Slowly her smile faded. When, helpless, compelled, he lowered her mouth, she raised on tiptoes to meet his kiss.
He kissed her long and longingly, battling the immediate urge to slide his hands to the tempting, tilt-tipped breasts brushing his chest. At last he reluctantly released her. “I’ve been waiting a century for that.”
Her charming bubble of a laugh sounded again. “Indeed? ’Twas nearly six when you left this morning.”
“Couldn’t have been. It seems an eternity.”
She lifted her gaze to his, her velvet eyes holding the slightly startled look of a wild thing disturbed. Then, to his surprise and utter delight, she closed them again and leaned back into his embrace.
“Another glass of wine, my lord?”
Emily had poured half the glass when the hot dish Francesca was carrying in caught her attention. Her eyes narrowing, she gave the maid a sharp look.
“Paella? How delightful,” Evan said.
“’Tis Madame’s favorite,” Francesca confirmed, ignoring Emily’s pointed stare. “Also the beef with rosemary, potatoes and minted peas, and the fine rioja.”
“Francesca, I’ll want a word with you later.”
“Aye, mistress.” With a curtsey and a saucy wink at Evan, the maid withdrew.
“You mustn’t scold her,” Evan said. “I asked her to fix your favorites this evening.”
“You gave her money,” Emily said flatly.
“Of course. I would rather dine with you than anywhere else in London, but I can hardly expect you to regularly feed one large, overgrown male.”
“If you are my guest, I can provide for you. Perhaps not paella, rare beef and the finest of riojas.”
“Please, Emily, don’t pull caps with me. You do a wonderful job providing for your household. Your company gives me such—” he caught himself before uttering the word joy “—enjoyment, I wanted to do a little something to express it.”
“A little something?” she echoed, exasperation in her tone. “My lord, you’ve already chased away an abusive villain and saved me from being blackmailed a tidy sum monthly for the indefinite future. I think that’s quite enough.”
“Do you place limits on the gifts you give a friend?”
Lips open as if to pursue her argument, she paused. “No, I suppose not,” she admitted after a moment. “Unless necessity compels it.”
“Then will you not permit me the same luxury? Please. You have worked diligently for so long. How can it be wrong for a friend to indulge you?”
Seeing that wary look coming back in her eyes, he changed tack. “As for work, I’m impressed by the exceptional quality of your sketches. Did you not say you’d painted portraits while in Spain? Why did you choose not to continue painting here?”
She took a sip of wine. For a moment, he thought she’d ignore the question. Finally, looking away from him, she said softly, “’Twas different in Spain, among strangers. My father was a—a wealthy man. He sent me to an exclusive school. Some of those who would commission portraits here might be his colleagues or acquaintances. Or former classmates of my own.”
She didn’t need to say more. All at once he had a searing vision of what her life must have been. Cast out of the privileged world of bourgeois wealth because of her runaway marriage, unacknowledged by her husband’s apparently aristocratic family, upon that soldier’s death far from friendly lines, she’d found herself utterly alone in a foreign land with nothing but her talent and wits between herself and starvation.
For an individual who had vanquished the dangers she must have faced to return and work as a servant for those who were once her equals would have been intolerable. Small wonder she’d chosen, despite her undeniable talent, to abandon portraiture.
That she had managed to amass enough capital to return to England and begin a business was nothing short of astounding. Stirred initially by her beauty, he found himself even more fascinated by the resourceful, courageous character beneath.
“Will you be offended if I express my admiration for how cleverly you’ve built a successful business?”
“How could I be? When one lives solely by her own labors, she cannot help but feel gratified that a man praises those efforts rather than her sparkling eyes or raven tresses.”
He stowed that tidbit away for later use. “I cannot recall ever knowing a woman so completely in charge of her own life.”
She shrugged. “One does what one must.”
“Was your break with your family that complete?”
“It was absolute.”
“Do you not think they might reconsider, were they to know you are home now, and widowed?”
