A Wicked Way to Win an Earl

by Anna Bradley

  Alec blinked. “It sounds like a twisted game of hide-and- seek.”

  “Indeed. But if you’d rather go straight to Lady Lisette, I can always send Robyn off to find Delia.”

  Send Robyn. To find Delia. Who was wandering alone in a romantic, softly lit, flower-draped garden. A garden with hiding places around every corner and at the end of every pathway.

  Just like that, there it was again—a wild, consuming fury. A red haze burned in front of Alec’s eyes. “No! That is . . .” He lowered his voice with an effort. “That’s not necessary. I’ll go find her.”

  “Very well.” Eleanor gave Alec a gentle push back in the direction from which he’d come. “She went in that direction. She can’t have gone far.”

  Alec retraced his path through the shrubbery. Eleanor was wrong. Delia had gone too far. She’d gone much too far, and so had he. He should return to the drawing room at once. He should find Lisette, fetch her a glass of ratafia, and spend the rest of the evening congratulating her on her superb skills with an arrow. He should be—

  Alec stopped in the middle of the pathway and peered through a thick cluster of branches. Was that a hanging basket of flowers? A swathe of rose-colored silk draped artfully from a tree? No. It was a silk gown. Delia had been wearing a silk gown that same color this evening at dinner. He should know. He’d spent enough time staring at it.

  He just stopped himself from vaulting through the thicket of branches to the adjacent pathway, and if he dashed down the pathway and around the corner like a schoolboy trying to escape his math’s tutor, who was there to see it?

  She stood with her back to him, a slender, sweetly curved column of deep rose against the lush greenery. Her hair was gathered into a loose twist and tied with a dark pink ribbon. Soft, golden brown tendrils floated in waves about her neck.

  Alec’s heart thundered in his chest and the truth slammed into him with each frantic rush of blood through his body. It wasn’t the game that maddened him. It was her.

  He wanted her. Badly. He wanted to come up behind her and place his lips on that soft, white neck, and urge her slender body back against his so she could feel his heat, his desire. When his lips touched her neck, her throat, she’d moan his name. She would know it was he who held her.

  His own dark possessiveness shocked him. Another truth surfaced, one that had whispered at the edges of his consciousness all afternoon. He hadn’t been only furious today on the west lawn. He’d been jealous.

  He moved forward as though in a trance, but before he could touch her, she turned. He saw the moment when it dawned on her she was in a secluded part of the garden alone with him. Her eyes widened. Panic, stubborn determination, anticipation—all of these expressions crossed her face in a split second.

  Anticipation? Alec caught his breath.

  But then it was gone. She wiped every emotion from her face as quickly as the incoming tide wiped the footprints from the sand. She’d become good at that. Her face had been an open canvas only days ago. Before long she’d resemble the rest of the ton, with a face as cold and unrevealing as a marble statue. The realization felt like a fist landing hard in his stomach.

  Alec cleared his throat. “Eleanor is looking for you. She sent me into the garden to find you.”

  “Did she?” She reached up to pluck at some low-hanging leaves from a branch above her.

  Alec watched her fingers close around the glossy green leaf. “She noticed you hadn’t returned to the pavilion. Lily has returned and Archie is on his most gentlemanly behavior. Eleanor didn’t like the idea of you wandering alone in the garden.”

  “For good reason, it seems.” She twirled the leaf in her fingers.

  Alec didn’t deny it. He moved several steps closer to her, aware she couldn’t leave the alcove pathway without touching him as she brushed by.

  “Tell me, my lord,” she said. “Is there a lascivious nobleman lurking around every corner of this garden?”

  “Alec.” He moved another step closer to her, so close he could see the way the rose-colored gown turned her eyes a deeper shade of blue. “All noblemen are lascivious, aren’t they?”

  A small frown appeared between her brows. “What does that mean?”

