Ed laughed then nodded toward the boisterous gathering spilling out of the house, Harriet in the lead. “She hasn’t stopped singing your praises since last night. You spoil her and she’ll think all men are so kind.”
“Kind, eh?” Frost wasn’t used to hearing himself described as such. “Girls are meant to be spoiled.”
“And women? What say you there?” Ed asked with a quizzical expression.
“Depends upon the woman. Any particular one you’re inquiring about?”
“What happened to your nose? It looks larger than usual…and it’s turning purple if I’m not mistaken.”
It felt larger than usual, thanks to its ill-timed collision with a certain female’s bedchamber door. Felt as if he wore a damn elephant on his face. “I’d rather talk about women.”
“Who wouldn’t, old chap?”
“Frost!” Bundled to the gills, Anne rushed over, looking much like her guests if more solemn of countenance. “I owe you my humblest apologies, my lord, for my outburst yesterday.”
“Nay, you do not. Particular bits of information would have stood me in good stead, I cannot help but think, but all is well.”
“But I called you an imbecile. A…simpleton.”
“I’m quite clear on that, my lady, for your colorful expressions still resound plainly in my ears—‘cork-brained simpleton’ I believe it was.” She paled but held his gaze. “Think no more of it. Nor shall I. Where is Miss Isabella?” he asked as casually as he could, noticing she’d yet to join the others now rolling snowballs and tromping through unblemished clouds of white.
“Upstairs resting.”
He knew what that meant. “Dancing again this evening?”
“Thought you didn’t favor doing the pretty,” Ed put in.
Frost arched one eyebrow but didn’t respond. Didn’t need to when Lady Redford smiled brightly. “Why yes! We told the musicians to play a waltz or two so it should be grand fun.”
“Yes…grand.” He turned to go inside.
“You’re not joining us?” she called after him. “Don’t you want to lead one side against Edward’s team?”
“I’ll join you tonight, but for now I believe I’ll go in and rest myself. One can only endure so much honking and snow-bright revelry before they must retreat.” He touched the brim of his hat and continued on.
“Ah…Nicholas?”
At the first step, he paused and looked over his shoulder at Ed.
“There’s a feather or two affixed to your…posterior.”
Lovely. Blasted lovely.
Heading up the stairs, he brushed a hand over his arse and flicked off the offending feathers, all the while wondering why the action only made him smile.
“Do my eyes deceive me or is that a Christmas angel dancing her way by?”
“Lord Frostwood?” Isabella yelped, and skidded to a halt.
“In the flesh.”
“You gave me a fright!”
Frost didn’t doubt it, given how he’d not only found her flying through a back corridor on two healthy feet, but more importantly, given where he suspected she was heading. “Didn’t hear me, hmm? Should I oblige by stringing a jangling harness round my neck?”
“’Tis not necessary, my lord.” And just when he thought she was turning up stiff and reluctant to banter further, given how their most recent encounter culminated in the exchange of cold berries and heated kisses, she surprised him by adding, “I believe a few jingling bells tied at the end of your neckcloth shall suffice.”
He laughed. “Wench.”
“Scoundrel!” she returned just as quickly then her brow furrowed. “You sound a trifle odd. You haven’t picked up Miss Fairfax’s snuffles, have you?
“Nay.” He wasn’t about to tell her he’d been snooping over her shoulder. “Mayhap ’tis simply a reaction to goose feathers. Now where are you bound so swiftly? I shall offer my arms as escort.” Without giving her time to refuse, he scooped her into his embrace and hefted her close. “Your ankle, you know.”
“Oh do I. It appears I have much to thank it for. But are you not expected elsewhere? I’m told the battlements are choosing sides for a massive snow strike before dinner.”
He fancied he felt the rapid flutter of her heart thumping in time with his. “Nay. I told our zealous hosts I needed to rest after my goose-housing mission.”
“And do you?”
“Need to rest? Only my back against this wall.” He suited action to words, for he had no wish to release her or travel from the secluded hallway.
