‘You know Westlake.’ Andrew laughed hollowly. ‘He does enjoy the element of surprise.’
‘I doubt Lydia feels the same way.’ Henry let the letter fall to the desk. ‘And this is no week in the mountains, Andrew. Six months in the tropics does make organising one’s domestic affairs difficult, but I would make clearing the matter with Miss Hereford something of a priority.’ He smiled. ‘If only to ensure my own domestic happiness.’
‘I know. I will.’ Andrew tried to smile, acutely aware of how ashamed he felt. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No need to apologise to me, Andrew.’ Henry’s eyes showed a slightly cautious curiosity. ‘Do you have any idea what you are going to say to her?’
Andrew sat in front of his oldest friend, vainly searching for a response. His mind, after a night spent occupied with Lydia, was full of smoke and sawdust. How was he supposed to say anything to her—a woman who he had spent the last year feeling… something for?
Not annoyed. He knew that now, in the unforgiving light of day. He also knew, with a conviction that he had rarely felt so strongly before, that he didn’t wish to tell Lydia Hereford that he would have to leave England whenever Lord Westlake snapped his fingers.
‘You look exhausted.’ Henry leaned over, patting Andrew on the shoulder. ‘Wait until she comes to you. Hash it out then—unless Westlake comes tonight, of course. But I doubt it.’ He shook his head, smiling. ‘He won’t have bankrupted all the London gaming houses yet.’
‘Good advice.’ Andrew rose, taking the last sip of his coffee. ‘Age is a civilising influence.’
‘No.’ Henry smiled wider. ‘Marriage is.’
Lydia loathed moping. Her eldest sister Anne had always managed to mope gracefully, while Henrietta moped in a dark, glowering way that men of the ton seemed to find oddly distracting—and Agnes, shy creature that she was, never seemed to mope when others were present. Lydia knew that she was the only Hereford sister to look ugly when she sulked, and thus endeavoured to never sulk at all.
Unfortunately, in the days following the game of hide-and-seek, moping had seemed unavoidable. It would fall upon her when she least expected it; when eating breakfast, or darning, or playing with one of the Longwater kittens that seemed to sprout from the flowerbeds like weeds. Most damningly, the urge to mope seemed to be strongest whenever she was in the vicinity of the Earl of Conbarr.
Andrew didn’t seem to be actively avoiding her, but he certainly hadn’t made himself available for discussion. Lydia had been reduced to staring at him over luncheon tables and garden games, trying desperately to catch his eye, and growing more and more enraged whenever the earl managed to vanish from sight.
Her first instinct was to call him a coward. The charge made sense. But knowing Andrew as she did—knowing him as she now did—Lydia could guess that Andrew’s feeling concerning their meeting in the cupboard were being very deeply hidden.
Well. She had created a blaze, last time. If she endeavoured to light the flame again, Lydia reasoned with a slight shiver, there was probably even more to discover.
Following him had taken a little work. Andrew normally painted en plein air, somewhere in the gardens before dawn; Lydia, knowing herself and her love of slow mornings all too well, gave the idea of an early morning encounter up for lost. But an unexpected spring rain arriving just before dawn, drenching the gardens and making any sort of morning artistic work impossible, managed to work precisely in her favour. Andrew, if he were to paint, would be painting later in the day—and Lydia, later in the day, happened to enjoy walking the length of the gardens.
She shivered in her cotton day dress as she tramped silently through the Beech Walk, the afternoon sun doing little to warm her, wishing she had chosen a slightly more practical shade than pink for her gown. It would hardly create the correct impression—even though, at heart, Lydia was unsure as to precisely which impression she wished to give. Not frivolous, or flighty, or impulsive; none of the things, in fact, that she normally took pride in displaying.
A sudden glimpse of a sitting figure made her duck behind a tree. Viciously remonstrating with herself under her breath, ignoring the alarmed glance of the gardener Isaac as he made his way back to his dwelling on the edge of the estate, Lydia told herself to stop being so silly.
Come now. She took a deep breath, wondering why she was so unaccountably nervous. He is only a man. He was only a man before the cupboard, and he is only a man today.