  Alec reached behind her head and plucked a leaf of his own. He rolled it between his fingers, savoring the feel of the cool, slick skin. “Just that you seem to prefer it when people fall neatly into place. All ladies like roses. All noblemen are lascivious. I suppose it’s easier that way.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t say all lords—”

  “You didn’t need to. Your scorn for the ton is obvious.”

  She didn’t deny it, which perversely pleased him.

  “I have every reason in the world to despise the ton, my lord,” she said. “But even putting my mother’s case aside, I don’t trust people who place the expectations of society before every other consideration, even happiness.”

  Alec frowned. He thought of his prospective bride, who waited for him in the drawing room while he chased this infuriating, irresistible woman all over the garden. He thought of his own mother, who’d been sacrificed to a miserable marriage. He thought of all he’d done and all he’d continue to do to keep Robyn away from the woman who stood before him. Was he sacrificing Robyn’s happiness?

  No. She was wrong. She couldn’t understand the obligations he had to his family and the Sutherland name. For one moment Alec bitterly envied her the simplicity of her life. Her freedom.

  He held her eyes and slowly shook his head. “It’s not as simple as you make it sound. Aristocrats or not, we all act out of a desire to protect our family.” His voice dropped to a husky drawl. “Here you are, wandering around the garden searching for Lily to protect her from the attentions of a lascivious lord.” He tipped her face up to his with a finger under her chin. “This part of the garden is dark and remote, and you’re alone. I can’t decide if you’re daring or merely foolish, for you must have known I would search until I found you.”

  He trailed the tip of his finger down her chin to her neck, stopping at the pulse that beat in the base of her throat. “I’ll have a word with Archie about Lily,” he murmured, riveted by the faint flush that rose in her cheeks at his touch. “Despite his ardor, Archie is harmless.”

  “What about you, Alec?” She took a deep breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was low and breathy, challenging. “Are you harmless?”

  She’d never called him Alec before. “Not to you.” He caught a loose tendril of her golden brown hair and rubbed the long, soft strands between his fingers.

  They stood for what felt to Alec like an eternity. They might have been two motionless statues adorning this quiet corner of the garden, but for their breathing, which deepened and quickened as moment after moment slipped by and neither of them was able to look away.

  Alec let the strands of her hair slip through his fingers and laid his palm against her face. His middle finger pressed behind her ear to test the wild fluttering of her pulse. He tensed when she gasped softly, the sound profoundly erotic in the otherwise silent garden.

  “So soft, like warm silk.” He lightly traced her jaw.

  He took another step toward her, close enough to feel the silk skirts of her gown brush against his thighs. Her deep blue eyes grew huge in her face, but she didn’t back away from him.

  “Tell me to stop, Delia,” he whispered urgently, his voice both a command and a plea. “No,” he growled when she dropped her eyes. “Look at me.” He captured her face in both hands and tilted it up to his so she had no choice but to see him. “You shouldn’t play with a man like me,” he managed to whisper, just before his lips descended and crushed hers beneath them.

  God, she was sweet—so soft and sweet. She’s innocent. But the frantic words in his mind were no match for the wild desire flooding through him, catching him in its relentless undertow. He t
ook her mouth roughly, starved for her. His tongue traced the seam of her lips, seeking an opportunity to surge inside.

  She opened to him with a soft cry that went straight to his groin. Alec groaned when her shy tongue met his urgent thrusts, and then he was lost inside the hot honey of her mouth. His lips slid over hers, teaching her, coaxing her until her tongue stroked eagerly against his, wet and slick and devastating.

  He couldn’t get enough of her mouth, her skin. He wanted to bury himself inside her until he drowned in an ocean of warmth and rose-colored silk. In some dim recess of his mind Alec knew he was losing control. It’s just a kiss. He’d kissed many, many women.

  But not like this—never like this. The soft strokes of her tongue against his made him wild. My God, what was she doing to him?

  Be gentle.

  Alec took a deep breath, pulled the night air into his lungs, and forced himself to slow, to calm. His restraint was rewarded when she melted against him with a breathy sigh. She wound her arms around his neck and he felt her fingers slide into his hair. Her palm brushed the back of his neck and Alec was sure he’d go mad from the caress, because it wasn’t enough.