Isabella knew she should insist he put her down. Their interactions to date were wholly improper. To the devil with proprieties, she thought, choosing instead to curve her arm across the wide expanse of his shoulders and take him to task for another matter entirely. “Do you always brush aside the truth with such cavalier disregard?”
“Do you?” he surprisingly retorted.
“Certainly not! But we aren’t talking about me.”
“Oh no? I thought we were discussing you—your ears, my neck…your ankles, my arms…”
“Obtaining a forthright response from you is more difficult than me sighting in and downing a buck in one shot.”
“Another accurate volley! My dear lady, with or without working top lights, you see more clearly than the rest of us, I vow. So you’d like to know whether I’m in the habit of disregarding the truth?”
She casually swung one foot while her fingertips brushed across the fine texture of his tailcoat. The fit was superb; the quality unmistakable. Her fascination with the muscles cording his shoulder most inappropriate! “I most assuredly would. As it seems a disturbingly frequent habit.”
He took a moment’s forethought before replying, she was pleased to note. “I am generally the most forthright of fellows. Appears ’tis something about being desirous of your company that causes imperfections in my character to come to the fore.”
“Imperfections, Lord Frostwood?” she asked nonchalantly, hoping to disguise how very much the continued references bothered her. “Do you realize that is the third or fourth time you’ve spoken of such?”
“Is it? I’m sure you’re mistaken.” As though the question was an uncomfortable one, he straightened and strode down the hallway with her still in his arms.
“I’m not. Several times you’ve apologized for not being perfect. Now I would know—do you require perfection? In others as well as yourself?”
“Should we not strive toward such?”
“How can one seek such an impossible goal when to be human is to be imperfect? Is not the very perfection of man to learn about his own imperfections?”
She heard his intake of air, felt the hitch when his feet faltered. “Did you just quote Latin at me?”
She replayed the last sentence in her mind and realized she had. “Saint Augustine, I believe, of the Roman empire.”
He resumed his confident pace with a chuckle. “I know full well who that was, having history drummed into me by more than one overeager instructor. I just didn’t expect a mere slip of a woman to be quoting him at me.”
“Because women cannot learn Latin?”
“Because most women are mute whenever I’m near. This holiday’s been stranger than any other…with one startling revelation after another. Why not let it continue?” he said cryptically. “Go on, quote at me all you like.”
She scoured her mind for another appropriate quotation, unwilling to disappoint the challenge she heard in his tone. Scoured again yet came up empty. “A pox on you and your deuced goose, for you’ve thoroughly cooked mine! Anything else that comes to my lips is weaker than the last.”
He perplexed her thoughts further when he hefted her higher and skimmed his lips over hers, still striding toward some unknown destination. “I owe you a berry.”
What he owed her was a dose of common sense, that which he seemed to steal with but his presence!
“Take myself, for example,” she said solemnly, determined to subdue the tin
gle racing across her mouth and return to the prior topic, which he hadn’t taken as seriously as she needed him to. “Were I to hold myself up to the standard of perfection, I would fail ere I ever began.”
“That’s absurd!”
“Is it, Lord Frostwood? Do you forget that an unseeing eye has failed miserably at its intended design?”
“That’s preposterous!” he shouted, shouldering past doors that thumped shut loudly behind them. “To apply such nonsense to yourself. How can—”
“Shhh.” She tugged sharply on the short strands of hair at his nape, hoping to quiet his outburst. “Perhaps, Sir Blusters About, instead of holding yourself accountable to such an unrealistic standard—”
“Unrealistic? I assure you—”
“And I assure you,” she overrode his protest, intent on being heard, “that whatever less-than-perfect habits—ahem, giving orders, whistling whiskers through your teeth—you may possess, however few I’m sure they are, you would be a much happier and more pleasant person were you simply to strive toward being the best you can be, perfection aside.”
He grunted and set her on her feet. “Are you insinuating I’m the opposite of pleasant? That I’m a veritable churl?”
