A Season to Be Sinful

by Jo Goodman

  “Miss Rose,” he said quietly. “You are aptly named, I think, for your presence here compliments this garden. Will you permit me to join you?”

  “Surely that is your choice.” She did not turn to look at him. “I am not long for this place. It is growing too dark to read.”

  Sherry chose not to be put off by her lack of enthusiasm. “Then I will remain so that I can escort you back.” He indicated the book in her lap. “Another novel?”

  “No. Chemical Philosophy.”

  “Davy’s work?”

  She nodded. “There are many books like this in your library. You were sincere this afternoon when you said that science was a passion.”

  “I was, though you sound as if you cannot credit it. By my reckoning, you have been in residence at Granville every bit of two months. After so much time, how can you doubt that I am an enlightened, scientific farmer? I am certain I had less difficulty arriving at the conclusion that you were more in the way of a teacher than a governess.” Sherry joined her on the bench, stretching his legs and bracing his arms slightly behind him. Infinitely more at his ease than Lily, he nevertheless looked out over the lake as she was doing. “I hope you will allow that I am more in the way of a farmer than a lord.”

  A smile flickered across her lips. “I will allow that it requires more study.”

  “That satisfies for the time being.” He crossed his legs at the ankles. “Your lesson this afternoon was extraordinary. I have not been involved in the like since I was at Cambridge. Is that how you were taught at the abbey?”

  “It was how Sister Mary Joseph taught.” She regarded Sherry askance. “I imagine you would say she was an enlightened, scientific nun. She embraced faith and reason, though not without some argument from the Reverend Mother and Bishop Corbeil.”

  “She persevered.”

  “Always.”

  Sherry thought he caught a trace of wistful admiration in Lily’s tone. “She is still there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’ve never written her.”

  It was more statement than question, but Lily responded anyway. “Never.” When Sherry said nothing, she found herself filling the silence. “I never judged it prudent to do so.”

  From Sherry’s perspective it seemed a curious choice of words. “Did you run away from the abbey, Lily?” He was close enough to her to feel the slight tremor that slipped under her skin. Glancing down, he saw her slim fingers tighten around the book. “Are you still running from there?”

  Lily stared across the terraced gardens. Dusk was leeching the color from the roses and creating gray-green shadows along the boxwoods. “Is it so important that you know?”

  “Yes, I think it is.”

  “Why?”

  Sherry regarded her profile. She was as still as the stone she sat on, perhaps just as cold. “Can you not imagine that I’d like to help you?”

  “If it is because I took a shiv for you, it is not at all necessary. I did not mean to get stabbed, you know, only to deflect the villain’s aim. If it will help you feel less beholden to me, then you should know that I am not at all certain I would do it again.”

  He merely lifted a brow.

  His silence caused her to glance in his direction. “You don’t believe me.”

  “I did not say so, did I?”

  “You are maddening.”

  “Yes. And you are obstinate beyond reason.” He paused a moment, then said quietly, “I find that I like you immensely, Lily. It also occurs to me that you will have more difficulty coming to terms with that than I did.”

  “Then you did not embrace the idea at the outset?”

  “No. Heavens no.”

  She chuckled a little then. “Pray, do not spare my feelings.”

  The corners of Sherry’s mouth lifted in a faint smile. “I embrace the idea now.”

  “You should not.”

  He shrugged.

  “You will not change your mind?”

  “About liking you? I think not. About wanting to help you? That answer is also no.”

  Lily stood so suddenly that she fairly vibrated. She turned on him. “I think you will,” she said. Then she ended the discussion by abruptly walking away.

  In some ways she was predictable, so Sherry did not evince any surprise when Lily let herself into his bedchamber several hours later. He was not yet abed but sitting in a wing chair near the window. A candelabra on the side table illuminated his still figure and the open book on his lap. He closed it slowly and set it aside.

  “If you mean to stay,” he said, “then shut the door.”

  Lily stood only a few steps beyond the threshold, more in the room than not, but hesitant of a sudden. Her hand rested on the door handle; she twisted it absently.

  “You must choose,” he told her. “In or out.”

  She released the handle and gave the door a nudge with her fingertips to push it closed. “You have been expecting me.”

  Sherry almost smiled at her soft, accusatory tone. Instead, he made certain his expression remained as neutral and unrevealing as his voice. “It occurred that you might come, yes. Does that put you off your purpose?”

  Lily shook her head.

  “Very well. What is it that you require of me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Should I remain where I am so that you might say your prayers, or do you wish to have me on the bed?” He watched her eyes dart in that direction. “Kearns turned down the covers, but that is his nightly ritual and for my benefit. It was not done in anticipation that you would come here.”

  Lily caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Perhaps the bed.”

  “Of course.” Sherry stood and moved toward it. “It will not have escaped your notice that I am not yet in my nightclothes. Will you undress me or should I manage the thing myself?”

  Rooted to the floor, Lily took in a deep breath and let it shudder through her on release. “Why are you doing this?”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You will have to explain yourself.”