Walking a little way forward, still not daring to call Andrew’s name, she watched him painting the mass of blooms that hung over the ancient stone wall separating the cultivated Longwater gardens from its woodland. Bending over his easel, his paints and brushes scattered over both the wide seat and his lap, his hunched figure suggested a concentration so intense that the wider world had been entirely erased.
Lydia had often looked at Andrew Balfour—had stared, narrow-eyed and shrewish, finding fault with almost everything the man did or said. He was so often at Longwater that his presence was almost expected; she had begun to consider him a thorn in her side, obstinately immovable. But now, after their impulsive kiss in the linen cupboard, she was forced to consider him in an entirely different light—the sunlight, to be exact, currently flooding the Longwater gardens.
Had his hair always been so… golden? Lydia had always considered it an inferior shade of yellow; a sort of dark flaxen colour, less showily attractive than pure blond or black. As she stood awkwardly by a tree, watching Andrew’s bent head as he painted some anonymous bloom with quick, deft strokes, she wondered how he had missed the innumerable shades that made his hair the colour of a lion’s mane. It blended so easily with the colour of his skin; weathered by years of painting en plein air—why, in this light, he almost looked carved from bronze.
He was handsome. It was time she admitted it to herself, even if the very idea of such an acknowledgement of his looks irritated her in the extreme. She privately decided that he would never, ever, know about this moment of private weakness… and then, as if to a flurry of unseen violins, Andrew turned his head.
Lydia sighed. Wistfully. Audibly.
Oh, Lord. She tried to scowl, but not before noting the brief flash of alarm in Andrew’s eyes. How troublesome this is.
It made no sense to stand on ceremony. With another, more irritated sigh than the previous one, Lydia made her way over the clover-studded grass as gracefully as she could.
‘Lord Balfour.’ She decided not to curtsey, noting that Andrew had neglected to stand, let alone bow. ‘We have much to discuss.’
The tips of Andrew’s ears flushed a delicate pink. He nodded, gently setting his brush down at the base of his easel with a neatness that irritated Lydia immensely.
Did the man intend to remain silent until forced to speak? How dreadfully irritating… but really, was a silent man any more exasperating than a man with too many of his own opinions?
‘Well.’ She folded her arms, suddenly wishing she had chosen a more serious shade of cotton for her gown. ‘I rather feel we should discuss it.’
‘Yes. You are entirely right.’ Andrew spoke slowly, his expression still wary enough to put Lydia’s teeth on edge.
‘Good.’ Lydia nodded. ‘Then let us discuss it.’
‘Quite.’ Andrew nodded back. ‘Discuss away.’
‘I—really?’ Lydia frowned, more annoyed than ever. ‘Am I to be the one that initiates such a conversation?’
‘Forgive me for reminding you, Miss Hereford, but you initiated… the topic of our conversation.’ Andrew looked away; Lydia noticed the base of his neck had turned a dull red. ‘It makes sense for you to be the architect of the subsequent discussion.’
‘Well, I…’ Lydia trailed off, utterly exasperated, as she realised that Andrew was quite right.
A man who let her speak. That really was something unusual—and something, thinking about it, that Andrew had always done. He normally didn’t agree with whatever she said, of course, but he always listened.
Listened as if she was saying something worth paying attention to, even if he disagreed with her opinion.
‘You kissed me.’ Lydia said it with slightly more melancholy than she had intended. ‘Or rather… I kissed you.’
Andrew’s eyes were fixed with utmost concentration on his canvas. ‘… Yes.’
Lydia felt an odd flutter of pride. He did, at least, acknowledge that it had happened—and that it was rather important.
‘It appears we both forgot ourselves. Forgot ourselves to a—a rather exaggerated extent.’ She forced herself to keep speaking, watching Andrew’s blush bloom with the fascination of a shepherd watching the sunrise. ‘That would be the best way to describe what occurred.’
‘Yes.’ Andrew nodded; Lydia noted, with a twist of her stomach, that his flushed cheeks were horribly attractive. ‘I quite agree.’
‘A foolish moment, no doubt caused by too much Easter celebration and an end to the various sacrifices we are forced to make in Lent.’ She struggled to find other reasons; it had all seemed so logical, there in the cupboard. ‘Although I suppose, when all is said and done, finding ways to justify such an irrelevant act would be rather a waste of one’s time.’