She laughed shortly. “My father could not tolerate being crossed. When he realized I had defied him and run away, he was—ungovernable. He forbade my mother to contact me, had my letters to her returned unopened. That he disowned me is certain; I don’t doubt he left orders in his will that even after his death, no member of the family attempt to communicate with me. Though, quite typically, he rendered such an order superfluous.”
Her lips twisted in a bitter smile. “I chanced upon a distant connection in Lisbon a few years ago, and she was astonished to see me. It seems my father told everyone I’d died of a fever the summer I turned sixteen.”
For a moment she stared sightlessly past him. Her voice, when at last she spoke, was a whisper. “I would have starved in the streets of Lisbon before I would have begged him to reconsider.”
Then the intensity left her and she smiled faintly. “But enough of that. Can I not pour you some port while I…get ready?”
Instantly the image that phrase conveyed sent the blood pounding to his temples and set his body aflame. Desperately he tried to reel back the passion he’d been riding all evening on the tightest of checkreins. “Th-there’s no n-need to r-rush,” he stuttered.
Her purple eyes deepened to smoke. “Is there not? I find myself rather—anxious.”
She leaned up, and the rest of his noble intentions shattered at the first touch of her lips. With a groan, he gathered her close and tangled his fingers in her satin hair, combing out the pins as he deepened the kiss. Her tongue met his, mated with it, then pulled away to caress every surface of his mouth. His hands slid down to her back, to the buttons on her gown, and jerked frantically at them. The soft sound of renting cloth finally stopped him.
Heartbeat thundering, his breathing a harsh gasp, he made himself push her away. She looked up at him, her lips still parted and her eyes so passion glazed he almost lost control again.
Hands gripping her shoulders tightly to hang on to his dissolving willpower, he dredged up a ragged smile. “S-sorry! I’m about to take you again like the gr-greenest of saplings. I expect you can’t credit it, but I used to account myself a rather slow and skillful lover.”
She smiled, smoky, intimate. “Oh, but you are.”
“Don’t!” He cupped her startled face with both hands. “Don’t say pretty things you think I want to hear. Tell me what you truly think and feel, or nothing. Promise me?”
“All right.” A little warily, she drew back. “Do you wish me to change now?”
“If you want to spare Francesca sewing back on all your buttons.” He managed a lopsided grin. “And would you wear this, please? For me?”
He retrieved the package Francesca had brought upstairs for him. After a moment, Emily took it. Some emotion crossed her face and she seemed to withdraw a little.
Had he offended her? “Not that your own gown isn’t lovely!” he hastened to assure her, eyes glued to her face. “But I saw this, and couldn’t help but envision you…your eyes…the color….” He was babbling, he realized. Shutting his lips firmly, he took a deep breath. “Please?”
“Of course. I’ll only be a moment.” With a brief smile she gathered up the parcel and walked away.
He hoped she wasn’t offended. Later, next time, he would want to undress her himself, placing kisses upon each inch of slowly revealed flesh until she
was as hot, as eager, as panting for him as he was for her. But this time, he wanted her to walk out to him as she had last night—wearing his gown.
When she did, the vision was all he’d hoped for. Purple silk framed her shoulders and cupped the lower curves of her breasts like a lover’s hands. Cream lace, but a pale imitation of her glorious skin, half concealed, half revealed the swelling mounds themselves and the dark, rigid nipples. The gown overlapped and tied beneath her left breast, then parted along the smooth line of her left thigh and leg as she walked.
She reached him and twirled around. The skirt parted as the light material fluttered in the breeze of her pirouette, revealing the pale skin of her calf, knee and thigh. “Does it please you, my lord?”
“Evan,” he gasped, his voice nearly caught in his throat. “Call me Evan.”
“Evan,” she breathed as she lifted her face to his.
He’d never unwrapped so beautiful a gift.
Taking her mouth hard, he moved one hand to the ties beneath her breast, pulling them free, skimmed the other under the open edge of the gown and down across her satin belly to cup the springy nest of curls. She parted her legs to his insistent fingers and moaned when they entered her.