“With me you have been all that is—dare I admit it?—charming and thoughtful.” And delightfully forward, but she couldn’t share that with him. “I only offer this token of my counsel based on the general comments that seem to flit about at the sound of your…your name. Stop! What are you—?”
Humming, he’d placed her right hand upon his shoulder. He grasped her left. “Preparing to dance. With you.”
Sheer terror gripped Isabella and she stiffened. “You most certainly are not.”
“Come now, there’s no one here to see you dancing upon your ankle. We’re alone and—”
She jerked away. “Is that where you brought me? To the ballroom?”
He attempted to gather her in his arms again and she evaded his efforts, darting several steps back. “Isabella? What causes your distress? Do you not wish to dance with me?”
She wished it with all her heart, but that mattered not.
Have you any idea the horrid spectacle you make of yourself? One of her father’s tirades obliterated all reason. And you question why I won’t countenance a match for you? You’re a disgrace and your unnatural contortions an abomination!
Tepid as far as many of his refrains went but piercing all the same.
Now only one realization penetrated the fear—Lord Frostwood could never see her that way. Never!
Having no idea where he’d placed her or how far into the room they’d come, or even the direction of the doors, she felt lost. Like a cornered animal, she lashed out at the person closest to her. “No! I most certainly do not wish to dance with you. Have I not declined every time you’ve asked? And I wish you would keep your berries and your hands and your lips to yourself!”
A trained guard dog attacked by a hissing kitten. That’s the comparison that came to mind—and he was definitely the dog. A dog for baiting her so—but what had he done?
Frost was at a loss. Her sudden change in demeanor, the panic she couldn’t hide…what precipitated it?
The idea that he was the direct cause seemed inconceivable given how well they meshed and talked upon any number of subjects—more freely than he’d ever conversed with any female. But something he’d done had struck a chord within her, hitting a very sour note indeed.
He infused a carefree note into his voice as he unhurriedly approached her. “My berries, not to mention my lips and hands, feel significant sorrow at the thought of causing you grief and I will certainly keep all three to myself henceforth.”
“Lord Frostwood, no! I did not mean it…not any of it.” She ducked her head and he took it as a sign.
He touched the back of one restless hand, which she quickly flipped to grasp his.
“Tell me?” he dared softly, stroking his thumb across several fingers.
“My father…” She looked up and gave a watery smile. “I’m not permitted to dance, you see.”
And oh, how much he did.
“Not allowed to venture outside much beyond the enclosed garden or…or… Well, any manner of things.”
Without her expounding further he could imagine. The idea of this spirited, vibrant woman locked away baffled him completely. Moving at a slumbering snail’s pace, he lifted her hand to his lips, lingered there a moment. “That’s two berries now.”
“As if I’m expected to maintain an accounting when your bachelor’s fare makes me all totty-headed!”
At that rejoinder, he reached into his pocket and withdrew everything he could coil his fingers around. “Here. Take the lot of them.”
He thrust several berries into her hand, most of which dropped to the floor before she could capture them because he captured her lips in a violent kiss. He could do no less at the admission his touch affected her as hers did him.
Attempting to kiss away the fear he’d just witnessed, Frost used his lips and tongue to speak for him, plying her with every ounce of comfort he could even as he availed himself of every ounce of passion she was willing to relinquish. Rash perhaps, kissing one such as her as he would a paid doxy—not that Frost ever dallied with doxies; maintaining a past mistress or two had always sufficed—but nothing sufficed now except possessing her lips. Almost brutally, despite how he tried to show restraint, but wishing he could banish every dilemma this delightful woman had ever faced and ever would.
When she moaned in her throat, Frost started to pull back. But no, she only angled her head, exposing her neck, and murmured, “Here too?”
And he was lost. His mouth eagerly swooped toward the delicate skin she offered and his hands slipped past her shoulders to her spine and down…down…
Until he was molding the firm halves of her bum, kneading the supple flesh with his fingers while his tongue delved toward the sensitive spot at the side of her jaw, beneath one ear.
