The Society Catch (Harlequin Historical)

by Allen, Louise

  ‘Is there any news yet?’

  ‘The doctor emerged about fifteen minutes ago, told me not to be such a damn fool and stop worrying and went back in again. How is Giles?’

  ‘He’s been sleeping and has woken up saying he feels better and asking for a footman. I’ll go back in a while if there is nothing I can do here.’

  Alex’s mouth twisted into a rueful smile. ‘Unmarried girls and husbands are apparently of no use whatsoever at a childbed, so I suggest you go back to Giles. I am sorry I shouted at you, Joanna. By the way, Moonstone is quite unharmed and Black Cat will be fine—Hickling sent to tell me a while back.’

  ‘I do not blame you for being angry,’ Joanna said. ‘You must have hated to leave Hebe and to find Giles like that…’

  They sat in companionable silence for a while, then Joanna went back to her room, washed and changed. The clock was just striking five as she tapped on the panels of Giles’s chamber and heard him call, ‘Come in.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Giles was sitting up in bed, looking so much better that she could hardly believe it. Her surprise must have shown on her face for he remarked, ‘Shave, wash, clean shirt, ale and a sandwich.’

  ‘Me, too—all except the shave, of course.’

  ‘Ale?’

  ‘I know, Hebe would be shocked. I have been keeping Alex company for a while. I think everything is all right, he is just finding the waiting, and the fact that no one will tell him anything, very trying.’ She recalled the walking stick and held it up. ‘See what I found for you.’

  ‘Thank you! Do not tell me this means you are not going to cluck over me?’

  ‘Of course,’ Joanna said briskly. ‘If you were William I would be clucking like a flock of hens, but you are far too old to need that. Besides, you have been wounded enough to know exactly what rest you need and when you should exercise.’

  Giles regarded her, a quizzical look in his eyes. ‘Tell me, this man you love…’

  ‘Yes?’ Joanna felt instantly defensive. Now what was he going to ask her?

  ‘Would you do whatever he told you to?’

  ‘Yes…no. No, I would not, only if I agreed with him.’

  ‘Good. Would you mind locking the door?’

  Joanna looked at him, realised that her mouth had dropped unbecomingly open and shut it with a snap. To be in a man’s bedroom was shocking enough, though probably even her mama would approve of her being with Giles in view of his injury. But a locked door was enough to compromise her utterly.

  She turned the key. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I need to talk to you and I do not want to be interrupted. You locked it before asking why.’

  Joanna ignored that observation and went towards her chair.

  ‘Would you mind moving this pillow for me?’ It seemed perfectly well positioned to her, but she went to do as he asked, was caught neatly round the waist and swung on to the bed beside him.

  ‘Giles!’ She wriggled but found herself firmly held.

  ‘I want to talk to you, and I do not want you to interrupt…’

  ‘I do not interrupt!’

  ‘…interrupt me. Now, sit there where I can see you and I will tell you the story of my evening at the Duchess of Bridlington’s ball in return for your tale this morning.’

  ‘The Duchess’s…’ No! He couldn’t have heard what she’d said in the woods, he was asleep, unconscious…

  ‘Shh.’ Giles placed one finger fleetingly on her lips. ‘No interruptions, remember?

  ‘I had hardly been back in London two days, but I met the Duchess in Piccadilly and she invited me. So I went: it was as good a way of taking my mind off what I knew was going to be a difficult interview with my father as any other.

  ‘I was not expecting to see her, but before I knew it Suzy had lured me into a retiring room and was wheedling me into teaching her to drive.’

  ‘To drive?’

  Giles’s finger pressed on her lips again and this time lingered for a moment. ‘To drive—which her father was adamantly opposed to because a female relative had been injured in a carriage accident. However, as Suzy knows only too well, she has been able to wind me round her little finger since I was ten years old. Like a fool I agreed to ask the Marquis and, of course, the little madam was instantly immensely grateful—as only Suzy can be.