He slid them in and out, moving his thumb up to caress the small nub hidden above. Flipping the untied gown back over her shoulder, he broke the kiss and moved his mouth to one naked breast.
She shuddered when he filled his mouth with its fullness, sucked deeply on the nipple. Her arms curved around his head, holding him there, and she moved her hips urgently into the steady rhythm of his fingers.
“T-take me t-to b-bed,” she gasped. “Please…Evan.”
“Not yet, sweetheart,” he whispered against her breast. She reached one hand, feeble, fumbling, toward his trousers, but he caught it, placed it back about his neck. “Later, my darling,” he said as he transferred his lips to her other breast and moved his free hand to grasp her tensed buttocks, pulling her more firmly against his fingers.
He quickened the pace, and her nails bit into his neck. With savage joy, he felt it the instant she shattered against him, her soft, gasping cries filling his ears. She sagged, and had he not caught her, would have fallen.
He lifted her into his arms. Her half-glazed eyes, still befuddled, gazed up at him. “Oh, Evan.”
He gave her a wolfish grin and kissed her hard, then carried her to the bed, the open, purple silk gown fluttering like fairy wings about them as he walked.
She’d recovered enough by the time they reached the bedroom to insist on undressing him. And got back her own as, after swiftly removing his jacket and boots, she slowed her pace, slipping off his neckcloth and pausing to kiss his neck, chin and ears, then unbuttoning his waistcoat and shirt and tracing her lips down the furred skin beneath. Her tongue playing about his navel, she freed one by deliberate one the straining buttons of his breeches, then stripped the tight garment down to his knees.
He gave a startled cry when she fondled his bared buttocks. And a shock like bolted lightning erupted through him when she took him into her mouth. For a few blinding seconds, he knew only unbearably, unbelievably intense sensation before a series of powerful contractions catapulted him beyond consciousness.
They took it slowly the next time, talking, laughing, kissing between touches. Her caressing fingers never left his body; he explored languidly, tasting, stroking, memorizing every inch of hers, letting passion build until this time they reached oblivion together.
The motion of her arising from the bed woke him sometime later. She caught the hand he thrust out to pull her back and kissed it, nibbling on his knuckles.
“I’m starving,” she pronounced. “Francesca promised to leave something for us in the kitchen. I’ll fetch it.”
“Let me. You shouldn’t carry a fully laden tray.”
She chuckled softly. “I’ve carried heavier items, I assure you. No, rest.” Her hand stayed him when he would have clambered up. “You don’t know where to look, and there’s not room enough in that kitchen for us both. ’Twill take but a moment.”
Languidly, she stretched, her naked breasts outlined by moonlight through the balcony doors, then motioned toward the corner. “There’s a necessary behind the screen.” Tossing on his gown, she tied it, blew him a kiss and walked out.
Evan lay back, watching the sway of hips beneath satin as she exited. He had to be the luckiest bastard in England, he thought with enormous contentment. No—the luckiest bastard in the entire world.
The luckiest full-bladdered bastard in the world. He got up to take care of that, then strolled over to peer at himself in the mirror on her dressing table. He grinned, giddy, and stuck a finger on the nose of his reflection. “You,” he told it solemnly, “are one lucky bastard.”
What a mooncalf he’d become. Laughing, he trailed his fingers down to the table’s surface, tracing them over the embossed silver of her hairbrush, a small bottle that exuded the faint but pungent scent of the lavender she wore. How he loved the smell of it on her. He’d buy her gallons of the stuff, so she might wear it always. “For me,” he whispered.
Then he noticed a small picture on a stand, and without thinking, raised it to study. A laughing, black-haired, green-eyed man in a red officer’s uniform gazed back at him.
Chapter Six
His stomach muscles clenched as if someone had struck him. Fingers trembling, he set the picture down, nearly knocking over the easel.