“Tell me to stop.” His words were ragged.
She remained silent and his hands slid over the mounds of her arse, his debauched fingers aching to tug her long dress up and out of the way so they could touch bare skin, could feel the heat he already sensed emanating from between her clenched thighs. The heat that beckoned him onward as nothing in his life ever had.
“By God, Issybelle, tell me to stop!” This time it was a prayer, one uttered with every bit of passion he felt.
But he kept on kissing her, his lips unerringly finding hers when she only whimpered, “Never.”
He dug his nails into her petticoat-and-skirt-protected arse to keep from doing anything more that he shouldn’t and begged against her mouth, “I… I… I need you…” to tell me to stop, dammit, “God, how I need you, Issybel—”
The touch of her tongue halted his rambling plea.
The flesh beneath his fingers tensed and lifted as she came up on her toes and coiled her arms around his neck. Her tongue skimmed tentatively over his lips and then inside his mouth. He heard her breath catch. But maybe that was his because as she rubbed her tongue along his, she tightened her arms, bringing their chests into contact.
The swell of her breasts branded him.
His fingers flexed again on their delightful handfuls and he sucked harder than he meant to on her tongue, all in an effort to keep from raising those skirts, from ripping that modest neckline down, and from plunging his tongue and his body where neither had any right to be.
Not now. Not when he’d yet to state his intentions. Or decide precisely what they were.
Her untried kisses and hesitantly bold responses told the truth—she’d never taken a lover, and Frost wasn’t so far gone he’d steal her innocence.
If a dalliance was all he wanted, there were no doubt other, more experienced females present or wenches available in the nearest village willing to accommodate his ardor.
But he feared the Latin-quoting, deceptively dancing miss in his arms had ruined him.
He feared no one else would do.
And he feared he might expire from oxygen neglect if he didn’t remember to breathe.
Groaning with the effort, Frost gentled his sucking motions, forced his hands to unclench. Told his chest to forget the imprint of her breasts and went back to nuzzling her lips…her jaw…
And damned if he didn’t find himself dipping past the neckline of her gown and his lips pressed between the shadowed cleavage before he’d ever thought to take in air.
Her fingers weaved through his hair, and he felt her mouth grazing lightly against his bent head as she deposited wispy kisses wherever she could reach. He thought he heard her sigh “Frost”, a tiny benediction, as she stood tall and tendered her body and breasts up to his lascivious attentions.
Nay! Not yet! Not like this, some honorable part of him clamored. Not standing in a ballroom. Not when he longed to explore her every curve at his leisure, in the privacy of his own bed. In the privacy of his own home.
His own home? So it seemed he did know what his intentions were.
Her restless fingers plucked at his ears when he stopped moving. And Frost realized his tongue had sought and found a beaded nipple.
Nay!
Dangerous kisses, these were, the ones they couldn’t seem to stop giving each other. Dangerous to his formerly withdrawn existence. Dangerous to her virtue. Definitely dangerous to his elephant trunk of a nose.
He eased back, his tongue reluctantly relinquishing its prize. When he looked at her, he saw tears brimming in her eyes. Wasn’t sure if his rascally hide was the cause or the cure. “Slap my face if you’re of a mind to.”
She blushed and shook her head. “Never.”
Now she blushed?
He straightened her dress, relieved to note he’d not exposed anything more than the luscious upper swells. Which were reddened from his stubble, by damn. “Tell me, Miss Issybelle…” Was that his voice shaking like a choir boy’s? He cleared his throat. “Are you this enticing to all of your suitors?”
“I wouldn’t know. Father always forbade— Suitors? Does your query imply…?”
“I do believe it must.” He couldn’t mean anything else. Isabella wasn’t the type of woman one toyed with, and he’d made up his mind to have her in his bed. Might as well do it right. “Well? Can I confidently assume a slap isn’t coming my way now that I’ve stated my intentions?”
Miss Isabella Thaws a Frosty Lord Page 7