  ‘So there I am, faced with the unenviable task of persuading her father to let me teach her to drive. I only agreed because if I hadn’t she would have prevailed on someone else to teach her and at least her parents trust me to keep her out of trouble.’

  Complete confusion was blurring every certainty in Joanna’s mind. He was speaking of Lady Suzanne with deep affection, but in the most unloverlike terms. He had known her since he was ten, her parents trusted him to keep her out of trouble…

  ‘She…’

  ‘Shh. At least the minx has good hands—you saw her in the Park. But as you may have gathered when we met at the masquerade, she also uses me to rescue her from the endless pranks she gets up to. She went to that romp with a quite ineligible party and made sure I got the message about where she was in sufficient time to come and remove her before things became too hot.’

  Joanna ducked away from under his hand and demanded, ‘But you love her!’

  ‘Like a sister,’ Giles agreed amiably. ‘But I am most certainly not in love with her. I would as soon marry a cageful of monkeys and I have only the deepest sympathy for Lord Keswick. You will not repeat that yet, please, it will not be announced until the new Season.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Anyway, as I said, no sooner had I arrived back in England than Suzy had embroiled me in her usual battle of wits with her father. Off she flits and I emerge from the retiring room to find you…’

  Joanna twisted right away until she was crouched on the furthest side of the bed. ‘You were not unconscious in the woods, you heard me and now you are saying that because I… Oh!’ She buried her face in her hands, too humiliated to continue.

  ‘Joanna.’ She remained huddled, her face hidden. ‘Joanna!’ She looked up, white-faced, and saw Giles was regarding her patiently. ‘Did you believe I was asleep?’

  ‘Of course I did! Do you think I would have said what I did otherwise?’

  ‘Exactly. I congratulate myself it was as good a bit of acting as the time I had to pretend to be dead while being prodded by a French bayonet. So, if I was in love with darling Suzy, there was not the slightest reason for me to tell you this, was there? I could just have tactfully removed myself.’

  ‘Even so, I have embarrassed both myself and you.’ Joanna forced herself to speak calmly, although she could not meet his eyes. Somehow she had to get out of this room before the floor opened up and swallowed her. ‘I am sorry, I will go away now and go back to Mama and Papa tomorrow.’

  ‘You know very well that you cannot run away from me, Joanna. I have captured you before, I will have no difficulty doing so again.’

  ‘Why do you want to humiliate me like this?’ she whispered, swallowing back the tears.

  ‘Joanna, darling, come back over here.’

  ‘No. And do not call me that. Just because you feel sorry for me because I have made a complete fool of myself, there is no need to patronise me.’

  ‘Joanna, at least look at me.’

  Reluctantly her head came up and she met his eyes. He was regarding her ruefully. ‘I am making a compete mull of this. Joanna, I love you. I thought you were in love with someone else: so in love that you would defy your family, risk ruin rather than compromise that love. How could I even admit to myself how I was beginning to feel about you?’

  ‘You love me?’ she whispered. This was not real, it must be some dream, some hallucination. Perhaps she had struck her head when she fell and had not realised. ‘How? When?’

  ‘I think, looking back, from the moment I came out of that room and you looked up at me with huge, pain-filled eyes. You were beautiful, brave and I wanted to hit the man w
ho had made you feel like that.

  ‘Then when I found you at the Thoroughgoods something should have told me. I have never felt such killing rage before; I knew I was not safe to be alone with them, I just did not realise why.’ He regarded her, his face more calmly serious than she had ever seen it. ‘I told myself it was simply what I would feel about any young woman trapped like that and I told myself that the way I found myself thinking about you, the effort it took not to touch you, kiss you—I told myself that was desire, impure, but simple.

  ‘When I kissed you that evening after I had talked to you about life in camp, I should have known then but I kept denying it to myself. How could I fall in love with you when all you thought about was that man? God, but I wanted you. When you ran away from me and I caught you in that field it was all I could do not to take you there and then on the grass amidst those flowers, under the sun.’

  ‘When did you realise?’ Joanna could not make herself believe this was happening.