  “I thought you would . . .” She looked at her reflection in the dark mirror that the window had become. “I thought you would not want me. You did not before.”

  “Yet in spite of what you thought, here you are.”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you mean to seduce me.”

  She nodded.

  “You mean to make me want you against my will.”

  Lily nodded again.

  “And give me disgust of you. Perhaps you even hope I’ll send you away.”

  Her eyes dropped to the floor. Her voice was but a thread of sound. “Yes.”

  “Then you have forgotten our kiss at the stone wall, Lily. I have not.” Watching her, taking in the whole of the subdued manner in which she held herself, Sherry realized he had at last stumbled on the true purpose of her visit. Seducing him, giving him disgust of her, were but a means to an end. Now he needed to understand that end. “Why,” he asked. “Why do you hope I will send you away?”

  “Because I cannot go.”

  This admission was made so quietly it was more an exhalation of breath than speech. It was also reluctantly offered. Sheridan could only guess at the cost to her pride. “Look at me, Lily.”

  She lifted her head; her eyes were luminous.

  “You must not depend on me to make you go,” Sherry said. “You cannot seduce me, Lily. Nor give me disgust of you. You cannot make me want you against my will because I find that wanting you is in every way my will.”

  She blinked. Tears spilled over the rim of her lashes. “You do not mean that.”

  His gentle smile chided her. “I think I know my own mind.” He held out his hand to her. “Will you not come here?” When she didn’t move, not even to shake her head, Sherry’s smile deepened. “Very well. It is better, perhaps, that I come to you.” In only a few measured steps, he closed the distance between them and stood directly in front of her. He saw the effort she made to hold
his gaze. Her hands twisted in the fabric of her robe, and her breathing came quick and shallow. “Take measure of my sincerity, Lily. I like you. I want to help you. I also want to lie with you. What we shall make of it, I don’t know.”

  The honesty of this last statement simply stole her breath. The offer or a single promise about a future together would have been suspect. More than that, it would have been a lie. Whatever they might make of one night together would not be a future, but another day. It might become a sennight, a fortnight, a month, then a season . . .

  It was too much to contemplate, an impossible idea to hold before her. Feeling helpless in the face of it—and not liking any part of that feeling—Lily wished the ground would simply swallow her.

  Her distress was so palpable that Sherry wondered that she remained standing. “I would like to hold you,” he said. “May I?”

  She pressed her lips together, then nodded once.

  Sherry was skeptical; his eyebrows lifted a fraction. “It shouldn’t be against your will.”

  Lily dashed away tears at the corners of her eyes. “It’s not.”

  He still didn’t move to take her in his arms, but watched her closely. It was not possible for him to know what held her back. He decided to risk a guess. “Are you afraid of me, Lily?”

  “Of you, a little.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth for a moment, then told him, “Of me? You cannot imagine.”

  Sherry laid his hands lightly on her upper arms. Although she didn’t flinch, he could feel the tremor of her body under his palms. He let his hands fall down the length of her arms until he had her wrists. A tug was all it would have taken to pull her close, but he didn’t do that. Instead, it was Sherry who took one more step forward, raising Lily’s arms, and entered the circle of her embrace. When he released her wrists, her hands remained at his sides, and he slipped his own around her back.

  Bending his head, he kissed the crown of her hair and breathed deeply of her fragrance. “You were sitting among the roses, yet your scent is lavender.”

  Lily turned her face and pressed her cheek against his shoulder. “Will you let me go?” she asked.

  Surprised, he began to draw away. “Of course.”

  “No!” Lily tightened her embrace and did not release him. “No. Not now. I did not mean now.” She waited until his hands returned to the small of her back. “If I must go, if I find that it can be no other way, am I free to leave at any time or will you . . .”

  When she trailed off, clearly caught by some emotion Sherry could not name, he prompted her softly. “Will I . . . what? What do you need to know?”

  “Will you hold me whether I wish it or not?”

  Sherry realized then Lily was not speaking literally of this embrace but of something much larger. She was asking about her choices, her right to make them. She was asking about her very freedom. He could not help but wonder at the experience that pressed her to ask the question. “You may leave Granville at any time, Lily. I hope knowing that will prevent you from leaving in the dead of night without any word of your intent to do so. I would rather see you off safely than discover you’ve run away.” He caught her under the chin with his index finger and tilted her head so that she might look at him. “Now, tell me that in this matter, at least, you will trust me.”

  With her chin poised on his finger as it was, it was not possible for Lily to merely nod. She must speak the words aloud—for him, certainly, but for herself, more importantly. He was something beyond clever; he was diabolical.

  “I think you are used to getting whatever you want,” she said, “but in spite of that, I trust you.”

  “ ‘I trust you’ would have been sufficient,” he said with a certain wryness. Still holding her chin at the desired angle, Sherry bent his head. When his mouth was but a hairsbreadth from her, he whispered, “I hope there are not a great many rules this time.”

  “No.”