Andrew nodded quickly, almost uncomfortably. Lydia looked down, trying not to clench her fists.
‘Well…’ She forced herself to sound matter-of-fact, even though it irked her to say the words. ‘I suppose we must both forget it ever happened.’
‘... Yes.’ Andrew briefly looked at her; Lydia caught a flash of something in his face, disappearing too quickly to categorise. ‘Yes. That would probably be best.’
A minute of deep, uncomfortable silence passed. Eventually Andrew picked up his paintbrush, beginning to add colour to a petal, as Lydia fumed silently.
It could finish like this, could it? How… anticlimactic. After all of the fury, the force, the… the passion in the kisses they had shared, was the whole business going to be forgotten? Swept under the rug, as if it had never happened?
Of course it is, you ninny. Her own thoughts taunted her. Why? Were you imagining a different end?
Perhaps she had been. Not in mind, but in body; her rebellious, ungovernable body, still reeling from that brief, intense moment shared with Andrew Balfour.
With a strange half-sigh, she moved to sit next to him. Andrew gave no sign of protest as Lydia gently moved a paintbrush aside, determinedly not looking at him, sitting with the poise and stiffness of a porcelain doll.
‘But then…’ She looked down at her gown, wondering why it was so confoundedly pink. If it was one shade pinker, it would match the tips of Andrew’s ears. ‘Not thinking about it all, even a little, would be—’
‘Cowardly?’
Andrew had spoken quickly enough to finish her sentence for her. And unless Lydia were imagining things—it was entirely possible, given her heightened emotional state—he had said it with barely concealed eagerness.
‘Yes. Most cowardly.’ She risked looking up at him; he was looking at her, full in the face, his eyes confoundedly bright in the afternoon sun. Lydia’s chest seemed to rise and fall in recognition of his look; his naked, vulnerable stare. ‘But then, what can I expect from a gentleman who refused to let a lady have her linen cupboard?’
‘It is not your linen cupboard.’ There is was again; that bite in Andrew’s voice, that barely repressed energy that Lydia could now see was excitement. ‘And a lady would have let a gentleman make use of it.’
‘Ladies have to do so very many things for gentlemen.’ Lydia realised that she was lowering her voice; Andrew leaned closer. ‘So very many tiresome, useless pleasantries, and courtesies, and concerns. Perhaps gentlemen should think of doing things for ladies.’
‘If some ladies weren’t so impertinent, and talkative, and constant, then maybe a gentleman could organise his thoughts.’ Andrew’s voice matched Lydia’s own; a murmur far removed from polite conversation. ‘Maybe he would be capable of doing something then.’
‘No true gentleman requires preparation.’ Lydia leaned closer still; they were so close, again, not touching. ‘All they need is… is something they very much want to do.’
Reaching out her hand, hardly knowing what she was doing, she dabbed the tip of her finger in one of the cool, wet smudges of paint that sat in Andrew’s palette. With deliberate quickness, trying to keep her face impassive, she smeared a line of rich red along the high, sharp line of his cheekbone.
‘There.’ Her voice trembled. ‘Something to do.’
She was maddening. Andrew had never met a woman so gleefully, impishly irritating; a woman who managed to embody every grievance with the world he’d ever felt. Loud, impulsive, quick to speak and even quicker to act—not only act, but act foolishly enough to turn worlds upside-down. She was infuriating, utterly infuriating… and oh, God, if he didn’t kiss her this very moment he would turn to ashes and dust.
He took a corner of his shirt-cuff between his thumb and forefinger, slowly and deliberately wiping away the smear of paint. Then he stood, sending paints and brushes falling onto the grass as he pulled her to him.
‘The only thing I want to do to you, Miss Hereford, is everything.’ He spoke hoarsely, holding her tight to him, her warm curves sending fireworks wheeling through his lower extremities. ‘Every single damned thing. And if you don’t want me to, then please, at least tell me why the bloody hell I can’t stop thinking about you. If you can settle my mind on that score, I will send you your way.’
Lydia’s eyes were alive with excitement; her smile was so catlike, her face so eager for pleasure, that Andrew had to restrain himself from covering it with kisses. ‘Those are words I’ve never heard used by a gentleman.’