  ‘When I found that lout Clifton mauling you. I held you afterwards and you fitted—not just fitted into my arms and against my body, you fitted my heart and my soul. I told myself it was hopeless, but something, some instinct gave me hope. I do not know what.’

  ‘Perhaps the shameless way I kissed you, the way I clung to you,’ Joanna said shakily. Feeling was beginning to come back to her limbs, she was conscious of breathing again. This was not a dream. Giles was saying these things to her. He loved her.

  ‘I thought you were lonely, that you were innocent and curious and trusted me. I hated that. I would have rather you thought of me as dangerous than as safe.’ He laughed harshly. ‘Male pride. Then I got that letter from Suzy this morning. I was a fool, I had no idea that I was hurting you, I was just so relieved that everything had been agreed about her marriage, for there is some history between the two families and for a while it looked as though it might not happen.

  ‘Then you swept out of the room and Hebe was looking at me as though I had just sworn at you and suddenly I realised what she had seen. I was the one you loved and you thought I loved Suzy. Such a coil and such an easy one to resolve, I thought—until I saw your hurt and anger.’

  He lay back against the pillows, his grey eyes steady on hers, waiting for her to speak. Joanna drew a long shaking breath and stared back, reading his soul in his eyes, reading the truth. Against all the odds, despite her foolish, romantic, unrealistic dreams, the lengths she had gone to to try his patience, Giles loved her.

  Carefully avoiding his injured leg Joanna returned to kneel beside him and reached out her hand. Her fingertips grazed down the side of his face and he turned into the caress until his cheek lay against her palm. ‘I love you,’ he murmured against the delicate skin.

  ‘Oh, Giles!’ Joanna hesitated no longer. Somehow she was in his arms, cradled across his knees and his mouth was hard on hers, possessive, demanding, rough with an urgency she returned as she curved her arm around his neck and kissed him back.

  They fell apart breathless, laughing with relief. ‘Oh, Giles, what will the General say? He wanted you to marry the daughter of a marquis.’

  ‘He wanted me to be a Field Marshall as well. He won’t ever have that, but he is going to have a daughter-in-law he and my mother will adore. And what about your parents? They wanted you to marry an earl.’

  ‘They already know and love you—and from what Hebe tells me she wrote to them, they will be so thankful you saved me from him they will fall upon your neck.’

  They sat there handfast, too overwhelmed to even want to kiss for the moment. Then Giles said, ‘They are going to want a big wedding, you know. After all the risk of scandal with you running away, they are going to expect banns and weeks of planning. There will be hoards of guests, a magnificent wedding breakfast… I will not see you for weeks because you will be buying your wedding clothes—’ He broke off to caress her face. ‘I am going to miss you so much. Still, it will give me time to sort out where we are going to live.’

  Before she thought Joanna said, ‘I do not want to wait,’ then blushed crimson.

  ‘We have waited a few weeks, sweetheart, a few more…’

  ‘You might have waited a few weeks, Giles Gregory—I have been waiting for you for three years.’

  A wicked sparkle came into his eyes. ‘You want to make love?’

  Joanna tried to drop her gaze, found she could not and admitted bluntly, ‘Yes. Giles, I am sorry if that makes me sound wanton and shocks you, but I thought I had lost you for ever and it has been torture being so close to you every day and when we touch—’ She broke off in confusion, only to be caught hard against his chest.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said harshly.

  ‘Yes. I want to be yours. I do not want to wait for weeks and have Mama explaining things to me the night before. I do not want to worry that I will not be perfect on our wedding night.’

  Giles laughed, a suppressed chuckle against her hair. ‘I rather think you are going to have to endure the pre-wedding talk from your mama, unless you want to explain it is rather late.’ He tipped her head back and looked down at her. ‘Nothing would give me more pleasure than to make love to you now, my darling. I cannot help feeling this is all a dream and I need to have you in my arms to make it real. But only if you are quite sure.’

  He sounded very calm, very controlled, very reassuring. Then Joanna saw the banked fires burning in his eyes, felt the tension in his body and knew he was far from calm and the control was achieved only by exerting his will to the utmost.