  He trailed his fingers from her neck down to her throat while he nipped lightly at her bottom lip and made teasing, shallow forays into her mouth with his tongue. She made a strangled, impatient sound and tightened her fingers in his hair to pull his head down, seeking a firmer contact with his lips.

  “Hush,” he whispered, soothing her.

  His fingers lingered at the base of her neck to stroke the soft skin there. He smiled triumphantly against her lips when he felt the frantic beat of her pulse and heard her quickened breathing. He slid his other hand down to her waist, hot against the silk of her gown, and stroked her there, urging her body against his.

  She was so warm. Everywhere he touched her she was warm and breathless and alive. Every stroke of his fingers against her skin, every touch of his tongue, made her sigh and gasp. She shivered with pleasure and he shivered with her, astonished at the depth of her passion.

  He followed the path of his fingers with his lips, trailing hot kisses along her neck. He stopped briefly to lick the sensitive skin behind her ear, then moved down her throat to taste her fluttering pulse. He moved lower, then lower still. With one shaking finger he traced the narrow band of lace at her neckline, let his finger stroke just inside the fabric, against her hot skin.

  “So beautiful,” he murmured. “So lovely, sweet.” He dragged his other hand up her rib cage, slippery against the silk. She strained toward him, and his hand was inches from cupping her breast.

  She wore a low-cut gown—had she thought of him when she chose it? Had she known the swells of her perfect white breasts would make his mouth dry with want? Had that been her intention? A sliver of sanity stabbed into his passion-fogged brain. It would be a clever move, to render him helpless with desire. He couldn’t play the game if he was on his knees.

  Or had she chosen the gown for Robyn?

  Christ—what was he doing?

  Alec groaned in defeat and grasped Delia’s shoulders to push her gently away from him. He ran one shaking hand through his hair. When he spoke, his voice was harsh from frustration. “Go back to the pavilion.” Fury surged through him at sending her straight back to Robyn, but he had no choice. He had to get away from her now. If he looked into her eyes or at her kiss-swollen lips any longer, he’d take her back into his arms, and they would both be lost.

  She didn’t reply. It was as if she hadn’t heard him. She raised shaking hands to her face as though they weren’t a part of her body, and her cheeks flooded red with shame. Before he could utter another word, she brushed past him and fled down the garden path.

  He gazed after her, watching the rose-colored silk disappear into an ocean of dark green.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Hand me the brush, Delia. I’ll do it myself.” Lily held out her hand impatiently, frowning at Delia in the mirror.

  Delia laid the brush in Lily’s palm. “I told you, Lily. You need Hyacinth. I have no talent with hair.” She collapsed on top of the bed, avoiding her sister’s eyes. “I can brush it out for you, and then we can just tie it with the green ribbon. It will look very nice.”

  Lily tilted her head this way and that, examining the effect in the mirror. “Very well,” she replied at length, sighing. “It’s just that I rather hoped for a little more than very nice this evening. This isn’t a country dance in Surrey, you know.”

  Delia rose and joined Lily at the vanity, and for a second they both gazed at their two similar reflections in the mirror. “I know, dear, but you always look beautiful, no matter how we dress your hair.” Delia tried to smile.

  “What shall we do with yours?” Lily ran the brush through Delia’s hair, which still hung in loose waves down her back.

  “Oh, the same as always, I suppose,” Delia replied, without interest. She turned to the wardrobe to sift halfheartedly through the slim selection of dinner gowns. The blue would do, but Lily was right. It would be wonderful to have a special gown to wear. She thought of the delicious green figured silk gown Lady Lisette had worn the day she’d arrived. She’d looked like a butterfly in it. A fretful, petulant butterfly, to be sure, but a butterfly nonetheless.

  Alec hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her.

  Delia pulled the blue gown out of the wardrobe with a little more force than necessary and laid it on the bed, then stood back and regarded it with a small frown.