Sapskulled idiot, he told himself savagely. Whose miniature did he expect to find on her dressing table—the maid’s? ’Twas ludicrous to feel this sense of—betrayal, almost, and as for jealousy, ’twas insane. The man was dead, for pity’s sake!
He cast another sidelong glance at the miniature. “Well, soldier boy,” he muttered, “you may be the hero, but you’re no longer here to protect her. I am—and I will. She’s mine now, and there’s nothing—”
He stopped abruptly. He couldn’t believe what he was doing. Ranting. At a portrait. A portrait of a dead man.
He must be losing his mind.
The soft sound of a gasp finally penetrated his abstraction. He turned to find Emily at the doorway, her gaze going from his face to the miniature.
After a silent moment she walked past and set the tea tray on the dressing table. There she stood, her body between him and the table, while the clink of china and the trickle of pouring liquid indicated she must be fixing cups.
“You were right, the tray was rather heavy,” she said over her shoulder. “Would you like biscuits? And there’s a bit of the paella left I thought you might enjoy.”
Smiling, she turned and approached him, a full dish of tea in one hand and the teapot in the other. “’Tis a bit cramped here. Shall we dine in the sitting room? I’ll come back for the tray.”
He mumbled something and took the steaming cup she offered, then mutely followed her from the room. But in a backward glance as he exited the bedchamber, he noted the little easel now stood empty.
The tinkle of the shop bell interrupted them as they sat over tea in the office several weeks later.
“That should be Baines with my evening things,” Evan said, and sighed. “I must admit, I’m vastly tempted to cry off. I’d rather enjoy Francesca’s cooking and listen to you read the next chapter of Miss Austen’s novel. That Miss Bennett—” he winked at her “—seems just as saucy as you.”
“Indeed? I rather thought I might beat you at chess. Again.”
“You didn’t last time,” he felt compelled to point out. “Though perhaps ’tis better to face you over a chessboard than be skewered by your violent opinions.”
“What is violent about insisting a sitting member of the Lords should know the facts behind the measures upon which he will vote? Or to point out the enclosure legislation, added to the high prices caused by war, will cause starvation amongst the yeomen farmers who depend upon common land to graze their herds?”
Grinning, he sighed elaborately. “And what should
ladies know about enclosures and grain prices and shepherding?”
“Recall who takes care of herds and farms when husbands and fathers go off to war.”
That reflection sobered him. “Aye, womenfolk carrying burdens they should not have to bear, as you know only too well. Which is why I must go, despite having to suffer the harangues of dull old government men. Geoffrey leaves London soon and I must decide what to do about those supply figures. ’Tis a puzzle I’ve not yet unraveled.”
“As I recall, the only puzzle about supplies was how they never managed to arrive,” Emily said with a chuckle.
“There’s that,” Evan acknowledged wryly, “but more troubling are the outlays that never seem to balance against supplies purchased.” He frowned. “I begin to suspect—but I shouldn’t discuss it. Not even with you, my dear, whose opinion would be of much greater value than those of the octogenarians pontificating tonight.”
“I doubt my observations would be of much use. I saw only a tiny piece of the overall campaign, after all. Those who receive intelligence from sources throughout the country surely have a clearer view.”
“To be of much use, intelligence received must be intelligently analyzed.” Evan grimaced. “Aside from Old Hooky, whose comments are almost painfully incisive, I fear the civilian detachments spend more time peacocking about and vying for authority than thoughtfully discharging their responsibilities. And if our—problem—turns out to be from causes more venal than simple incompetence, the miscreants should go to the Tower.”
“I wish more in government felt as you! Andr—we always felt the gentry back in England were so far removed from the war they had little conception and less interest in the hardships faced by the troops.” She inclined her head to give him a measuring glance. “You are different.”
Her approval warmed him to his toes. “Not the idle, frivolous dandy you first thought me?”
She gave him a severe look and shook a finger. “Trolling for compliments, my lord?”
He caught the fingertip and kissed it. “Unashamedly.”
A Scandalous Proposal Page 7