  Her response presented him with her lovely open mouth just as he’d known it would. He kissed her lightly at first, then with mounting pressure, drawing her closer with a hand at her back while dropping the other from her chin. The taste of her was not precisely what he remembered, but something more besides. Not sweet, but sweeter. Not yielding, but giving.

  She stood on tiptoe and leaned into him and was supported by his chest, sheltered by his shoulders. Her body bowed, pulled taut by her reach for him, then by her need. This experience of wanting was new to her. Did he know? She hoped he would know.

  Her hands lifted to his head; her fingers threaded through his dark hair. She felt the tip of his tongue sweep across her upper lip. His teeth caught her lower one, and he bit down gently. Heat uncurled inside her so quickly, and with such force, that she gasped.

  Sherry raised his head immediately. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No.” She pressed her fingers against his scalp with just enough force to bring him back to her. Her open-mouthed kiss rocked him back on his heels and lifted her off the floor. She engaged his tongue, teasing him at first, then with mounting urgency, and the fever pitch of wanting did not pass as she was maneuvered toward the bed. It was only when she felt the mattress at the back of her thighs that the enormity of what she would do with this man was borne home to her.

  “Lily?” Sherry drew a ragged breath and forced a calm he did not feel. She was still holding him, still flush to his body, yet there was tension in her now that had not been there a moment ago. It was not the strain of wanting to be closer to him that he felt, but the resistance of someone who wanted to be away. He let his hands fall from her and took a step backward. This time she did not stop him. He did not miss that her own breathing was unsteady or that composure was hard won. “Do you mean to end it now?”

  Her head snapped up. It had not occurred to her that he would think that. “Could I?”

  “It will most likely kill me, but yes, you can end it and go now if you wish.”

  “I do not wish it.”

  His brow furrowed. “Then why are we not kissing?”

  That was more difficult to explain. She had the sensation of the bed behind her again, of being forced down with him lying heavily on top of her. What she said was, “I should like it if you undressed now.”

  “Truly.”

  He offered this with such perfect blandness, his expression shuttered, that Lily could not tell if he was horrified or amused but thought it might be some part of each. “Yes,” she said. “Truly.”

  “Will you assist?”

  “If you like.”

  He did. “I think, Miss Rose, that you mean to seduce me after all.”

  Lily’s eyes widened a fraction. “No, I just—”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I don’t mind if you do. In fact, I believe when done by you, it has much to recommend it.”

  “It does?”

  “Mmm.” He tugged on his stock. “Will you help me with my neckcloth?”

  Her hesitation was brief. “Very well.” She stepped forward and brushed his hands aside. “Mr. Kearns ties a prodigiously intricate cravat.”

  “He would be pleased you think so. It is the Mathematical.”

  Lily’s fingers deftly managed the knots and folds and at last removed the linen from around Sheridan’s neck. “Perhaps you will be able to carry on.”

  “The coat is always deuced difficult to remove,” he said. “My tailor likes a tight line across the shoulders. For the posture, he says. For the torture of the ton, I say.”

  “Deserved, no doubt.” Lily unfastened the two brass buttons that closed his sage green frock coat and slipped her fingers under the fabric near the wide lapels. She lifted and nudged, moving it carefully over his broad shoulders. She could feel his eyes on her, could hear his indrawn breath. He helped her by shrugging, first one shoulder, then the other. Lily tugged on the sleeves at his wrists and finally removed it. When she would have taken it away to hang in the dressing room, he stopped her, plucked it out of her hands, and pitched it over his shou
lder. It landed on the floor near the cold fireplace.

  “Kearns will scold me,” he said. “He will never know you are in any way to blame.”

  “I am not to blame.”

  He kissed her. Hard. Insistent. Pressing. It was meant to be brief, serving only as a reminder of all the reasons that she was to blame, but in spite of the intention, it lingered, softened, and became reason enough to continue in the same vein. Sweetly pliant and damp, her lips moved under his. She warmed to the kiss, returning it measure for measure, making it something that was not done to her but something that she was doing as well.

  Her breasts swelled. The budding points of her nipples scraped against his waistcoat. The heat that she’d felt unfold before became a flush that rose from her breasts to her face. Her fingers tightened on his arms; she required his steadiness as she lost her way.

  It was Sheridan who broke the kiss, his head rearing back as he caught his breath. If he thought she would not have bolted for the door, he would have carried her straightaway to his bed. “My waistcoat,” he said as though it were a perfectly reasonable concern. “There is still my waistcoat.”

  Lily nodded. She laid her palms at the front of his chest, then slid them slowly down until she had the first button between her fingers. The tremor in her hands was invisible to the eye, but she could feel it under her skin. She slipped the first button through the opening, paused, then did the same to the second. In moments the waistcoat went the way of Sheridan’s frock coat. She noticed he did not even glance back to see where it landed. Had there been a fire in the hearth, the garment would have been lost to him.

  “Your lordship is careless with his clothing,” she said.

  “The shirt, Lily.”

  “Yes, of course. Will you raise your arms, or shall I rend it?”

  “By God, you tempt me.” He lifted his arms and bent slightly forward so that she might have her way with him.