  Lily pulled her long braid over one shoulder and ran the brush through the wavy ends, regarding her sister in the mirror with narrowed eyes. “You look pale, Delia. Have you been sleeping well?”

  Oh, certainly. She’d been sleeping splendidly, like a veritable babe in arms. A kitten in a silk-lined basket. A fuzzy baby chick still nested in its egg. A bear during winter hibernation. Up until three days ago, that was, when Alec Sutherland had kissed her. Not just once, but over and over again. Now she wasn’t sleeping. She was lying in her bed, remembering the way her lips opened helplessly under his, and how his hot tongue had slipped into her mouth. How her body had leapt to quivering, burning life under his touch. When she did sleep, it was fitfully, and she dreamed of his fingers brushing lightly across her bodice and the tops of her breasts. When she awoke, she was breathless and panting, aching for him.

  Once again, if he meant to seduce her, he’d had ample opportunity. So then why had he stopped? He’d pushed her away almost desperately, as if he couldn’t trust himself not to touch her again. She’d been afraid to look at him, afraid she’d see triumph or smug satisfaction on his face, but when she’d managed at last to raise her eyes to his, he’d looked . . . nearly wild. He’d wanted her. She knew it—her every instinct screamed it. Yet he’d touched her so gently, and murmured to her so tenderly. He hadn’t seemed at all like a man in the midst of a calculated seduction.

  But then, what did she know about such things? Perhaps this was what seducers did. Made you dream about them. Made you ache for them. It hadn’t occurred to her when she began this madness that he could make her want him like this. But he had, and it had shaken her. She hadn’t been toying with him that night in the garden. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, and it was this more than anything that haunted her when she awoke in the night.

  Perhaps Alec had been shaken, too, for he hadn’t approached her or spoken to her since those disastrous, exquisite moments in the garden. He hadn’t left Lady Lisette’s side over the past few days. He’d walked with her, their two dark heads close together as if they shared some delicious secret. He’d escorted her through the gardens and down to the lake. He’d taken her into dinner every night. His intentions toward her couldn’t be any clearer. He was the model of an eager suitor. Delia could almost believe he’d forgotten the game entirely, forgotten the passionate kisses in the garden. But every moment of every day since, he watched he
r with such heated intensity she thought his eyes would singe holes in her clothes. Those hot, dark eyes followed her everywhere.

  Lily laid the brush down on the dressing table and walked over to the bed. They stood together and stared down at the blue gown. “A dark blue satin trim would look nice with it, I think. Fashionable, too. If we stare long enough, do you think it will sprout Brussels lace?”

  “No, I don’t,” Delia snapped, “so there’s no point standing here waiting for a miracle.”

  Lily turned to look at her sister with wide, bewildered eyes. “Delia, I know something is bothering you—” she began, but she was interrupted by a brisk knock on the door. Lily hurried over and opened it, then stood back in amazement as a small troop of maids crossed the threshold. Ellie and Charlotte followed, issuing orders as they sailed into the room.

  “I think Miss Somerset’s hair first, Bridget.” Eleanor moved forward to give Delia a quick kiss on the cheek. “Is this your gown for the evening?” she asked, spying the blue dress laid out on the bed. She ran a practiced eye over it. “Lovely color.” She tapped her finger against her chin. “It will suit you nicely, Delia.”

  Eleanor turned to the waiting maid. “Some silk flowers and ribbons twisted in Miss Somerset’s hair, Bridget, but first, can you fetch that dark blue satin ribbon I had? We can add some trim here.” She pointed to the neckline of the gown. “Here, as well.” She indicated the bodice. “Miss Somerset has such a lovely bosom,” she added with a naughty grin. “Charlotte? What do you think about your ice pink silk for Lily?”

  Delia and Lily stood openmouthed as the maids scurried into action. The pink gown was produced and gratefully accepted. Hair was curled and piled high. Ribbons, silk flowers, and satin trim flew from hand to hand. By the time Delia and Lily were laced into their gowns, flowers, ribbons, and scraps of fabric littered the floor.