‘That’s because you make it difficult, very difficult, to be a gentleman.’
‘Then be something else.’ Lydia grinned. ‘At this point, you have failed consummately at being a gentleman. You may as well take up a new trade.’
‘Oh, I cannot say that for certain.’ Andrew’s hand lingered on her hair, her neck; he couldn’t believe the softness of her skin. ‘Perhaps I can still convince you that gentlemen are good for more than nothing.’
His lips met hers, the passion in the linen cupboard a poor shade of the fire with which he kissed her now. She had felt as he had; the overwhelming sense of something left unsaid, undone… she had come to him, and now she was in his arms. Now her mouth was on his, soft, coaxing, teasing; now her sighs were his, her tongue hot against his own as they fell helplessly into one another.
He should have gone further in that cupboard. He had missed a week of this; of her body tight against his, her passion flowing through him with the same silken pull of a tide. Andrew wished, for a craven instant, that he had trapped them both in the linen cupboard for as long as they could both stand it—weeks, months—before remembering that they were in plain sight of Longwater House, however distant it was.
‘Come here.’ He lifted her bodily into his arms; Lydia’s gasp ran through him, stiffening and swelling him, and Andrew bit his lip in frustration. ‘Into the woods.’
He only managed to walk a few paces, fifty at most, before deciding that he cared more about exploring Lydia Hereford than he did about privacy. Andrew chose the oldest tree he could see, its bark covered in a soft carpet of ivy; gently, quickly, he sat beneath it with Lydia atop him.
He couldn’t recall having ever felt so sure of himself. His previous encounters with women had reflected his own worst shortcomings; fumbling, indecisive, too much assumed and not enough said. But something about Lydia Hereford—her pride, her confidence, the utterly seductive way in which she carried herself—gave him a force he knew he had never previously possessed.
Perhaps it was simply her strength. He knew that Lydia could meet his will, match it, surpass it, and the thought was almost as erotic as the warm, soft weight of her in his arms. Andrew buried his face in her neck, grazing his teeth against her skin, inwardly rejoicing at her shocked, thrilled gasp of delight.
‘You think very little of gentlemen.’ He murmured the words in Lydia’s ear, unable to stop his hands from creeping upward. ‘This must be torture for you. I’m the most gentlemanly gentleman you know.’
‘It is unspeakably atrocious.’ Lydia’s low laugh had Andrew’s cock straining against his breeches. ‘I cannot remember ever having had a worse time.’
‘Then stop me.’ Andrew rested his hands against her breasts; he stilled, knowing the risks, half-certain that Lydia was going to take him at his word. ‘Tell me to stop. We’ll look at flowers, or discuss the weather.’
‘Hmm.’ Lydia’s stare was hypnotic. ‘Are you going to become less gentlemanly, as time goes on?’
‘If we do not stop?’ Andrew knew it would be foolish to lie. ‘Definitely.’
‘Good.’ Lydia’s lips were suddenly on his; the kiss was deliriously sweet. ‘Don’t stop.’
The last shred of Andrew’s restraint vanished in the rising tide of lust. His strength surging, a growl in his throat, he gripped Lydia’s bodice and pulled it downward. Her breasts spilled into his hands, scandalously bare, her creamy skin an invitation to his mouth—her nipples flushed and rosy, stiffening as Andrew stroked his thumbs over them, his lips moving to her neck as he drank in her beauty. Kissing further and further downward, lingering on the shadowed parts of her sun-dappled skin, he felt Lydia shiver with pleasure at the touch of his tongue—a shiver which became a cry, high and broken, as his mouth finally closed over her swollen nipple.
Yes. Andrew lavished her stiff peak with his tongue, eyes closed, his fingers gently teasing her other nipple as Lydia trembled in his arms. He let his teeth rest against her sensitive flesh, showing her no mercy, his body alert to every sigh and gasp as he licked and lapped at her, slowly building up to long, rhythmic tugs that left her writhing against him, shameless, her thighs heavy in his lap as she shifted closer. Before long her legs were wrapped around him, her skirts a soft froth that threatened to engulf them both; Andrew felt her centre, hot and needy, and had to restrain a moan.
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