her mother’s opal earrings pinched on either side of her head. They were far heavier than she’d anticipated. Surely her earlobes would sag to her shoulders by noon.
But no matter. If jewels were required to outshine Sophia Hathaway, Lucy would drape herself in diamonds.
She had seated herself at the table when Felix entered the breakfast room with Kitty on his arm. Sophia followed a few paces behind. Both ladies were attired in simple frocks of spr
igged muslin. To Lucy’s mind, they might as well have been wearing frogged blue uniforms with tasseled epaulettes. They were hostile invaders.
The enemy.
“My, my.” Kitty eyed Lucy with amused disdain. “I had no idea breakfast at Waltham Manor was such a formal affair.” She turned to Marianne. “Forgive me, Mrs. Waltham, I see we are underdressed.”
“Not at all,” Marianne replied. “Won’t you be seated? Do you take tea or coffee? Or chocolate, perhaps?”
“What a charming breakfast room.” Sophia settled into a chair opposite Lucy. “Such a delightful view of the park.”
Kitty slid into the next seat down and unfolded her napkin with a ruthless snap. “The windows face full west,” she said. “It must be unbearably warm in the afternoon.”
Lucy smiled. “How fortunate then, that we take breakfast in the morning.”
Kitty’s eyes narrowed. She tapped her knife against her plate and spoke over Lucy’s shoulder, addressing her husband. “Felix! Toast!”
Poor Felix, to be saddled with such a shrew for a wife. Lucy could not imagine enduring a lifetime of breakfasts across the table from Kitty’s pinched face. The very thought curdled her cream.
She glanced over her shoulder at Felix. He traveled down the buffet, heaping food on his breakfast plate, humming a little tune as he went. Humming! His parents had certainly been prescient when they selected his Christian name. His sanguine temperament never faltered. If any man could smile through life with Kitty by his side, it was Felix.
Lucy cast a sidelong glance at Sophia, who was daintily stirring sugar into her tea. Sophia was a softer version of her sister. They shared the same golden hair and fair complexion. But where Kitty’s nose tapered to a point, Sophia’s sloped elegantly. Kitty’s blue eyes had an icy glint, but Sophia’s sparkled with warmth. She was, Lucy grudgingly allowed, beautiful.
No one would call Lucy beautiful. At least, no one ever had. Her cheekbones were too wide, her chin too pointed. Her skin was tanned and olive, not fashionably fair. She did have a few pleasant features, she thought. Her eyes were large, and fringed with long, dark lashes. Her teeth were straight. Nothing that would inspire poetry. In fact, she rather sounded like a prize mare.