  ‘Make it real, Giles,’ she murmured, letting her fingers tangle in his hair, pulling him down towards her. He shifted to hold her more easily and she felt rather than saw the stab of pain that ran through him. ‘Oh, your leg, I am so sorry, I had forgotten.’

  ‘To hell with my leg,’ he said. His lips were nuzzling down the sensitive line of her neck until they found the edge of her dress where it touched her collarbone. His hands came up and searched for the fastening even as his mouth continued to explore the area where lace and skin met. Joanna wriggled round to let his questing fingers find the buttons then, overcome by shyness, hid her face against his neck as he slid the bodice from her shoulders. Somehow the dress was off before she realised it, leaving her clad only in her thin summer cambric shift and petticoat and her silk stockings.

  She was still curled on his lap and his fingers seemed to find their way to her garters and be rolling down her stockings before she could have time to wriggle away. He rolled each one down, taking his time, letting his fingers linger on the soft skin behind each knee, the sharp point of her ankle bones, the arch of her foot. As he pulled off the second stocking he tickled her instep, making her giggle despite her tension.

  ‘Giles! That tickles,’ she protested, trying to evade his fingers and was silenced with a kiss.

  ‘Making love can be fun, you know,’ he remarked. He released her lips and bent his head to wrestle with a bow fastening her chemise, which had pulled tight.

  ‘Fun?’ Joanna was feeling so taut with nerves and desire that it was difficult to speak.

  ‘It isn’t all high passion and intense, serious pleasure.’ He moved on to another bow without Joanna realising that the chemise was slipping from her shoulders. ‘Can you remember that meadow where I found you after you had run away from Lady Brandon’s?’ She nodded, intent on his words, on watching his face. ‘Can you imagine making love naked in that long grass, tickled by those flowers, seeing just where buttercups would reflect gold on each other’s body? Then bathing in that shallow stream afterwards, splashing in cold, clean water?’

  ‘Oh, yes! I see what you mean about fun: Giles, can we find a meadow and…oh!’ She fell silent, blushing as the chemise slipped off, leaving her breasts bared. Her hands went up to shield herself and were caught in one of Giles’s, held while he bent his head and kissed the tip of one nipple. The sensation seemed to flow through her body from the gentle touch of his lips, down to become a unfamiliar ache low
in her belly.

  She closed her eyes as his lips were replaced with his tongue tip, then a gentle teasing nibble that made her gasp and arch against him. Giles bent her backwards to lie beside him and began to stroke the fullness of her other breast as his mouth continued to play havoc with the first.

  Joanna shifted restlessly, her feet tangled in petticoats and the sheet, trying with what rational thought was left to her to recall which of Giles’s legs was injured so she did not knock against it.

  ‘This is like trying to make love in a laundry basket,’ Giles remarked, his mouth still against her breast. He raised his head and smiled wickedly at her and she found she could breathe again. This was not at all how she imagined losing her virginity. Grace’s careful description of the process had sounded embarrassing, alarming and downright painful— ‘But no worse than having a tooth pulled, and it is never as bad as that again.’ It had definitely seemed to be something that should be got over with and then one could hope for some pleasure from the marriage bed. But Giles’s lovemaking was leisurely and, while startling in the effects it was producing, certainly not alarming.

  She smiled back at him, suddenly realising that she was no longer embarrassed and that he was right, this was fun. So far, a cautious inner voice warned her.

  ‘I think we are getting rather tangled up,’ she observed. ‘If we get rid of the sheet—’

  ‘And all our clothes,’ he finished for her, dragging his shirt over his head and tugging at the edge of the sheet. As he was under half of it and Joanna was on top of the other half, removing it involved her getting off the bed before she could turn back. The sight of Giles stretched out completely naked stopped her in her tracks, the colour mounting hectically into her cheeks.

  She had seen him stripped to the waist in bed at the inn, had been held against his bare chest after he had hit Lord Clifton, she had been aware of his body as he had trapped her in the meadow. But the naked reality of a man in the throes of lovemaking was still a shock.